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Welcome to James Craven's Blog

I've recently created this page with the intent of helping my fellow marketer. Over the past months I've written dozens upon dozens of articles that I've either posted on enzines, or just kept stuffed away in my desk. Well I figure it's time to put them to some use. So I've gathered them up along with some e-books, free software and a few other goodies. I love to write, so if there is anything you would like to hear my opinion about or basic fact, please let me know and I will get right on it. I am just a normal guy with just a little extra time on my hands. The internet has set me free financially and if you would trust in me I will take your hand and guide you down the path to prosperity. Why do you ask? Because in order to succeed in this business we must all help one another, otherwise it will not work. That is my belief and I trust in it. Sincerely, James Craven

Thursday, February 26, 2009

How Gurus Make You Buy Their Stuff

It is said that the pen is mightier than the sword. That is so true especially in internet marketing where there is very little face-to-face interaction between the marketer and the prospective customer. Therefore, it is imperative for internet marketers to 'speak' to their prospects through what they write. Successful internet marketers have learned the art of communicating through powerful, compelling copy that almost hypnotizes their prospects into buying their stuff. How do they do it?

Successful internet marketers employ certain tried and true principles of sales psychology in crafting their copy. Here are some of those principles.

1. Personalization

People respond to friends more than to acquaintances. The exception is with someone so well-known in his field of expertise, like Tony Robbins in self-improvement. Then people would readily trust in such an expert rather than their close friend but only when it comes to that expert's area of expertise. In every other situation, all things being equal, people trust their own friends more than mere acquaintances.

Thus successful internet marketers know how to befriend you to gain your trust. They do so in their sales copy and subsequent follow-up messages. For example, the tone of their words would be friendly, informal and personable, using personal pronouns as much as possible. You get the feeling they are talking to you as if you have known each other for decades. So their emails would contain your first name rather than 'Dear Sir' or 'Dear Madam'.

Another way successful internet marketers befriend you is by identifying with you in the problems or issues you might be facing. If you are reading a website about improving your golf swing, the marketer might tell you how terrible his own swing was not too long ago. He speaks as though he were you! Or supposing you are reading a website about internet marketing, the marketer may well tell you that he is very fed-up with all those gurus who mislead newbies like you and that he knows how you feel because he was once misled also.

Bear in mind that at times the words you read are actually ghost-written. Obviously no one internet marketer can be experienced or knowledgeable in so many fields (niches). That's why all marketers use pen names at times. This way, they assume different identities according to the different niches they market to. All these methods are not wrong, as long as the marketer delivers useful content in a sincere, non-manipulative and respectful way in all his correspondences with you.

So be aware of what the marketers are trying to do. There are times you might need to take their words with a pinch of salt. This leads to the second principle.

2. Engagement

A good novelist always starts by setting the scene of the story. He gives you the big picture first before thickening the plot and going into details. The successful internet marketer is no different, except that the marketer does not have the luxury of wasting words. He knows he only has 5 seconds to engage with you otherwise you would move on to another website at the click of your mouse.

So the first step that every internet marketer makes in engaging with you is to write an attention-grabbing headline. Headlines using the words, "How to....", "Discover the ways to...." or "Who else wants to know the...." are very effective in engaging with you because it arouses your curiosity. By doing so, the marketer quickly tells you what's in it for you. All this is well and good but you must be careful of one thing.

Be careful to analyze the claims of the marketer. They must fulfill two criteria. It must be believable (not just hype) and it must be fair (minimum or no risk for you). Successful marketers make their claims believable and fair through various means. For example, they use testimonies of people who have benefited from their products in the past. They may also show you statistics of their own records (such as their income) or 'before and after' photos of themselves. To make their offer fair to you, most marketers give a money back guarantee or include lots of bonuses with their main product.

3. Action

Everything the marketer has written thus far is geared towards getting you to take action. It would be either to buy the product or give your email address or some other form of action. Successful marketers use two time-tested methods to do so. They are urgency and scarcity (or a combination of the two). The urgency method is by saying that there will be a price increase after a certain time. The scarcity method is by saying there will only be a limited number of units of the product sold. There are modifications and combinations of these two methods.

With all this information, you can see through all the gurus' methods of making you buy their stuff. This will help you be more selective in buying as well as equip you to make your own offers to your prospects as well.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Viral Url and It's Incredible Value

So you have finally stepped into the world of making money online. You too, like the others, have decided to start with the affiliate programs. Also, you must have heard that it’s not a big deal to make good money with affiliate marketing, provided you choose the right programs and do some strategic planning while promoting your affiliate products. So far so good.

Whether you are promoting other people’s products or promoting your own products - that doesn’t matter because after all it is nothing but your own business and your means to earn good money. So whichever be your case, I am sure you would not want to leave money on the table and invite others to steal your share of profit.

Even though the industry of affiliate marketing is pretty competitive but if you are cautious and are strategic in your marketing techniques then, it could be very profitable for you.

Take a close look at the industry, you will see that not every one who gets into affiliate marketing is successful. People who are doing well leave no room for failure and take all security measures and understand its importance.

Yes! Security is one of the key factors in affiliate marketing. If you do not adopt proper security measures, then your business will be at high risk. One of the most important way to restore security is to protect your affiliate links. Do not take them for granted. A bit of carelessness on your part in regards to affiliate links may cost you a lot of dollars.

Do you know the long complicated links that you send to your prospective customers not only look convoluted but they can create a lot of problems too! If you send such an affiliate link to your customers, then the smart ones will definitely figure out that you are promoting someone else’s product and they would rather visit the parent company. Also, if your link does not function then your customers have to type a really long URL into the browser, which will definitely put him or her off.

You could be a victim of even a worse situation. What if some devious Internet pirates steal your affiliate links and replace them with theirs. If they do that, then you get no commission at all.

Did I scare you off with all of the above possibilities? Well, that certainly wasn’t my intention. I just wanted to open your eyes and state facts that actually happen in the world of Internet. It happened with me until I came across ViralURL , that brought a revolution to my online ventures.

So, if you are not getting the desired results out of your affiliate marketing,don’t lose hope. There’s definitely a remedy to this problem and that is http://vur.me/jecraven

Do I hear you asking, what is it and how can it help in averting any adverse situation for an affiliate marketer like me?
Be patient and read on, if you love your business.

ViralURL is a link cloaker that protects you in the truest sense. There may be many unethical people lurking around, who might play with your affiliate links by cutting them off or replacing them with their own etc. How much effort you put in towards building your business and advertising your business, if your links are tampered with, then all your hard work will be rendered useless.

In order to avoid such a rip off, ViralURL gives you full protection and sees to it that your affiliate links never get exposed to others.

So save yourself from getting ripped. Get all the commissions to your account that you rightfully deserve. All this is made possible by http://vur.me/jecraven

It is a blessing for every affiliate marketer like you and me, who wants to achieve success in their endeavor.

Is ViralURL limited to only link protection?

NO!

It does much much more than that. Let’s see what ViralURL can do for us:

*ViralURL helps us in protecting commission.
*ViralURL helps in building mailing lists.
*ViralURL helps in tracking statistics.
*ViralURL helps in earning extra ad credits.

In short, ViralURL allows us to create massive business leverage.
I don’t see any negative aspect associated with ViralURL. All you have to do is join it for free, then cloak your links, promote them and see your business soaring higher and higher.

You can get all detailed information about the program from the site http://vur.me/jecraven . There, you can find several unsolicited testimonials from various users of ViralURL. So if you want to protect your business and see your earnings grow, try http://vur.me/jecraven. You have nothing to lose with it.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Niche Discovery Tactics Gurus Don't Teach But Use Themselves

Every internet marketer knows the importance of discovering good and profitable niches. Many internet marketing gurus have a very simplistic way of teaching about niche discovery. The sum total of some gurus' teaching on this can be summarized as:

1. Choose a topic that you like, have experience or are interested in.

2. Take the main keyword from this topic and plug it into a keyword research tool.

3. Look at the search count. If it is about 30,000 per month, it's a good niche. If it is below 30,000 searches, there is very little market and therefore it is not a good niche. If it is way above 30,000 searches, there is probably too much competition and therefore it is risky to enter this niche market.

That's it. Based on those three steps, you are supposed to find a niche. What's wrong with such a teaching?

Firstly, there is no research into the competition. No step is taken to discover how strong a competition you face in that niche.

Secondly, there is no research into long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are defined as keyword phrases of at least 4 words (the more words, the better). Every marketer knows the importance of long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords can lead you to lucrative sub-niches.

Thirdly, there is no research into the tendency of the searchers to buy. It's not only a matter of whether the searchers have money or not. Some people in a particular niche market may have money but are not intending to buy anything.

So here's how the gurus really do their niche and keyword research:

1. Examine your own interests, abilities, knowledge, experiences. Anything from these may be a potentially good niche to market to.

