Archive for the Traffic Category

Affiliate Marketing: Maximize Your Income

By IM News on April 27, 2012

Affiliate Advertising Is Really A Good Way To Earn Online, And The Ideas Here Should Help You Earn More Money

By: Shawn Brown

Many people turn to affiliate marketing because it is a very simple way to start earning cash on the internet without needing to develop your own product. One thing you need to take into account that goes for affiliate links in addition to any other sort of website is that if you would like to achieve success you need to drive traffic to these web sites. I am sure you’re already aware that there are lots of different methods that men and women can end up generating traffic, but tons of individuals who are new to the Internet don’t know how to accomplish this. Creating the traffic you need isn’t that difficult when you understand what you are doing and we will explain some traffic driving methods in the following paragraphs.

Something you should be aware of that’s an incredibly powerful way to start creating traffic is to select a product and develop a web site around this product. Although some individuals actually utilize the free hosting services which are available on the net today, you will see that you will be a lot more profitable by having your own hosting and domain name. You’re also going to discover that if you have your own website for the product you are going to have the ability to get it indexed and ranked in the major search engines a lot easier than you’ll have the ability to rank your affiliate link.

One method that is been very powerful for affiliate marketers is writing reviews about whatever product you’re advertising, and you are going to also find this is actually a wonderful way to add content to your website. Needless to say in order to write an honest review and let customers realize that you are aware of just how the product works, it is important to actually buy the product so you can write an honest review. You are going to discover that this is something which will in fact produce more product sales because your potential customers will see you have actually purchased this item and use it yourself.

Starting a blog regarding the product will also be a brilliant way for anyone to start producing far more product sales for that product. A blog will allow your potential prospects the chance to interact with you and ask questions concerning the product, and when you interact with them there is a much better possibility they will wind up purchasing the product. You are in addition going to discover that every time you develop a new page for your blog about the product it will end up being indexed in the search engines, that will also lead to more product sales for you.

Producing traffic will be the key to your success, and you will find that apart from the recommendations above there are lots of other ways you you are able to drive traffic such as article advertising and other advertising techniques. Of course, when you think about it, it’s going to be your decision to actually put the suggestions into practice so you can begin creating the traffic you need to become successful.

This entry is filed under Affiliate Marketing, Make Money, Traffic and tagged , , , .

8 Ways to Use Autoresponders to Drive Traffic and Increase Your Blogging Income

By IM News on October 26, 2011

Yesterday I wrote a post titled Introduction to Autoresponders. It recommended them as a tool that bloggers should consider as a means of driving traffic, deepening reader engagement, and increasing profits. I also showed how to set up an autoresponder sequence of emails in just a few easy steps using Aweber’s service.

Today I want to suggest a number of practical strategies for actually using autoresponders alongside your blog.

Some of these I’ve used with success myself, and some are based upon the experience of other blogging friends. It should also be said that you could combine some of the following ideas into a single autoresponder sequence (more on this below).

1. Free mini-course

Set up a sequence of emails that walks readers through the teaching around some aspect of your niche. This is what I did when developing an early version of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog.

Back then 31DBBB wasn’t an ebook—it was a series of 31 emails that readers signed up for. Each day, readers received an email with some teaching and a task to do. This later evolved into the ebook with extra content.

2. Paid course or product

Numerous bloggers have set up autoresponders as central parts of paid products or courses. One of the best examples of this is Chris Guillebeau’s 365-part autoresponder, which forms part of a product. Chris’s product took a mammoth amount of work, but was hugely successful with those who bought it, and as a result, it would have been a very profitable endeavor.

3. Introduce readers to your archives

One of the challenges that many bloggers face is that new readers to your blog don’t ever see your old posts sitting in your archives. So why not showcase the best of your older posts by putting them together into an autoresponder sequence? Perhaps you could send one “classic” post per week. In doing so, you’ll be constantly driving readers to your archives for as long as new people keep signing up.

Another alternative is to do a compilation email on a particular theme. For example, on our photography blog autoresponder, one email that goes out in our sequence lists ten posts from our archives all on the theme of composition. It shoots readers deep into the site, and we often get emails from readers thanking us for it.

4. Affiliate promotions

Is there a product in your niche that you highly recommend your readers buy, and which has an affiliate program attached to it? You can easily add an affiliate promotion into your auto responder sequence. I recently put such a promotion into my photography blog’s autoresponder, and it has already driven thousands of dollars in sales (and will continue to do so). You can read about this concept more here.

5. Relaunch your own product every day

For those of you who have an ebook or some other kind of product that you’ve previously launched, building a mini-promotion of that product into an autoresponder sequence is a must. In our photography email list, we give new subscribers a discount on our portrait photography ebook 7 days after they join the list. That offer drives sales every single day.

6. Upselling

This is another one for those with your own products to sell. The idea is that when someone buys one of your products, you then follow up the purchase with an offer for a second product.The second product could be another of yours, or it could be an affiliate promotion.

For example, when people buy our travel photography ebook, they get an email a couple of weeks later with a discount offer on another travel photography ebook by the same author. The ebooks make good companions, the author is now familiar to readers, and as a result, these emails convert pretty well.

7. Showcase what you do

If you have an offline business that you’re promoting, use your an autoresponder sequence to showcase what you do. I know of one photographer who has a sequence of emails that goes to all clients (and potential clients that he meets to give quotes to). This sequence simply sends out an email every month with a couple of photos from another client shoot, and the story behind it. In sending these emails, he’s showing off the photography he does and positioning himself as a known photographer for them time when those who receive the emails are next looking to hire someone.

8. Tips

Another offline business that I heard of recently who uses an auto responder sequence is a butcher who collects email addresses from customers with the promise of sending them recipes for the meat that they’re buying. He gets their permission to email them and at the end of every day he sends each person that he sold meat to a recipe for the meat that they bought (he has a range of recipes for the different meats and tailors this first email to customers’ purchases).

Once the first email is sent the customer gets weekly emails (via an auto responder) for other recipes and tips for cooking with meat.

The butcher reported a sharp upswing in repeat business from the strategy—again, he was putting his name out there in front of people through his emails, building his brand, deepening personal relationships, and giving those subscribed a reason to keep coming back to him.

Multiple autoresponders, or one with mixed objectives?

The above array of uses for autoresponders is certainly not an exhaustive list. I’d love to hear how else you use them below.

It is also worth mentioning that some bloggers have multiple autoresponders running at once, while some mix a number of the points I mentioned above into the same autoresponder sequence. Personally, I do a bit of both.

At Digital Photography School I have a number of single-purpose autoresponders running in category #6 (upselling), where if someone buys an ebook they get a followup email/s with further recommendations.

However, my main autoresponder sequence on dPS is a real mix of the above, plus it also mixes in weekly newsletters, which are sent manually each week in addition to the automated emails. The sequence looks like this:

email-auto-responders-sequence-dps.png

I’ve written more on how I combine a mix of weekly newsletters and autoresponders here.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

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8 Ways to Use Autoresponders to Drive Traffic and Increase Your Blogging Income


ProBlogger Blog Tips

This entry is filed under Email Marketing, Make Money, Traffic and tagged , , , , , , .

11 Ways I Drive Traffic to My Sites

By IM News on October 18, 2011

 

Just because you build it doesn’t mean they will come. Actually, they probably won’t come.

In addition to creating a quality site, you also have to dedicate time to driving traffic from a variety of sources.

Traffic sources

In chapter seven of Extra Money Answer, my free online book for getting started as an affiliate, I go through my eleven key sources for driving traffic to affiliate sites.

  • Site Scrapers and Syndicators
  • NetworkedBlogs on Facebook
  • Twitter Tools
  • AWeber RSS to Email
  • YouTube Descriptions
  • Meetup.com Perks
  • LinkedIn Applications
  • Paper.li
  • Flickr Links
  • StumbleUpon
  • Podcasting
  • Facebook Ads

These are in no particular order, and I didn’t include organic traffic from Google, Yahoo, etc., as I would encourage you to focus on creating quality content, and the search engines will find you.

If you’re new to affiliate marketing, learn how to make money onlinestep-by-step with Extra Money Answer.


Affiliate Marketing Blog

This entry is filed under Make Money Now, Traffic and tagged , , , .