2. Identify what's hot in the market i.e. what is currently the most talked-about thing, what's buzzing or new in town. Is this a potential niche?

3. From the above two steps, identify potential niches. Then run these potential niches through these 'filters':

a. Are people in this niche ready to buy and not merely information seekers or looking for freebies? For example, 'how to score an 'A' in your SAT examination' would probably not be a very lucrative niche because it would interest only students who may not have the money to buy anything much.

b. Is there a problem that the people in this niche cannot solve themselves? Any niche involving technical expertise would nicely fit into this criteria. For example, 'how to solve Windows Vista registry problems' would likely be a good niche because very few people are technologically competent enough to deal with these problems.

c. Do the people in this niche have an urgent crisis that needs to be overcome? The more urgent the better. For example, 'how to stop your teenager's drug habit' is an extremely urgent crisis that begs for answers.

d. Is there an 'evergreen' need in this niche that is not a just a fad? 'How to improve your golf swing' is an evergreen need compared to 'strategies for World of Warcraft' (World of Warcraft is a PC game). Once the fad for World of Warcraft is over, the market in this niche disappears.

Obviously, the more 'yes' answers you get to the above questions the more potentially profitable a niche is.

4. Once you have identified a potentially profitable niche based on the steps above, it is time to look for some long-tail keywords. These long-tail keywords will reveal some sub-niches which you can further profit from. For example, if you type in 'golf swing' into Wordtracker, you would get a whole list of related searches. Look for keyword phrases with four words or more. Some of them are 'stack and tilt golf swing', 'biomechanics of golf swing', 'what is the proper weight distribution during the golf swing' etc.

5. To find out how much competition there is in this niche, simply type in all the keywords you have into Google's free keyword analysis tool. This tool will give you the estimated advertiser competition (which is the same as marketer competition), average search volume for the previous month and average monthly search volume. The great thing is that this tool also gives you synonyms for the keywords which means you get more keyword suggestions. You identify keywords with as little competition but as many searches as possible.

The steps above represent a much more complete way of niche discovery. You will not only find profitable niches but also the relevant keywords that go with these niches. By doing this you make a solid start in your niche marketing.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Back-end Selling Ideas For Increasing Internet Marketing Profits

Back-end selling is a technique that every Internet marketer should take the time to master.

Back-end selling is basically the technique of getting a customer to buy something else. The second purchase can take place immediately after the customer has bought something or it can occur weeks or months later.

Either way, it is a very profitable technique. If your Website is generating a reasonable number of sales but the sales process lacks a back-end offer, then you are effectively kissing hundreds or thousands of dollars goodbye.

Once you have set up the process you can pretty much forget all about it as it will run on auto pilot and quietly generate a passive income for you.

So, what does a back-end selling campaign involve?

First you will need a product to sell on the "front end", i.e. on a page of your Website. When someone visits the page and buys the product, the moment the transaction is completed they will be redirected to a new web-page, commonly known as a "thank you page".

Thank You Page

The function of a thank you page is to thank the customer and offer some information about how to access the product. That will only take up two or three lines, leaving the rest of the page blank for you to do what you like with.

The rest of the page can be used as a second sales page to make a follow up offer to the customer. If the customer likes what he sees and purchases the product, congratulations! You have just made a back-end sale.

The "thank you" page is the place where you most commonly see back-end offers, but it is not by any means the only place where you can make such offers.

Back-end Sales Via Email

As your front-end sales grows, so does your customer mailing list. While most of your e-newsletter content should be useful and informative for the reader, every so often you can include a "back-end offer" in your e-newsletter and send it out to your mailing list. This could be in the same week as the purchase was made, or several months or even several years later.

Abandoned Shopping Cart Page

Many people begin a purchasing transaction only to cancel it and leave the shopping cart. If the shopping cart is a PayPal cart, for example, the visitor will be automatically directed to another page.

You can set up the page so that the customer is redirected to another one of your web-pages. Write a short message of apology and reassurance. Then, make the customer a second offer. Make it better than the first offer by throwing in some nice extras and also by strengthening the guarantee.

This technique needs some careful handling as the customer has just pulled out of purchasing the product, but when done well it is a great way to try and rescue a lead who would otherwise leave your site probably never to return.

404 Error Pages

Sometimes someone makes a mistake when they type in the address of one of your web-pages, or perhaps the page no longer exists. In either case the visitor will be confronted with a 404 page announcing that the page being searched for does not exist.

That is a great piece of "Internet real estate" that can be put to good use as a back-end sales spot.

One other place where you can seek to generate back-end sales is in the download file. If you are selling zipped program files, sales letters etc, include a sales page with a compelling offer and a link to the web-page where the goods being offered can be bought.

What type of product can you offer on the back-end?

There are several options, but here are a few of the more obvious ones:

* Software programs
* Newsletters
* Products such as heavily discounted ebook or software packs.
* Public Label Rights packages
* Product upgrades
* Affiliate program memberships

Selling on the back-end offers Internet marketers many opportunities to generate repeat sales from their customer base. For this reason it is worth making the effort to cultivate your customers' trust and to implement some back-end sales techniques.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

MLM Breakdown for Beginners

Alright let's get off to a fast start. The first thing you need to do is set up a marketing plan. Set it up by listing your primary marketing strategies. Write yourself a check list of some sort detailing the strategy you are going to use, the description of said strategy and of course the tasks you intend to use to implement them. Always track your ads, enzines, you tube, whatever; that way you know exactly how many leads you have generated using that particular marketing technique.

I know I may have gotten ahead of myself here so I will backtrack and give you a breakdown of the possible strategies you yourself feel most comfortable using. This will depend on your level of time you have to invest as well as money.

First the list:

1) My Space Marketing: This form of marketing requires time and is of course free, unless you decide to use one of their advertising avenues. It's pay per click and can be effective if you have a well designed ad. OK, now in order to best take advantage of this social networking site you must first make friends. There is a couple of different ways to go about this.

A) Search through the friend selector and look for people listing your niche i.e. networking. Alot of times people don't really know what that means, believing it's looking for friendships or whatever, but over time you will develop a large group of friends that you can market to. But don't make the mistake of coming on too strong and trying to sell your business. NOBODY CARES! There are hundreds, even thousands of business opportunities out there and the majority of people are just sick of hearing about them. So what you need to do is market yourself as a leader. Hey fake it until you make it right? That will work I promise you. Tell them something of yourself. Make them interested in you and then and only then make your approach, but do it casually.

B) The other way to gather friends on MySpace is to use a friend blaster. This is much faster and relatively cheap software that could generate 25-100 new friends a day for you. Depending on how fast you choose to move forward.

2)Facebook Marketing: This is a great place to meet like minded individuals. I would advise setting up a Facebook profile straight away and make as many friends as possible. If you don't have a clue about how to market they're more than enough people readily available who are more than willing to show you how.

3)Free Classified: This can be a very effective form of advertising if you used correctly. Practice writing ads and get some advice from friends and family about what they think. Does it interest them? If not try again and until you find something that will. I will recommend a few classified ad services that I have used and had success with in the past. They are USFreeAds and BOConline. Craigslist is another, but I wouldn't advise using this service at least not initially. It is difficult to use, being there is alot to it. Try the others first.

4)Content/Article Marketing: This is one of my favorites because I love to write, it is my passion. It is also an excellent way of driving traffic to your site and in getting name recognition. It normally takes anywhere between 6 to 8 weeks before you start seeing some results, but if you keep at it and post anywhere in the neighborhood of 3 to 5 articles per week I can almost guarantee you will definitely see your visitor rate go up dramatically. The key though is in content, do not dive right into any business that you are selling. I REPEAT DO NOT DO THIS! People will read a sentence or two then see ya! Write about things that you know and can benefit others. This is key, you need to come off as someone who knows what they are talking about. If you believe in yourself then others will follow.

5)Forum Marketing: This is another social media site where people congragate to ask questions and give optimum insight into marketing techniques, lead generation, what businesses are doing well, who's doing what and when, well you get the idea. This can also be effective. Build relationships, build trust and build your business.

6)Ezine/Solo Ads: This is a very useful and effective form of marketing. It is not free. It could run you anywhere between 25 to 100 dollars an ad depending on which company you use. The upside is your ad will be made viewable on hundreds of different websites which can only lead to more leads for your business. Like I mentioned before, try your ad out on some of your friends and family first and let them give you their opinion. If they like it, then go with it, but track it using an AD Tracker. Here is an important tip, track all of your marketing efforts, that way you can judge which ones are effective and which ones may need changing.

7)Listbuilders: These are sights like Viral Url and LIST JOE. They'll run you a few hundred dollars a year if you opt in immediately, otherwise you'll end up paying monthly and that can get expensive if you don't have the funds. What they will accomplish for you is they will send out your message to thousands of their members every 3 days or more depending on your level of membership, in turn driving potential prospects to your site. This once again comes down to the content of your message, do it right and you will have results.