65 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

By IM News on October 16, 2011

This guest post is by Satrap of BlogStash.com.

What is the best way to drive traffic to my site? What’s the fastest way to generate traffic to my site? What’s…?

We all want to know the best way to drive the greatest amount of traffic to our sites. However, the truth is that there is no best or fastest way to drive traffic! What works for me might not work for you, and vice versa. Just because I manage to get 500 visitors a day from an article I submitted to article directories doesn’t mean you can get that much traffic doing the same thing.

Of course, there are some traffic generation methods that produce better results than others. But again, it all depends on you and your situation. Let’s take article marketing as an example. Article marketing is one of the oldest and best ways to generate traffic. But the success of your article marketing campaign depends on many different things, like the number of articles you write, the number of article directories you submit to, the quality of your articles, how many articles a day you submit, and more.

My advice would be to pick a few methods from the 65 I’ve listed below, and start implementing them. Test them for yourself. Depending on your skills, you might find a method that would work wonders for you.

Don’t just follow what everybody else says. I’m not saying, “Don’t listen to experienced people who are successful in generating traffic to their site.” By all means, listen to them and do take their advice—but experiment to find out for yourself which traffic generation methods work best for you and your situation.

With that said, here are 65 simple and (mostly) free ways to generate traffic to your site.

  1. Turn your articles and blog posts into PDFs using free PDF converters like OpenOffice. Then submit your PDFs to document sharing sites like Scribd and DocStoc.
  2. Write truly informative and useful articles related to your niche, and publish them on WikiPedia.
  3. Hold a contest and give prizes to your readers. Use social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to let people know about the contest. A good contest with good prizes will attract a lot of people.
  4. Build a wiki page for your blog. To ensure your page doesn’t get deleted, create an article that is educational, informational, and not self-promoting.
  5. Write list posts like the one you are reading. Readers love posts like “10 ways to make money” or “6 ways to drive traffic to your blog”. List posts are amongst the most popular kinds of posts, and people tend to share list posts with others more often than other posts.
  6. Make flyers with a catchy title and a description of your blog, and post them on bulletin boards in the entrance to supermarkets and other community buildings.
  7. Post frequently, but don’t sacrifice quantity for quality. Both search engines and visitors like to see fresh, quality content. The more content you have, the more chances you have for ranking for variety of keywords, which will mean more organic traffic for your blog.
  8. Make a lens (or more) using Squidoo and in it, place a few links back to your blog.
  9. Submit your blog to directories relevant to your niche, like InsLink.com (an SEO/webmaster directory).
  10. Make it easy for non-technical readers to link to your blog or share your links with other people by making a “How to link to us” page. Here, give readers easy instructions on how to link to your blog with your keywords as anchor text.
  11. Submit your blog to search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Or simply use AdMe.com to submit your site to over 25 search engines for free.
  12. Use sites like Odiogo to turn your blog into a podcast, then submit your podcast to podcast websites.
  13. Answer questions related to your niche on YahooAnswers and other Q & A sites. Include a link to your blog in the resource box.
  14. Submit your blog to social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon.
  15. Write and submit articles to article directories like EzineArticles and ArticleDashboard.
  16. Turn your articles to videos using free video creation services like Animoto, and submit them to video directories such as YouTube and DailyMotion.
  17. Build a Facebook fan page for your blog.
  18. Make use of plugins like Tell-a-Friend to let your readers quickly share your posts with their friends and family vie email.
  19. Use Hi5 to build a page for your blog and create a community around it.
  20. Don’t clutter your blog with too many pictures, ads, and so on. Keep it clean and easy to navigate. This will help both search engines and visitors to navigate around your blog easily and quickly.
  21. Join BlogEngage to submit your blog and create a community around it.
  22. Ping your blog posts using free ping services such as Pingler and Pingoat.
  23. Create a hub about your blog on HubPages.
  24. Register with few good niche-related forums and use your signature to place links pointing to your blog. Participate in discussions and contribute as much as you can.
  25. Make it easy for your readers to share your posts by installing social bookmarking plugins like SocialMarker and Digg Buttons.
  26. Readers like to read other people’s comments, especially those who responded to their comments. So, take advantage of that by using a plug-in like Comment Notifier to automatically let your readers know of new comments posted on your blog.
  27. Make your blog more search engine friendly by using SEO plug-ins such as Platinum SEO Pack.
  28. Target long-tail keywords with low competition and try to rank for them. Such keywords are easier to rank for in search engines and give you much more targeted traffic.
  29. Make a MySpace page for your blog.
  30. Make business cards with your blog info on them, hand them to friends and family, and ask them to pass them on. Mall parking lots are good place to pass your cards around. In some states you can even put your business card on windshields. You can get up to 250 free business cards using sites like VistaPrint (although you do have to pay $ 5 shipping).
  31. Submit your blog to the free directories like DMOZ (hard to get into, but well worth the effort!).
  32. Write a good press release, or hire a professional to do it for you (you can get a pretty decent press release written for you for $ 5 on Fiverr.com), and submit them to free press release distribution sites like PR.com.
  33. Write creative and attention-grabbing ads about your blog, and publish them on free classified ads sites such as CraigsList and UsFreeAds.
  34. Controversial posts attract visitors. Write a controversial post. Be creative and bold, but be careful not to cross the boundaries.
  35. Ask an expert or a trusted, well-known person in your niche for an interview. Then post the entire interview on your blog, either as a text post or as a video.
  36. Leave quality comments on blogs that are related to your niche. Make sure your comments add value to the blog. Don’t just spam-comment and hope for the best. It never works, and your links will get deleted. Worst of all, you might get blacklisted from the site. If you leave a useful comment, people will be more likely to visit your blog.
  37. Use free banner-making tools like BannerFans to make an interesting banner for your blog. Then find other bloggers in your niche and exchange banners with them.
  38. Exchange links with other blogs in your niche. Don’t go overboard with this technique, or exchange links with each and every blog you find—be selective and make sure the context for your link is appropriate. Most people use their main keyword as the anchor text for their link, that’s good for SEO. But, if you want to get more traffic from those links, instead use attention-grabbing text as your anchor text. Don’t use “Make Money Online” for your link text—people are used to seeing those links all over the web. Instead use something like “10 ways to make $ 10 in 10 minutes.”
  39. If you find interesting posts on other blogs, write a post about them and link to them. The other bloggers will notice and might do the same for you.
  40. Find good blogs in your niche that accept guest posts. You can either search manually or make it easy for yourself by registering for free with MyBlogGuest, which matches guest bloggers with blogs that accept guest posts. Write and submit your best articles to get the maximum exposure. Don’t just submit the article and leave. Make sure you follow up and respond to comments and questions that readers of those blogs ask.
  41. Submit your site to review sites that write reviews on other websites and blogs, like CoolSiteOfTheDay.
  42. Submit your blog to BlogCatalog.
  43. People love free stuff, so give out freebies that are related to your niche. If you are in “online money making” niche, a free ebook that teaches people who to make money on Twitter might make an appropriate freebie.
  44. Write a page on 43things.com about your blog and what you want to do with it.
  45. Use your keywords in the title of your posts. Having your keyword in the title makes it easier for you to rank for that keyword, thus bringing you more organic traffic.
  46. Use your blog’s name as your username on forums, social networking sites, and other places like YahooAnswers. People are curious by nature, so they may check out your blog out of curiosity and if you have good compelling content, they may become your loyal readers.
  47. Make a bumper sticker with your blog address on it, and place it on your car’s bumper. You can even ask your friends and family to do the same for you!
  48. Make a Twitter profile for your blog and tweet each and every post you publish on your blog.
  49. Register with EntreCard and start dropping your card on other blogs. You will be amazed how much traffic you can get from EntreCard.
  50. Register with ComLUV.com and download their plugin.Then use the Global CommentLuv Search to find blogs related to your niche and comment on them. It will return up to ten (recent) posts that will be sent back when you comment on a CommentLuv enabled site. Most are dofollow blogs, and you will get dofollow links back to your most recent posts. This is good for link building and getting some traffic.
  51. Make a free ebook with a link back to your site in it, and submit it to free ebook sites like GetFreeEbooks.com.
  52. Buy .info domains with long-tail keywords in them and use a redirect to send the traffic they receive to your main site.
  53. Rent a mailing list and send high-quality content with a link back to your site to all the subscribers. Take care with this technique so that you’re not blacklisted as a spammer, though. Find a reputable list broker—or, if in doubt, why not start your own?
  54. Post a classified ad on eBayClassified with a link to your site.
  55. When you eat out, leave a good tip along with a business card with your site info on it.
  56. Create a short report with resell rights and and include your links in the report. Give it to people for free: those people can sell the report to others as their own, so long as they don’t remove your links. The results of this technique will surprise you.
  57. Come up with a really crazy but buzz-worthy post and submit it to NowPublic.com (Previously known as Truemors). If it’s good enough, it might just go viral!
  58. Go to YouTube, find popular videos related to your niche and start commenting on those videos with a link back to your blog. Youtube videos get thousands of views, and since most people are sociable creatures, they will read the comments no matter how far down the list your comment is.
  59. Create a page (personal or business) at LookUpPage.com. You can add as many links to your blog as you like. Write a short “about” post about yourself or your blog, and make sure to link to your Twitter and other social networking sites as well. After creating the page, bookmark it using SocialMarker and ping it with Pingler (or any other tools you like).
  60. Register with Visible.me for free, and add links and information about your blog. Its a great way to build your brand and get a few backlinks from a high-PR (6) dofollow site.
  61. Submit your RSS feed to RSS aggregators. Here, I don’t mean just your blog’s RSS feed: grab the RSS url of every site you have a link on (example: if you submit articles to ezine.com, you will have your own “author RSS” URL), and go to RssMix.com. It will let you make a custom RSS feed. Take that and submit it to RSS directories and aggregators. This will put your RSS feed on steroids—and will give you many more backlinks.
  62. Make a few (yard) signs with your blog’s URL and a good title related to your niche, and place them on highway exit ramps, at busy intersections, and so on. Make sure you abide by the laws in your own state or country if you try this approach.
  63. Put an ad in your local newspaper. If you live in a small town, it may not be very expensive to have an ad on your local newspaper—or on TV or radio, for that matter.
  64. Order some T-shirts with your blog URL and title printed on them and give them away. People will check out your URL!
  65. This is just for fun, so enjoy it! Make a big and I mean big sandal (or flip flop) with your blog’s URL engraved on the bottom, go to a busy beach, and start walking all over the sand! Leave your mark for others to see.