8)Video Marketing: Here is a great free source for getting name and face recognition. It is quickly becoming one of the most popular forms of marketing on the internet. Google loves You Tube, Met Cafe and all the other WEB 2.0 sites. So if you post a video your rankings will be high, maybe first page. So your chances of being seen are great. It is also an awesome opportunity to brand yourself as a leader and someone people can trust. That is what people are looking for when trying to find that business to join. It's that question! Who can I trust that can help me become successful? Over the internet people join people not businesses. REMEMBER THAT! Another thing is a good idea to post an article along with your video, that'll help with the rankings.

9)And lastly but not least, pay per click marketing. This is basically the monster of all advertising sources if done correctly. Training is required. Don't dive right into it, you will just lose your money with very little return. I guarantee it! Google, Yahoo/Overture they come fully equipped with all the training resources you need to have effective advertising. Just make sure you read and learn, otherwise you'll be screaming at yourself like I did about what a complete waste of money that campaign was. Don't make the same mistake I did, gather the knowledge first then apply what you learned and you will be rewarded.

That about sums up the different types of marketing techniques. If I missed anything I apologize, I am not perfect.

IMPORTANT: Please do not try doing all these things at once. Try one at a time and as soon as you become comfortable with it move onto something else. Remember success doesn't happen overnight. It takes patience and alot of hard work. So if you stick to your goals and believe in yourself, the sky is the limit.

Thank you for taking the time to read my article.

To your success,

James Craven

Autoresponders and Spam – What You Need To Know

There are laws against sending spam. There are
even laws that you must adhere to when you send
out email that was requested. No matter what type
of email you are sending out, the chances are good
that the anti-spam laws apply to you in some way.

In order to be in compliance with the anti-spam laws
in various states in the US, each commercial email
that you send must include your name or business
name, your street address, city, state, zip code,
and phone number. You must also include
instructions that will allow the recipient to remove
themselves from your mailing list. If you fail to do
any of this, you are essentially breaking the law in
various states – no matter what state or country you
live in!

Protect yourself from spam complaints in any way
that you can. Make sure that when a customer
requests any type of information from you that an
email is sent requesting confirmation before any
other email is sent. If someone is placing an order
from you, include a check box on the order form,
asking for permission to send them periodic emails.
Never use your autoresponder to send unsolicited
commercial email!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

4 Things ALL Articles Must Have - Don't Forget!

The importance of articles in today’s websites and internet based companies are immeasurable. They dictate a lot in the success and the drive of traffic into one’s site. It has become a key element in making a site work and earns a profit. A website operator and owner must have the good sense to include articles in his or her site that will work for them and earn them the many benefits articles can give to their site.

Articles have been known to be the driving force in driving traffic to a website. Articles are a factor in giving site high rankings in search result pages. The higher a site ranks the bigger slice of the traffic flow pie he gets. With a huge number in traffic flow, there are more profits and more potential for other income generating schemes as well.

But, it is not just about stuffing your site with articles; they have certain requirements as well. These requirements must be met to obtain the maximum benefits an article will provide for your site. A well written article will catch the eyes and interest of your customers and keep them coming back for more. They would also be able to recommend your site to others.

Here are some tips to help you and assist you in making your articles. Below you will read about four things all articles must have to make it successful and helpful in making your site a profit earning and traffic overflowing site.

• Keywords and Keyword Phrases.

An article must always be centered on the keywords and keyword phrases. As each website visitor goes to a site, there are those who are just merely browsing but actually looking for a specific something. When this happens, a searcher usually goes to a search engine and types in the keywords they are looking for (e.g. Toyota Camry, Meningitis, Tax Lawyer and Etcetera). It could be anything they want.

The Important thing is that you have an article that has the keywords that are related to your site. For example, if you maintain an auto parts site, you must be able t have articles about cars and their parts. There are many tools in the internet that provides service in helping a webmaster out in determining what keywords and keyword phrases are mostly sought out. You can use this tool to determine what keywords to use and write about.

• Keyword Density

Know that you have your keywords and keyword phrases, you must use them fully. An article must have good keyword density for a search engine to “feel” its presence. Articles should at least have ten to fifteen percent of keyword density in their content for search engines to rank a site high in their search results. Getting a high rank is what articles do best for a site.

Keyword density is the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase is used on an article. The number varies depending on the number of words used in an article. An effective article must have a keyword density that is not too high or too low. With a very high density, the essence of the article is lost and may turn off a reader as well as the search engines. It comes off as overeager. A low number may be ignored by the search engines.

• Good Article Content

Like what is stated above, you cannot just riddle an article with keywords. They must also be regarded as good reading materials. Articles must be able to entertain people as well as provide good information and help for their needs. Articles should be written well with correct spelling and good grammar. If you want people to trust you, make your work good and well thought out.

People respond well to figures, facts and statistics. Try to get great information and as many facts as you can. A good and well written article will boost your reputation as an expert in your chosen field or topic. As more people believe in you. They will be able to trust you and your products.

• Linking Articles

And another important thing to remember. If you are going to submit articles to ezines and/or contribute your articles to newsletters and other sites, DON’T ever forget to include a link to your site. A little resource box with a brief description of your site and you should always be placed right after your articles that you have submitted. If people like your articles, they will most likely click on the link directing them to your site.

Email Marketing Tips on Making a Clearer and Stronger Call to Action

A call to action is usually composed of two or three lines, possibly making up a single paragraph, which emphasizes the importance of information provided in the body and the need for the reader to perform the desired action. If your email newsletter focused, for instance, on your latest product then your call to action could be for readers to buy now before the promo period ends or maybe just to visit your website to learn more about your product.

Email Marketing Tips on Making a Clearer and Stronger Call to Action

Place it right after your concluding paragraph.

For strategic positioning, your call to action should be directly below your concluding paragraph. Your concluding paragraph contains the strongest points of your email as well as whatever conclusions you've drawn. With key points still fresh on your readers mind, you'll have an easier time achieving desired results if you issue your call to action right after.

Be specific.

Call to action doesn't need flowery and elaborate statements. Brevity, simplicity, and power are what you should focus on. Make your sentences short as this will create greater impact. Lastly, be precisely clear about what you wish them to do so there won't be any confusion about it.

Stick with one link.

Calls to action can become quite tedious if readers are asked to click multiple links. One or two links would do but links numbering four and up might be too much. If various links are however necessary then use the main pages link in your call to action. When they get there, that's when you can explain more about the other links. Remember: your call to action is still a part of your email newsletter and you want to retain its uniformity and cohesiveness till the end. Don't use your call to action to create a new letter within a letter.

Don't be afraid to use font effects.

There's nothing wrong about making your call to action more visible, but of course make sure that the distinctions you make are appropriate and appealing. You can underline and place the words click here in bold letters, maybe even change its font color, too.

Avoid using images.

Pictures may say a thousand words, but they don't always show up and that's going to be a big problem if you've got an image link serving as your call to action. As much as possible, avoid using images but if its necessary, make sure to double-check its links and provide a textual replacement just in case it doesn't show up.

Now you know how to make your call to action clearer and stronger, what are you waiting for? Go and make your readers do what you want!

Easy Ways to Get Forum Traffic

Before blogs came out in the open to gain popularity, forums were initially created. Forums are a brilliant thing and made Internet history.

It gained the highest users online. To be part of a certain community online, people must join these forums. Many people join communities where they have the same interests. Many internet marketers capitalized on these forums because they could benefit just by joining forums.

Now, you started your very own forum, the possibility of having a lot of user interaction is really big. You have been expecting traffic, spent a lot of months for your page rank to increase considering it's at 5, but the problem is, there is no traffic at all.

You have checked your site but there are definitely no members. Now you are wondering what went wrong. No one even signed to join your forum. The very reason why these things happen is that because no one cared to join your forum, and there are no members and there are no posts visible in your forum.

Every user wants to join a large forum where they can share and exchange their ideas and even leave a question for another user to answer. If in case a new member signs up and leaves a question, the chances of that question being answered are very slim, that's why new users just leave and find larger forums with a lot of members.

So how can you make forum traffic? Just follow these steps to get started.

Always start with a smaller forum. You can add less than 10 categories for your site. Just make the very important ones that could attract the users interests. The fewer categories, the easier it is to fill the forum.

This sounds crazy, but this will definitely help. Make bogus users; create different names and different details. Just remember to use the same email if what you did has email activation. This is just to make things easy for you. Then next thing to do is to post as many as you can. You can create threads about topics that are related to your very site. Then you can log on as the other fake user, so you can reply to the posts. Make a lot of threads but make sure that there are 10 replies from the other fake users you have created.

This process can be very time consuming. So you can do different things each day. You can either create a thread for a day or remember to post at least 10 replies to that thread. You can do this for three months or longer.