These methods will keep you busy for a while. But perhaps the most important tip I can give you is to be patient. Getting traffic to a blog takes time and a lot of work. You cannot expect to have hundreds of visitors after a few weeks, or months of starting your blog. But, if you are a dedicated person who’s willing to put enough time and effort into it, you can’t help but attract more visitors to your blog over time.

Which of these ideas do you like? What has or hasn’t worked for you? Share your experiences with us in the comments.

Satrap writes at BlogStash.com about different work from home opportunities. Visit BlogStash to learn real ways to make money online.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

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65 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog


ProBlogger Blog Tips

This entry is filed under Make Money, Traffic and tagged , , , .

How Do You Build A Brand That Google Rewards With Traffic?

By IM News on September 5, 2011

/> Is it just me or have you also noticed that Google seems to be paying a lot more attention to brands these days? So much so, in fact, that it can almost feel that brand signals might be included as a part of their search engine ranking factors?

Are brands really being given more weight in Google? And how does it affect how we market our businesses?

First, let’s take a look at what brand is, what it isn’t, and how to establish one.

What Is A Brand?

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a

“name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.”

So to be an identifiable brand, we need to be “distinct from other sellers”.

Sounds easy enough; however, how to do you accomplish it in practical terms? How do you come into a market that is dominated by blogs like Problogger, Copyblogger, Entrepreneurs-Journey and claim your piece of the blogging pie?

How Do You Build A Brand?

id=”more-8166″>1. Define What Your Brand Is

Do you build a brand around your name or your blog/product?

Let me answer this question with a question: would you use Twitter any less if you didn’t know who the founders were?

On the other hand, would you come to Entrepreneurs-Journey.com as often, if we took Yaro Starak completely out of the equation?

These are questions that all of us will have to answer for ourselves, but here are my thoughts.

There’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t brand both YOURSELF as an expert in your chosen field AND your blog/site/product as the answer to a particular problem your readers/customers might have.

Traffic Generation Cafe, for instance, has quickly become a site known for teaching how to get more web traffic in a language everyone can understand – even when it comes down to the all-mysterious SEO.

However, I am not hiding behind my blog either. Even though I can’t yet compare myself with Yaro, Ana Hoffman is truly becoming a name that is a brand in itself.

How do I know? By looking at my Google Analytics and seeing how much traffic comes from searching for “Ana Hoffman” as the keyword.

If something were to happen and I needed to step away from Traffic Generation Cafe, it will (sadly for me) continue just fine since it’s a brand of its own.

On the other hand, if I have to ditch my blog and start all over again for whatever reason, I won’t feel like I am starting from scratch – my name alone will give me a head start in whatever new venture I branch out to.

2. Keyword.com, Brand.com, or MrSmith.com?

That’s the next important decision to make on your way to defining your brand.

I know this is a non-issue for most of the readers here – most of you have already started a blog and, of course, picked your domain name.

However, it doesn’t mean that it’s a good one or that you can’t change it.

When I started my very first blog, I had absolutely no direction. I had no idea what the blog theme was, what I wanted to write about, what my target audience was, or which direction to take my blog in the future.

No wonder that blog miserably failed.

But not all was lost.

What I did was take that very blog and completely revamp it with the new design, new niche, and, yes, the new domain name.

And it did wonders for my blog – just come over to Traffic Generation Cafe and see for yourself.

My point is that it’s never too late to start anew; and in many cases, that is exactly what you need.

So unless you are Chris Brogan, don’t go for YourName.com – it won’t get you too far.

Creating a true brand name is a long-term commitment lined with sweat and tears; Amazon didn’t become what it is today overnight.

My choice is to go for a keyword-rich domain that will also tell your visitors what your blog is all about before they ever click on the link. Actually that might be precisely why they’ll click on your link among all other competition in Google search results.

For instance, if you are searching for tips on traffic generation, would you be more apt to click on “AnaHoffman.com” or “TrafficGenerationCafe.com”?

Precisely my point.

3. Think Territorially

Not too long ago, Brian Clark of Copyblogger.com wrote an excellent post on How to Dominate Your Niche.

In it he talks about how so many bloggers are more concerned about dominating or at least breaking into the perceived blogging hierarchy in any given niche; often more so than focusing on building a thriving business.

I can completely relate to that.

It is nice to be included on different lists like “The Best of…”, “The Most Popular Among…”, don’t you think?

I’d even go as far to say that we take it personally when we DON’T see our name in any given post mentioning other bloggers in it. What do you mean I didn’t make this post? Am I not as popular as the other bloggers? Do I need to forget about the voice of reason, quit sleeping, and start networking night and day to make sure my name shows up on every bloody list out there?

Yes, we are all designed with the need to feel valued.

And value in the blogosphere is generally expressed in the mentions on other blogs, social media, etc.

However, we forget that there are many bloggers out there that win every single popularity contest, yet they are still broke.

What are you building your brand for? To have your name recognized or to build a thriving business that actually pays the bills?

I know, I know, a little of both doesn’t hurt, but realistically speaking we all have 24 hours per day and we need to choose wisely how we spend them.

Forget about the popularity contest. Carve out your territory within your niche and dominate that. Recognition will come naturally.

4. Make More with Fewer People

This point ties in nicely with marking your own territory, so to speak.

Connect with your readers. Show them who you are. Stand out. Be a personality. Or become one if you aren’t already.

No, you don’t have to be the next Naomi Dunford to succeed. And you don’t have to go to an extreme to find loyal readership.

In most cases, you just need to be… you.

Build trust with your readers, and they will build your brand for you.

Online Marketing Strategy And Your Brand

Let’s shift gears a bit and talk about how this emphasis on brand changes, or should change, your online marketing strategy.

To be more precise, how can you “help” Google to see and accept you as a brand and bring you more SEO traffic as a result of it?

1. Make Sure Your Brand is Memorable

Now that you are settled on what your brand is, it’s time to market the heck out of it.