Now when someone glances at your site, they will actually see that there are many threads. Posts are visible too. So this user will be convinced that there is actually a community in your site. Now this user will start to register and post.

Always remember that you need to keep on track with their threads and posts so you will be able to reply with your own account and with the fake accounts that you have created. When you reply to the new users threads, then they will be very convinced, they will stay in your forum and most likely they will spread the views. Making this requires patience, so be patient enough to succeed.

If in case you don't want to do this process, you have another alternative too. The only thing that you need is some money, but it won't hurt. If you are the lazy type, you can go to sites that offer services like these instead of making fake ones.

There are sites that offer these services; they have real users who will enter your forum, sign up and post threads according to the plan that you choose and that will suit your preferences. They will make threads and posts that are much related to the topic in your forum. Now your forums will be loaded with real people, so new users will be convinced to sign up too, like the former process. The only difference is that here there are real paid people. These are some of the ways to get forum traffic. You only need to have patience if you opt to use the manual way if in case you have budget constraints. On the other hand, if you have enough money to pay for sites which offer this kind of service, it wouldn't hurt. So go on and check what really suits your preferences. The most important thing is to get forum traffic to keep pace with your business.

How to Create Backlinks to Generate Traffic

Generating traffic to a website entails hard work, perseverance, and a great deal of patience. Traffic is all a website needs to sustain itself. With the rising domain name registration fees and web hosting costs, making a website profitable is an requirement for a lot of webmasters. And it is impossible to make your website earn its wares without traffic. Traffic refers to real people who visit your site. And they are the people who will bring you the profits that you need.



To generate traffic to your site, you have to do some dirt work. You have to distribute the backlinks of your site. Backlinks are the URL's of your site posted in different places all over the internet. These are live links that people can click so that they get directed to your website. In order to amass traffic, you have to specifically add your backlinks - thousands of them to be exact - to key places over the internet.



Backlinks work two ways in generating traffic. The first way is the most obvious way. When people see your backlink as they go about their surfing habits, then there is a 50-50 chance that they'll visit your site. If you get people interested enough, then they will definitely check out your website and see the things you have to offer.



The best places to put your backlinks are websites that have regular high-density traffic. Well-populated forums and social networks are your best bets. These places have a lot of people coming in and out on a regular basis. You will definitely want your backlinks showing on your forum signature so that every time you make a comment on something, your backlink shows with your post.



You can apply this tip on almost all forums found over the internet today. Most of them allow at least one live backlink signature for each member. So go get yourself active in a forum with hundreds of thousands of members. With every post you make, you'll have one important backlink to add up to your website's advertising requirements.



Another place to put your backlinks is on social networking websites. Social networking websites have exploded in the past few years. The main idea of these websites is for you to acquire a good number of friends, which are referred as your social network. And with more people associated with you, you are more likely to promote your website better. You can effectively invite people who are part of your social network to take a look at your site and see the things they can enjoy there. You can put the backlink on your own page. And of course, you can also post them all over your social network as a comment, message, or testimonials to your friends.



But this is just one way of how backlinks work. The other way backlinks become beneficial in generating website traffic is directly related to how search engines work. Link popularity is one of the algorithms considered by search engines when it comes to ranking your page. The more popular your page is, the better they fair on the search engine results. And your selected keywords and backlinks have a lot to do with it. The more backlinks you have, the more popular your website gets.

And so if a person types your website's name, or sometimes even your chosen keywords on the search engine box, your website will show at the top of the results page. And in that position, you are more likely to get traffic to your site. Search engine marketing has always been the focus of most internet marketing strategies devised over the internet during the past few years.



To add to the number of your active backlinks, you can submit your site to numerous link directories over the internet. Link directories are websites that are primarily dedicated to keeping a list of all submitted URL's of other websites. The links are classified according to their respective categories. In effect, these websites look like an online yellow pages directory. Most of them offer their listing for free. However, there are others that require some sort of a fee for inclusion purposes.



So get yourself thousands of backlinks to make your site more popular. Backlinks will definitely drive that much-needed traffic to your site so don't think twice about spending some time and effort in distributing them all over the internet. Just keep in mind that half of the success of your website depends on them.

Success Can Be Cheap: Low Cost Ways for Traffic to Your Website

Website traffic is not something that is easy to get. In today's busy Internet marketplace, nearly everyone who has an Internet connection, computer, and some sense on how to work the keyboard and the mouse can make a website. Nearly everyone who has a website, some monetary and moneymaking sense, and web design savvy can earn from a website. This can make traffic gathering an extremely difficult enterprise, which has made some people resort to high-cost marketing techniques; on the other hand, some marketers have resorted to sleazy techniques that are more annoying than fruitful.



Having traffic is one thing, but keeping it coming is another. This means that your job as a marketer is two-fold: you need to get people to notice your site, and you need to get them to keep on coming back as well. Believe it or not, there are ways to do this that do not entail you having to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars in order to be successful. You only need to know your market well enough, and know how to please people constantly without over-indulging them.



First, you need to know what your market is like. You should have a marketing scheme ready by this time. What is your target markets average age? Does your target market have any other interests? Is your target market most likely Internet savvy? This can help you look for your target market through social networks online. Thanks to the paradigm of Web 2.0, more people are online and are aware of the Internets ability to connect people. You can exploit this by joining social networks and posting your URL, then looking for friends amongst people who have common interests.



Another more precise way of getting into Web 2.0 is through harnessing the power of forums and online groups. Join such places and simply post your URL, but do not advertise your site explicitly or sell any products and services just yet. Instead, help people out with their problems, offer advice, and present your opinions. As your reputation builds up, start being more up front about your website: when people ask questions, direct them to a place in your URL, or say that you offer more things online. A forum or an online group is a great way to get more people to notice you, and to spread the word about your websites, products, and services.



Supplement your potential income by enrolling in an affiliate program, and by posting advertisements on your site. You can get commissions through clicks on these advertisements, thanks to programs such as Widget Bucks or Google AdSense. Although the money will trickle in, you can at least have some residual income to add to your profits. Make sure that the ads that you post are relevant not only to your site content, but to the needs of your target market. When people see that your site is not only useful, but is giving them useful links, then you will be able to get more traffic to your site.



These are only a few tips on how you can get more traffic to your site of the Internet universe, and without spending too much. Sometimes, without spending anything at all! As long as you know how to market your site, products, and services, and as long as you know the behavior of your target market without appearing like a creep or a stalker, you will be able to get traffic to your website and have it rise in the ranks of the online elite.

How to Generate Traffic from Articles

The internet is an optimum source of information over the world wide web. As such, it is a given that people log on to the internet primarily because they are looking for something they want to know more about, read more about, or research more about. Given this fact, it becomes very important that your website is filled with useful content for people to read. It doesn't matter if you are keeping an information portal type of a website or an e-commerce site. You need content. You need articles. Keep in mind that these are the very things that could drive traffic to your site.



So how will your articles deliver a steady flow of visitors to your website? There are two ways. First, if you write about something that is related to your site and sprinkle some keywords in it, the search engines will notice your site more. Once you have your articles all written and ready, just upload it to your website. Just wait, sit back, and relax while the search engine robots crawl through them after a few days. The robots will then add those keywords to the algorithm and the search engine they belong to use them to compute the popularity of a certain keyword to your site.



If your site proves to be the one that contains the most relevant information about the keyword typed by the user, then your site will appear on the first page of the search results. It is a given that the higher your position in the search engine is, the better are the chances that the people who are using the search engine looking for something will click your site to check what you have to offer. The idea is simple - the more information rich articles you have uploaded and the more keywords you sprinkle in them, the higher are the chances your site get noticed by people.



But of course, we cannot discount the simple fact that your article on its own, can give you the traffic you want. There are slim chances that the story or the featured article you wrote about is the same with somebody else's if and when you have written it all by yourself. And so some people will definitely come looking for that piece of information you have. And if the unique articles you created contains the data internet users need, that should be enough pull. Eventually, the same people will visit you frequently. If your website or your blog gives them the things they want, then you need not go out of your way to get traffic. Traffic will come to you naturally. There's not much technicality in this setup. All you really have to do is to upload numerous information-rich articles on your site and you should all set. But then again, you have to market your site some other way so that people will actually see your articles.



That leads us to the other effective method of using articles to generate traffic to your site. This is through the use of article directories. Article directories are websites whose primary purpose is to compile information rich articles submitted by their members. There are several of them out there today. And most of them follow stringent rules as to what types of articles you can upload. More often than not, you can only send articles that are highly informative with no distinct promotion for a service or a product.



These websites will publish your articles in their network. Your articles will then be available to all other internet users. The chances of your articles being read and spotted are higher if you submit them to article directories. This is because popular articles directories enjoy high page ranking. Your articles, provided you have chosen the right keywords, will definitely show on top of the search engine's list without much of a hassle on your part. In essence, you are riding the website's popularity and are using it to your advantage.



Now it doesn't end there. Article directories normally allow one live URL or backlink to their authors. They also provide some space wherein you can put a small description of yourself, your website, and your expertise. Therefore, with all of these working for you, plus a direct link to your website presented to the person surfing the internet interested in reading your article, you have higher chances of gaining people to actually come and visit your site just to find more information-rich articles like the one that engrossed them.

Easy Ways to Optimize Your Website: Get More Traffic!

Everybody who's engaged in the internet business devotes their time, money and effort to drive more traffic to their site. There are actually a lot of alternatives and process to achieve this.


One alternative is to optimize your website. Website optimization is very important. Why? So that your website will be found online. Optimizing your website means you have to transform the content of your website to a much smaller and streamlined form. Lessen bandwidth usage while maintaining the way you want your website to look. This will definitely help save time and money.


Optimizing your website to drive traffic can somehow be very technical and complicated. But here are tips to help you optimize your site. Read on to know the basic tips for website optimization.


1. Know your target visitors who will search for your site online. You need to figure out what search phrases the surfers use so they can find your site. Always decide on the keywords that you are going to use. Think of some ideas that the surfer will type about your website.


2. Next thing to do is to define a particular niche. You are certainly going to cover a very broad topic. The rule of the thumb is to optimize your website with the best keyword. Your Keyword should be direct enough so the searcher will find your site right away and he will not get lost.



3. Take a closer look at your title tags. For those who don't know, a title tag describes a particular Web Page. They are actually HTML tags that contains text. When you use a title tag, make sure that it describes exactly the content of your website.


For instance, the articles title is 5 Ways to Lose Belly Fat, and then the title tag should be like that as well. Always place your keywords in the title tag. This way any topic related to your page will be easier to find.


Also make sure that the title tag contains various strategic keywords that have been constructed using guidelines for the web page. Title tag is very important since search engines look for title text when they are going to the index page. Title tags too can be a text link to the found pages in the list of search engines.


Look closely at the title of every article and post. It is very important in optimization since the surfer will definitely use catchy keywords for their convenience.


4. It is very important to analyze keywords. You can use the convenience of the keyword analyzer tool. Many websites offer this service and definitely delivers more traffic too. One of the best and most popular keyword analyzer tools is Google's.


5. Choose a relevant title. Make sure that it is descriptive enough for the surfers convenience. At first you may not get a very good title but as you go through and complete your article, you're going to have a clear idea what your title tag is going to be.


Make a direct and descriptive title. You know, sometimes even if the content of your article is the greatest but your title is not, the chance of having a site visitor is very slim. So watch out for your title.


6. Always consider your keyword density. This is one way to optimize your webpage. Keyword phrases should appear at least three to five times in the article while keywords should appear 10 times or more.


One more tip, it is good that you repeat the main keywords title every 200 words you made. Then for every 400-word article you write, the keyword must be repeated twice.



7. Consider the header. Always place your keyword here when you are going to write the text for your site. Search engines when scanning your site rates the texts in your headline. This is the most important part. So you should place it in the page headline. Header tags are quite large so you need to format it so it becomes smaller than the usual.



These are some of the helpful tips to optimize you website. If you follow them then you will see your sites improvement in the search engine rankings. You really don't have to be an SEO expert and spend a lot of money to optimize. Just follow them and surely you will get more traffic! Good Luck!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Qualities of a leader

Being a leader is probably one of the most gratifying rewards a person can have. Whether one becomes a leader in school, work or in a community, they receive this distinction to do their best to attain the expectations of their constituents. However, there is no guide for someone to be a perfect leader. Leadership is arguably a God given talent and can be detected at an early age and developed all throughout life. Leaders are those that have a strong, opinionated mind and are sensitive to the needs of others.

Developing a strong mind is crucial for those that want to become true leaders. It is no secret that leaders are always asked to make important decisions, which have a huge impact on the direction of a company or group. The leader should be strong in the sense that he is not afraid to commit mistakes but smart enough to make sure that the pros outweigh the cons.

It is nearly impossible for a leader to always make the right decision given that situations are always different and new approaches should be made. A leader should always accept the consequence of his actions and ready to be accountable for the consequences of his decisions. Once asked to make decision, a leader should be firm and sure about his actions in order for his subordinates to have confidence that their superior is doing the right thing.

Leaders with a weak personality will easily be influenced by those around him and always rely on the advise of others. These types of leaders always succumb to hearsay and don't trust themselves. An organization with weak leadership always has a big chance of not attaining its goals, as the members will always scramble to influence the leader to follow their own interests. Truly, a strong will is a quality great leaders have.

Another key quality of a good leader is being opinionated. A leader should always have a say on every issue that his group becomes in involved in. He or she should have views on what steps need to be taken to solve a problem and always work to attain the best solution. Of course, having an opinion means that one’s mind is working towards finding a solution. Opinions from different people are always different but a leader should always find a way to pool the best ideas and come up with a decision that is favorable to all.

How to Be a Fearless Leader

To be a leader means you should be brave and fearless, this however is easier said than done. After all, everyone has their own set of fears and leaders are no different. Despite your existing fears however, there are ways of becoming a fearless leader and a good one at that.

The very first thing that you can do to become a fearless leader is to acknowledge your fears. It is a good idea to keep a journal of your fears and be honest in recording the fears that you think may affect your leadership abilities. The fears may even include those of your personal life especially if they hinder you from becoming an effective leader.

Getting rid of fears

After you are able to acknowledge your fears, you are actually on your way to getting rid of them. This is so because the first step always deals with acceptance. If you are in denial of your fears then there is no way that you can become a fearless leader. It takes humility to be honest about these things, and getting rid of them becomes secondary.

Now, to work on the said fears you must devise a plan to be brave enough to conquer them. You ask yourself at this point on how you are to eliminate the said fears in your life as a leader, and you do this by being conscious of the instances where these fears overrule your emotions and judgment as a leader.

Every time you catch yourself acting out an impulse related to a fear of yours, you then try to counteract it with the possible solutions listed in your plan of action. Be patient with yourself if you find yourself unable to conquer your fears right away. Remember that these things take time, and you will soon find out that there are fears that may be solved easier than others. Thus, it sometimes becomes a trial and error and perseverance is a good trait that you are learning as you deal with the fears.

Rewarding yourself

In dealing with your fears, you are gaining strength and wisdom as a leader. It is important however that you also recognize your triumphs over your fears. For you to keep on doing a good job, you must also take time to reward yourself for being a better leader. You do this by treating yourself or allowing yourself to indulge in certain things that make you happy. This way, you can actually look forward to eliminating the fears and it becomes a more rewarding experience.

How to be a Business Leader

Business empires no matter how big or small rely on the shoulders of leaders and its workforce. As a business leader, you must know how to handle the professional and the ethical aspects. A well established and responsible person in this position knows how to be a business leader, but what does it really take to fulfill the position?

A good business leader has certain qualities that both benefit him and his team. He is the go-to person whenever there is a critical decision making or a plan that needs execution. People can't function properly if they aren't properly managed.

As a business leader, you should know how to lead by example. A leader, who is dishonest, will receive the same dishonesty from him team. But a leader with pure and noble intentions will receive the full support of his team to pass through all endeavors.

A business leader should always show confidence and composure. A leader who exhibits “grace under pressure” will get more positive results and can transmit the same working attitude to his team.

A good business leader should put his vision into words and action. Feasible and tangible projects that can improve the organization and boost the confidence of the people will earn support and encouragement.

A business leader should also give credit to the right person for a job well done. This gesture will boost the full potential of this person and it will encourage other people to do the same. Monetary incentives, tokens or even food stubs are great ideas as bonuses.

Company projects and other endeavors should be divided among teammates and delegation of responsibility should be made by the business leader. Assigning the best person for a specific task is crucial in attaining the best results. But always give your support and encouragement to boost everyone’s interest and involvement. Delegate a project leader for the task to oversee the progress and to give you updates of the day to day activities.

Encourage open communication between you and your team. You should always have time for suggestions and feedback to help maintain a good rapport with every one. Be aware of the issues and concerns of your people and be on the look out for disagreements and unhealthy working attitudes.

You can always be as friendly as you are, but instilling discipline among your team will help you earn respect and support.

Being a business leader also means being fair and just in making judgments that can help improve a harmonious working environment and relationship with your team.

Three Reasons Why A Leader Is A Follower First

One of the reasons why employees leave their work despite high compensation is the attitude of supervisors or managers. Instead of motivating and leading their teams to accomplish the groups' goals, a lot of supervisors and managers are busy enforcing their power over their followers. Instead of helping their teammates to grow and achieve the objectives, such leaders are only bossing their subordinates around and are unwilling to share and pass their knowledge and skills to others. If you have supervisors and managers like this in your company or group, you will notice a high turnover of employees.