Make sure your readers can easily remember your brand and can easily find it by searching for any number of keywords on Google.

If, for instance, my new visitor forgets the exact name of my blog, they can Google “Ana Hoffman”, “traffic generation”, “traffic cafe”, etc – all those paths will lead them back to my blog.

Think of all the possible search terms your readers might find you under and make sure your site is listed at the very least towards the top of the first page of Google for the terms – #1 spot is the goal, of course.

Real brands have people search for their brands. Let Google know that you are looked for and not simply found.

2. Social Media Presence

That’s where the magic of having a loyal audience comes in.

As I mentioned above, it’s not about the numbers; it’s about your connection with your readers and their willingness to spread your brand in the online world.

Your goal is to have your blog mentioned in the social media as much as possible, whether linking back to your blog with your brand anchor text or simply mentioning your brand somewhere around it.

I know Yaro doesn’t use CommentLuv plugin on this blog, but for those of you who do or are at least considering it, I am happy to say that I have the new beta version of the plugin installed on my blog at this very moment (it will be publicly released some time) in the fall and it’s a spectacular way to drive more brand recognition via various social media channels. Come to Traffic Generation Cafe and see for yourself.

3. Offline Techniques Work Online

Imagine a real brick and mortar business and what they have to do to promote their brand in the offline world.

They are constantly working on getting their brand out there by getting involved into all kinds of “press worthy” activities: sponsoring, donating, participating – building relationships, in other words.

That’s the type of events that will get your name and your brand out there in the online world as well.

Just a few suggestions:

  1. Do interviews.
  2. Participate in blogging contests. If you don’t know where to find them, take a look at this “Surviving the Blog” contest that just started at WeBlogBetter.com.
  3. Sponsor blogging contests. If you don’t have the time to write, donate. You’ll get a lot of natural backlinks, as well as gain some brand recognition.
  4. Mention other blogs in your posts. Be gracious about spreading some link love, and it’ll come back to you in one way or another.
  5. Give away a freebie that can be given away. Don’t horde your free info products in other words; let your readers give them away on their blogs – it will only bring more traffic and recognition for your brand.
  6. Write for other blogs.

All these things will not only create the brand that will become more and more recognized in the blogosphere, but also recognized by Google, making it easier for them to bump your site in their search listings.

After all, all these people talking about you and your business online can’t be wrong, right?

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Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

This entry is filed under Best Ways To Make Money, Internet Marketing, SEO, Traffic and tagged , , , , .

7 Free Tools By Google To Increase Your Traffic And Conversion

By IM News on August 28, 2011

Google is an amazing company. If you were to ask me my favorite company in terms of products, it would be Google. The interesting thing is that Google is a tech company, and most of its products are free. Some products offered by Google are so amazing and useful that other companies charge for products that deliver the same result. In this post I will highlight all products by Google that are designed specifically for Webmasters or Online Entrepreneurs.

I personally use all of these products. You may be familiar with some of the them, but I am confident that you will learn something new via this post.

1. DoubleClick AdPlanner

Ad Planner does exactly as the name suggests, it lets advertisers build and analyze media plans. But wait there is far more to it. Type in any website and it will show you all sorts of data about almost any website on the Internet. Data such as:

  • Traffic stats
  • Audience Demographics (Age, Gender, Education, Income, Ethnicity, Interests)
  • Other websites visited by audience
  • All Ad Placements (Ad sizes, Ad Type [image, video, text, etc] )

This is a great way for any blogger or online entrepreneur to conduct research of its competitors and gather deep market data for free. Ain’t it amazing?

And oh yeah, you can also use this tool to plan your media buying campaigns if you are into online advertising src=’http://cdn.entrepreneurs-journey.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif’ alt=’;)’ class=’wp-smiley’ />

2. Google In-Page Analysis

Almost a year or two ago website heatmaps, and tracking user behavior on a site was really hot. The idea is still hot and user behavior is one of the key metrics to track on any website. Services would charge anywhere from $ 100-$ 1000 a month to provide user behavior tracking for a given website. Lucky for us (but unlucky for commercial heat-tracking services) Google offers basic user tracking via Google Analytics. The feature is called In-Page Analysis.