Kings, princes and even sultans can be born rulers. However, great leaders are developed and made. Nobody has a birthright to become a good leader. You have to understand that rulers aren't necessarily great leaders. In order to become a great leader, you need to be a follower first.

Here are the three reasons why a leader should be a follower first:

Better understanding of the plight of subordinates

A leader who came from the ranks usually knows and understands the plight of his or her underlings. You won't only be able to empathize with your teammates, but you will also know the tricks under their sleeves. You will know when to show compassion and when to be strict. It is a known fact that employees or followers have tendencies to procrastinate, look for ways to make their jobs easier even if the quality isn't good, and try to steal company resources, such as time and supplies. Thus, a leader who is familiar with the ins and outs of the company or group has a better advantage of taming his or her crew.

Leading by example

Many employees look up to supervisors and managers who know how to lead by example. If you want your subordinates to follow the rules of the organization or the company, you should be the first to follow such edicts or orders. For instance, bosses who are always tardy and absent can't expect their subordinates to willingly arrive on time. On the other hand, if bosses go to work early, employees will have no reason to arrive late regularly.

Getting respect and awe

Many people believe that respect is earned. Thus, if you are a leader or the chief executive of a company, employees won't necessarily respect you if you don't give them any reason to do so. In order to gain respect, you need to be a humble leader. You need to accept your mistakes and graciously hear other people's suggestions.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Online Business - The Right Way In Making Money From It

Have you ever asked yourself, what life would be like if you had absolute control on your time? To be able to do the things you love the most anytime, anywhere and with anyone you desire? Charming isn't it? How about making lots of money from something you or anybody can do without the need to be a degree holder? Admit it, at some point in our life all of us think and feel the same thing about our current 9 to 5 jobs. It robs us of our precious moments with ourselves and our love ones simply because we have a job to do.



Maybe that is one of the reasons why a lot of people are seriously considering being a part of an online marketing program. Today, online marketing programs have reached billions worth of revenues over the previous years. You could be a part of that, only if you choose a legit marketing program, but do not be mislead, there are a lot of frauds out there, and so extreme care is advisable.



Now, after deliberating with yourself or your family, and you finally decide that you want to take the plunge in the world of online marketing programs, there are several key points that you still need to bear in mind before you finally do it.



Your Decision Marks the Beginning



Any business requires hard work, and online business in not an exception. When you embark in the world of online business, you have to expect that there will be times that you will have an overwhelming feeling of tiredness, which will make you want to give it all up. It is understandable that when you start an online marketing program, it is normally just you. You will make decisions about how you want your business to be, you are solely responsible for your own actions, and ultimately you will have to learn to balance your life around it.



There will be times that it will seem easier when you are making money from it, especially if it is a lot, and that is very exciting. It is quite important that you hold on to those precious moments so that you will be encouraged in troubling times, when everything seems to be against all odds. It is quite expected that anything in the world of online marketing is dictated by how you set your own destiny. It solely depends on your capability to rise above the rest through the good times and the bad times. When you believe that you will be successful, don't just believe it, you have to make it happen.



Find that Someone and Learn from Them



It is imperative that before you go on board and make a decision that you want to become an online marketer and make money out of it, you simply have to learn it first. Learning is not just limited to just keying in a few keywords and just read through hundreds of articles or reviews about it. You have to find that someone who is there and be ready to learn and be trained by them. Online marketing is like a career, you have to know if you have what it takes.



Take your time in learning all that you can about it, and believe me it will pay off. A lot of marketers offer programs that are equipped with all the necessary information that you will need to get started, as well as tools that you will need to set up your own online marketing program. This is precisely what you need to be able to lessen costly mistakes and make your way to your own success story.



Investments in Businesses

At this point in time, I would assume that you are truly decided to be a part of an online marketing program. This is where things usually get serious and you really mean business. This is also the time to invest in that business.



Investments come in different forms. First is Time, which is relatively easy because all you have to do is sit and start working. Second is Know-How, which we already dealt with earlier. Thirdly is Money, which a lot of people do not realize that in order to make money you have to invest your money. Most, if not all, businesses require investment of capital and that is what makes every business successful.



At the end of the day all you really need is patience, know-how, money to invest, and of course ultimately your decision.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Using Google Adwords To Drive Laser Targeted Traffic

The biggest well known secret in generating wealth in the internet based business or e-commerce is Traffic. Everybody knows it; every site wants it and every site needs it. The point of websites is to be visited and viewed. Many elaborate designs, money and countless hours of developing a site to make them beautiful and attractive are utilized. Without traffic, it is for naught.

With traffic comes a potential customer which basically means sales which in turn means profit. While many sites have collapsed in the past with the downturn of many internet based business, many smaller sites have generated good money by concentrating on a certain niche and some subniches.

This is a reason why e-commerce site laser target certain groups of people and drive them to their site to showcase their sites and products. Precision marketing is essential so that you could count on all the traffic on your site as potential customers.

Using Money to Make Money

It’s a common business notion that if you want to make money, you have to spend money. One good way of spending money for business gain is through advertising. Advertising brings in the people because through advertising, they know that there is such a company or product in existence. With the right type of advertising, you can see the spurt of traffic growth to your site. With a high volume of traffic, even if only a small portion or percentage turns out to be buying customers it is still a good average of profit generating income.

Right now, there is no other advertising scheme that would be worth every cent than using Google’s Adwords. The surge in popularity of Google’s Adwords is very evident as you can see so many sites sporting this ad scheme.

In using Google's Adwords, you pay a certain fee depending on the number of keywords your ad is keyword sensitive to. Each time a person does a search in Google, the keyword or keywords use generate ads in the side of Google which are generated by the keywords they have assigned for their ads.

This method laser targets the traffic a site wants for their site. This also ensures that you are readily visible in the first page of a search result. Paying Google for this ad scheme ensures that your target group of people sees your ads. You drive your laser targeted traffic to your site which provides for their needs and wants. You can also be sure that you can meet their demands and needs.

Aside from Google, you can also be featured in their other search networks, these includes sites like, AskJeeves, AOL Search and Netscape. These sites also show Adwords ads that react to searches done by visitors. There are also content networks, non-search engine sites that feature Google Adwords, which will also carry your ads. But this is subjected to the niche the site features. Your chosen keywords will determine which content network shall feature your ad. The frequency of your ad shall also be determined by your allowed budget.

Laser Targeting your Traffic

To get a good number or estimate of the traffic to buying customer ratio it is good to laser target your traffic. Knowing that your traffic are all potential customers and are interested in your products and company provides you with a more accurate statistics. This will show you how effective your utilizing of Google Adwords is.

Drive laser targeted traffic to your site by using keywords or keyword phrases for your Goggle Adwords that pertains to your company and to your products. There are many online internet tools that can help you in choosing keywords and keyword phrases that are currently in demand that could help drive laser targeted traffic to your site.

With your Google Adwords ad, you are ensured that every click to your ad is a potential customer that is precisely looking pr interested in what you have to offer. Make sure that your Google Adwords ad has the right keywords so that you can drive you're laser targeted traffic to your site.

Using Google Adwords to help boost the drive to increase laser targeted traffic will prove to be very beneficial as many other companies can attest to. The benefits are high with the cost relatively justifiable.

Top 5 Ways To Generate Low Cost Website Traffic

There is one hard and fast rule in generating income for your website: A steady flow of website traffic. If no one goes to your site, it hardly bares a chance of generating an income. Many sites have tried and failed in doing so, and these results to the sites demise. It takes money to maintain an income generating site; it also takes money to make money.

BUT, it doesn’t take a whole caboodle of cash to generate website traffic for your site.

Ever wonder how does big hit sites drive traffic top their site? Most of them are spending tons of money to drive the traffic to their sites, investing in many advertising campaigns and different forms of marketing schemes and gimmickries. This is all worthwhile because, well, they are what they are now, high earning, big hitting websites.

You don’t have to do this if you don’t really have their resources. There are many ways to generate low cost website traffic without having to spend what you don’t have or can’t afford. Many people have banked on high cost methods and have ended up losing their shirt over it.

Here I present to you the Top five ways to generate low cost website traffic that could help your site a whole lot. Even if you only get a small percentage of successful visitors in to client ratio it still works especially if you get a high number of website traffic.

Exchange Links

This is a sure and proven method. Rarely would you see a site where there is no link to another site. Many webmasters are willing to exchange links with one another so that they could produce more public awareness about their sites. You’ll soon see and feel the sudden upsurge of the traffic coming in to your site from other sites.

A major prerequisite in exchanging links with other sites is having the same niche or content as the other site. They should share a common subject so that there is continuity in the providing of service and information to what interests your target traffic.

Exchanging links also boosts your chances of getting a high ranking in search engine results. It is common knowledge that search engines ranks high sites that have inbound and outbound theme-related links. With a good ranking position in the search engines, you will generate more traffic in your website without the high costs.