The tool shows visually:

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  • Where site visitors are
  • How many clicks are made on a link
  • How much scrolling is happening per page

What I like about In-Page Analysis is that the data is easy to read and understand hence making strategic design and content decisions are easy.

3. Google Webmaster Central

Google Webmaster Central shows several website metrics that Google is crawling on your website. It shows you your:

  • Website back-links
  • Pages Indexed
  • HTML errors
  • Site load-time
  • Duplicate Content (Text, and Title Tags)
  • Sitemap error
  • Searh Queries made by user (to find your website)
  • Malware if detected on the website (it will even send you alerts if you like)

Classic webmasters do not even track all of these metrics. Now Google will track and share things it finds on your websites for free.

4. Google Search: Advanced Queries

You can find much useful information about any website just using Google Search. True, Google Webmaster Central will give you deep information about your website, but what about competitive intelligence? A few simple yet advanced searches on Google can show valuable information about our competition. Try the following:

Find number of pages indexed in Google for a website

  • Search “site:www.stanford.edu”.
  • Just underneath the search box, you will see “about 358,000 results (0.29)” hence around 358,000 pages from stanford.edu are indexed on Google.

Find a specific keyword on a specific website

  • Search “professor site: www.stanford.edu”.
  • This will find the keyword “professor” on stanford.edu. />

Find backlinks on any website

  • Search “link: www.entrepreneurs-journey.com”.

Find backlinks to specific website pages

  • Search “link: www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/about/”

5. Google Keyword Tool

Google Keyword Tool is the best keyword research software I know of. Since 60% of all online searches are made using Google, Google knows more about search keywords than anyone. Not just that, Google shares most of its keyword data with entrepreneurs like us who want to hone our website content and target the right customers in our business. Simply type in any keyword in the tool, and it will spit out 100s of related keywords that users are searching for on a monthly basis. You will also be shown:

  • Competition of that Keyword
  • Global Monthly Searches
  • Local Monthly Searches (select your location to find your local monthly search volume)
  • They used to also show average bid price but they pulled that data src=’http://cdn.entrepreneurs-journey.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_sad.gif’ alt=’:(‘ class=’wp-smiley’ />

6. Google Analytics

Google Analytics lets you track all sorts of website metrics. You can track:

  • Total Pageviews
  • Pageviews per visitor
  • Average time on site
  • Total Visitors
  • Unique Visitors
  • Traffic Sources (Search, Referral, Direct)
  • Traffic Origin (Country)
  • Search queries
  • Bounce rates (People who come to your website and exit within a few seconds)
  • Set Goals and track Goal Conversions
  • E-commerce Tracking
  • Mobile Website Tracking
  • Segment Data and Generate Custom Reports

A must install tool for any small-mid size website (who cannot afford to build their own analytics software). Again, Google Analytics is one of the most intuitive analytics tools in the marketplace. And its free.

7. Google Conversion Optimizer

Google Conversion Optimizer is a conversion testing tool. If you have a sales page, optin box, or any sort of landing page which has a specific goal that you want to optimize to capture the highest conversion, Google Conversion Optimizer can help you do that easily. You can use Conversion Optimizer to test one element or several elements of your webpage.

Why Is Google Giving Away So Much Value For Free?

Google is not a non-profit organization, as we all know. Then why is it giving away so much value for free? The answer is in two parts:

  1. By giving away amazing tools such as Google Analytics, Webmaster Central, In-Page Analysis, and Conversion Optimizer, Google is not only helping us, but it is also gathering and using massive data from millions of websites who voluntarily sign up for these services. It is using our website data to understand user behavior on different kinds of websites and in different industries.
  2. Google wants to give the best user experience. Whether it be search or advertiser, Google wants its users to get usable data, so they can make the web a more competitive and organized place. If a webmaster has more information about its competition, keyword search, and is more educated about media buying opportunities, the user is more likely to spend his dollars with Google (via their Google AdWords platform). Google wants to provide more and more value, so the users are empowered to make more educated decisions.

Ain’t that amazing?

Aziz signing out

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Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

This entry is filed under Best Ways To Make Money, Internet Marketing, Traffic and tagged , , , , , .

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