Traffic Exchange

This is like exchanging links but on a different higher level. This may cost a bit more than exchanging or trading links but could be made cheaper because you get to earn credits. You can use those credits when viewing others traffic, while you earn credits when someone views yours.

Traffic exchange services are the viewing of another’s site or page. This is done vice versa where a site can use your sites contents and so can you to his or her site. You both benefit from each others efforts to generate traffic. The other sites visitors can go to your pages and know more about your site as well as theirs. Once again the public awareness of your sites existence is boosted.

Write and Submit Articles

There are many e-zines and online encyclopedias in the internet which provides free space for articles to be submitted. If you want to save costs, you can do the articles yourself. There are many freelance writers who are willing to write for you for a small fee, but to save money, it is wise to do those articles yourself.

Write articles that are themed along with the niche of your site. Write something that you have expertise on so that when they read it, they can feel your knowledge about the subject and will be eager to go to your site. Write articles that produce tips and guidelines to the subject or niche your site has.

Include a resource box at the end of your article that can link them to your site. Write a little about yourself and your site. If you provide a light, information-laden and interesting article, they will go to your site for more.

Make a Newsletter.

This may sound like hard work because of all the articles you may need to use to build a newsletter but on the contrary, this is not so. There are many writers and sites that are willing to provide free articles as long as they can get their name in on your newsletter. This will also provide free advertising for them as well.

As your newsletter gets pass around, you can widen your public awareness and build an opt-in list that can regularly visit your site.

Join Online Communities and Forums

This only requires your time and nothing else. You can share your knowledge and expertise with many online communities as well as your website. You can get free advertising when you go to forums that have the same subject or niche with your site.

Share your two cents and let them see how knowledgeable you are with the subject. As you build your reputation, you also build the reputation of your site, making it a reputable and honest business that could be frequented and trusted by many people.

Directory Submitter Review

You may or may not know that Website Directory Submission is quickly becoming a very popular and easy way to get quality, one way links to your website.

These kind of links are exactly what the search engines are looking for. The websites with more quality, one way links are typically the sites that rank the highest, period.

With that said, there are several websites dircetory submission programs on the market. The best and easiest to use is a new program created by Brad Callen, called Directory Submitter.

The software currently contains around 1700 website directories, all free. It is the most straightforward program that we've come across, in that all you need to do is:

1. Input your website details (i.e. title, description, URL, etc.) into the software

2. Click on the directory you want to submit to

And then the program will automatically fill in your website details. Then, you simply click the submit button and your website is instantly submitted to the directory. Then, you can move to the next directory, go through the list, and by the time you're finished you'll have roughly 1500 one way links pointing to your website.

I can't think of an easier way to get links. Of course, if you're going to get links this quickly, it's important to vary your website title (anchor text) every 20-30 links or so, to make things look more natural to the search engines.

You can do this very easily via Directory Submitter when you create your project in the beginning.

The software is constantly being updated and their is an incredible community of users established that all work together to make the software better and better, so you know you're getting great value for the money.

To check out the software, please click the title to this blog post.

To your success,

James Craven


Friday, February 6, 2009

Viral Marketing 101 - Not Using It Could Kill Your Business!

Creativity.

This is one virtue a site must possess to lead the race in the ruthless competition in the Internet based business. With so many competition and rivalry going on, every method of marketing must be employed and utilized.

It doesn’t matter if you have a killer product or a fantastically designed website, if people don’t know that you exist, it doesn’t matter, and you are not going to make it big. Worse of all, you business could just get killed.

While there are so many methods and schemes used by so many e-commerce sites today, there are still some of those that can help you with an extra boost in the popularity ratings. One of these is the so called Viral Marketing.

While the term Viral easily depicts a virus, a word very much dreaded by all computer owners, it is not what it seems. You do not actually use a computer virus to spread your business; on the contrary it just might kill you. Everyone has had enough of all those pop up ads and spywares.

Viral Marketing Overview

Viral Marketing also known otherwise as Viral Advertising is a marketing technique used to build the public awareness of one’s product or company. They use many forms of media to reach out to the public without actually promoting the product by riding on in other forms of addictive means that could get a person hooked and be obliged or amused to actually pass it on, with the product or company advertisement along with it.

In a nutshell, companies ride on the idea that if people like the content of a media they will pass it on to their friends and family. They sponsor the certain media, such as a cool flash game, funny video, amusing story and such, which one may pass on to another with the company brand or logo or the products description or any other content to help promote the company or its product.

Viral marketing has become a popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low cost. To avoid being tagged as spam mail, viral marketing counts on the eagerness of one person to pas on the product. If a person sees the name of the person they know as the sender, they won’t block it and open it as well.

Many companies offer incentives such as discounts and rebates when they help in spreading their viral marketing. They rely on the number of recipients a viral marketing gets from one person in determining the amount or number of incentive they can be attributed with.

Using Viral Marketing to your advantage

The main and foremost advantage of viral marketing is that you get a lot of publicity and public awareness about your site and your company. You get to generate a flow of traffic that are potential customers. With a little ingenuity and imagination, plus some incentives or prizes, you can reach out to a great number of people and announce your existence.

Most every site and companies are catching on to the effectivity of Viral Marketing and Advertising. Not using it could kill your business. Along with other schemes and methods in promoting your site, like Search Engine Optimization and such, viral marketing could easily push you ahead in the rating games.

Viral Marketing could be a sneaky way to get people to know about you and your company. You get them to pass your advertisement along. They are also very low cost that not investing in it could be downright a business suicide. All it takes is a great idea, a good addicting game, a funny story many ideas are still out there. Create a gossip or a buzz, many movies are promoted by using scandals and gossips to make them moiré popular. Remember the movie “The Blair Witch Project”?

Many big companies have tried viral marketing and have had many success stories with it. A classic example is Microsoft’s Hotmail. They were the first known big company to utilize the scheme and it has worked wonders for them.

Now it’s your turn to use viral marketing to work wonders for you. Act now and reap the benefits Viral Marketing will provide for you and your sales figures.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

7 Surefire Ways To Increase Your Traffic Starting Yesterday

Internet. Business. Profit. To fully integrate all of these words into a successful merging you will need another word. Traffic. Every article you will find about making your site or company successful would always include the importance of generating traffic.

So, we all know that in the core of it all, traffic is the most essential thing to a successful internet based business company. Aside from ensuring that you have a great product to sell, and you have your company’s internal organization well taken core of, it would be time to get to the nitty gritty of things, generating traffic.

If you already have a site and you want think that you're not getting the traffic that you're supposed to be getting, then its time to reconsider. If you are contending in these very competitive business, you should always be a step ahead of your competition, increasing your traffic flow should have been done starting yesterday.

Timing is essential, that’s an old adage known to everyone. But with generating traffic, you should always be on your toes and be a day ahead of everyone. Never think of today and tomorrow as a starting point for making your site traffic laden, it should always have been yesterday.

To help you out in generating more traffic for your site, here are some seven surefire ways to increase your traffic starting from yesterday.

1) Invest in good advertising with search engines

Google’s Adwords and Yahoo’s Overture provide great advertising schemes that are very truly popular and assures great traffic. Although with this surefire way to increase your traffic would cost some money. While some would shy away from spending money to increase traffic, it is imperative in this case to do so because Adwords and Overture is the top surefire way to increase your traffic.

You could see for yourself the success this search engine advertising methods have reaped rewards for so many companies. Lots of site feature these advertising system and many have signed on to reap the benefits. Do not be left behind. Every penny is worth it with using Google and Yahoo’s advertising.

2) Exchange or Trade Links with other sites

With exchanging links with other sites, both of you will benefit from the efforts both of you do to enhance your sites traffic. When one site features another sites link, they could provide one another with the traffic one site generates. The efforts are doubly beneficial because it would seem like both of you are working to generate more traffic. The more links traded with more sites the more traffic could be expected.

3) Use Viral Marketing

Viral marketing allows you to spread the word about your company and product without any costs or if ever low costs only. This is a marketing method that can be quite sneaky; you can attach your company’s name, product or link to a certain media such as a funny video, entertaining game, an interesting article or a gossip or buzz. With this method, people get infected with the creativity and entertainment of the medium that they will pass it on to many people.

4) Search and use proper keywords or keyword phrases for your sites content

Search engines look for certain keywords that they would show in their results page. In doing so, having the right keyword and keyword phrase is a high requirement in ranking in high in search engine results. You could write your own content or you could hire someone to do it for you.

5) Write Articles that can lead traffic to your site

Submit articles to sites that would contain the same subject that your site deals in. If you sell car parts write press releases and articles about cars and car parts. Attach your sites description and services at the end of the article as well as the link.

6) Join forums and form online communities

Capture a market and show your expertise and credibility. When you found a good foundation for your site, people will trust you and your site and will pass on to many people their trust. Traffic will certainly increase because they know that you can provide what they need.

7) Lastly, Offer newsletters.

If many people know what you are about and your existence is shared with many others, you will find a loyal traffic that can provide you with more traffic by recommendation. If you arouse the curiosity of your customers they would be pushed to help you with your traffic.

How To Use A Tell A Friend Script To Drive Traffic Today

More and more webmasters have the recurring dilemma on how to increase the flow of traffic in the websites. During the past few years many methods that been developed to solve this predicament. While most of them would work there are those that would not make even a small impact.

One of the methods that have spawned many success stories in driving traffic into websites is viral marketing. Viral marketing makes use of the tendency of a person to share something to find informative, entertaining or amazing.

Many companies bank on this behavior to spread their products and increase the popularity of their company or their website. Viral marketing makes use of many mediums in enticing this behavior. It might be in the form of an interesting story, an addicting flash game, an amusing video and many others that may catch a person’s fancy.

This ingenious form of marketing is typically low cost and is a wonderful tool for any company to utilize. The benefit greatly overshadows the cost or efforts to initialize this marketing scheme. Any website would greatly benefit that viral marketing.

Tell A Friend Script

One of the easiest methods in viral marketing is using a tell a friend script. This is a simple programming script that you can attach to the programming of your website. Generally, tell a friends script are installed in pages where a media is placed so that a person can easily send the media to any of his friends or his family members.

The basic concept of a tell a friend script is a script wherein a person may input his name, e-mail address, the recipient’s e-mail address and send the media to the intended recipient much like an e-mail with an attachment. As the recipient receives the e-mail he wouldn’t think of the mail a spam mail because he would see the sender’s name as someone he or she knows and trust.

Tell a friend script eliminates greatly the chances of being blocked because they use the information inputted by the sender. This allows for wider spreading of this marketing method. It can be quite sneaky but it is very effective.

With the e-mail sent and opened the sent media will either be read, viewed or played. Also along with the mail would be a brief description of the company or site that sponsors the media sent. This allows for the introduction of either the site, company name or its products. The along with it is another tell a friend script.


Then the process begins again. As more people use the tell a friend script, more and more people will know of the existence of the sponsoring company or site. People who read the ads inside the mail who liked what they see would go and click on the link and visit the site. This drives traffic into the site resulting to great number of potential customers.

Tell A Friend Script Availability

A tell a friend script is very simple and does not require a complicated method of programming. In fact, you can copy paste a script and simply put it on an intended page. Finding one is even simpler. All you have to do is go to a search engine and type in the search box “tell a friend script” then press enter or click go.

In the search results page you will see many links that will direct you to a site where you can get a tell a friend script. It would just be a simple matter of looking and searching for the script and copying it to your intended web page.

With a tell a friend script viral marketing strategy you can drive traffic into your site which could potentially spell profits. This is a simple harmless script that offers great benefits for low cost paired with great creativity and foresight.

It is imperative that you have patience in using a tell a friend script. If your chosen media doesn’t get the mileage that is expected of it, it may take some time before it gets spread or shared. But surely many people will see your ads and there is great probability that they will visit your site increasing your traffic flow.

How To Monetize Your Traffic So You Get The Most Out Of It

Establishing your own E-commerce site is not like what it used to be. There are thousands of competition that is all too willing to get a bigger share of the pie. Every scheme and method you can find to augment your sales would be very beneficial.

We have got to admit to ourselves. Most of us are into it for the money. We are not going to waste our time and effort just for the fun of it. Many sites would not wait until hell freezes over just to see their profits. While there are some who takes things lightly there are always those who would rather see profit any given day.

It is common knowledge that without traffic we have no business. Like any business, without any customers you don’t get sales. Traffic represents all the people that gets a chance to see what you have to offer. The more people who see your products the more people there would be to buy them.

Nobody puts up an E-commerce site that doesn’t expect profit. We have a startup capital that needs to be regained. With a consistent traffic, we at least have a fighting chance to achieve that probability. Monetizing your traffic would optimize your chances of making the best out of it.

Making Money out of your Traffic

The best and most proven method of making a profit out of your traffic is using advertising. The internet generates hundreds of thousands upon hundred of thousands of traffic everyday. Most of them are searching for something. While some are just looking for information there is also a good percentage that is looking for something that they need.

The internet has proven to be a very reliable source in finding what was deemed to be a very unsearchable product. The internet has made the world a smaller place; you can advertise a product from the depths of Istanbul and still find a buyer from the center of Philadelphia.

Generating traffic is not an easy task. You have to contend with a great number of sites to generate a good number of traffic flow. But if done successfully this could open up a Pandora’s Box of possibilities. One of the benefits is monetizing your traffic flow.

So, to get to the core of it the more traffic you generate the more likely you are considered as a desirable, desirable, in a sense that a good traffic flowing site is easily convertible to profit. Basically traffic equals profit. Advertising is the name of the game; with the good advertising scheme you can use your traffic flow to your advantage.

When you have good traffic you have a good number of potential customers, customers that are willing to pour money into your coffers. Other than that these are also traffic that can be redirected to sponsored links that are willing to pay you for a sizeable portion of the traffic that you have generated.

This scheme is called “pay-per-click”. With every click a visitor of your site makes on an advertised link you will be paid. The more traffic you generate and the more clicks that happens would spell to more profits.

Affiliate Programs

Another method of monetizing your traffic are affiliate programs. You can link up with other tried and tested sites and online companies and monetize your traffic by having a percentage of sales generated by traffic coming from your site.

The basic idea is, traffic generated from your site will go to another site that can offer a product that you do not carry. Many programs can keep track and make records of transactions that was made possible because of site linkage.

When purchases are made by customers that was led by your site to their site you get a percentage of that sale. Affiliate programs would give you the benefit of monetizing your traffic without the actual need of carrying or promoting a certain product.

There are so many ways and methods to monetize your traffic. All it takes is a bit of hard work and the desire to successfully launch a profit-earning site. The internet is a veritable source of information, many tips and guides are offered everywhere in how to monetize your traffic and make your site a good profit earner.

How To Generate Traffic Using Only Free Methods

Putting up a company would of course require a lot of things, to get straight to the point, you need a capital. To make money requires money as well. But of course, with the versatility the internet offers, there are many ways you could find that could help optimize the potential of your site or business in generating traffic.

While there are ways to jumpstart your traffic flows, many sites don’t have the resources that others have to generate more traffic for your site. Well, you don’t have to spend a cent; all you need is the proper mindset and a lot of eagerness. You also must have the drive and perseverance to do hard work and research to generate more traffic for your site.

How sweet it is to have more traffic for your site without spending a single cent. Now it’s a sure thing that many sites have articles that offer tips and guidelines in how to generate traffic using only free methods. Because it is possible, you don’t need to speed a single cent, it may take time, to say honestly, I’m not going to beat around the bush with you. You get better chances by paying for your advertisements, but at least you get a fighting chance with some of these free methods I’m about to tell you.

Take advantage of online forums and online communities. The great thing about forums and online communities is that you can target a certain group that fits the certain demographic that you are looking for. You can discuss about lots of things about the niche that you represent or offer. Another great advantage is that you know what you are getting into and you will be prepared.

With online communities and forums you can build a reputation for your company. Show them what you are made of and wow them with your range of expertise about the subject, with that you can build a reputation and build trust with the people in your expertise and knowledge.

You can also make use of newsletters. Provide people with a catalog of your products and interesting and entertaining articles. If you make it really interesting and entertaining, more people will sign up for your newsletter and recommend it to other people. The more people who signs up for your newsletter, the more people there will be that will go to your site increasing your traffic.

Another great idea is trading links with other sites. You don’t have to spend a cent. All you have to do is reach an agreement with another webmaster. With exchanging links, the efforts both sites do will benefit both sites. Every traffic that goes to the site could potentially click on the link of your site and visit your site as well. This works well especially when both sites feature the same niche.

Write articles that could pique the attention of people that have interest in your product. Try writing articles that will provide tips and guides to other aficionados. Writing articles that provide good service and knowledge to other people would provide the necessary mileage your traffic flow needs.

Many sites offer free submission and posting of your articles. When people find interest in your articles they have a good chance of following the track by finding out where the article originated. Include a link or a brief description of your company with the article and there’s a great probability that they will go to your site.

Write good content for your site. Many search engines track down the keywords and keyword phrases your site uses and how they are used. It is not a requirement that a content should be done by a professional content writer. You could do your on but you have to make content for your site that is entertaining as well as informational. It should provide certain requirements as well as great quality.
Generally, internet users use search engines to find what they are looking for. Search engines in return use keyword searching in aiding their search results. With the right keywords, you could get high rankings in search engine results without the costs.

All of these methods and more will drive more traffic to your site for free. All it takes is a bit of effort and extended man hours. Learn all you can about the methods depicted here and you will soon have a site with a great traffic flow without the usual costs that come with it.

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