Does Web Site Traffic Grow On Trees? by Victoria Munro – ArticleCity.com
Posted on 31. Oct, 2009 by admin in Traffic
Once upon a time, there was a web designer who designed web sites and published them on the Internet. His life was not too complicated. To make a nice profit all he needed to do was simply build a site and upload it to the Internet.
Unfortunately these times have passed away and will never return again. That sweet old formula “create a site + publish it = success” does not work anymore. It did (more…)
Once upon a time, there was a web designer who designed web sites and published them on the Internet. His life was not too complicated. To make a nice profit all he needed to do was simply build a site and upload it to the Internet.
Unfortunately these times have passed away and will never return again. That sweet old formula “create a site + publish it = success” does not work anymore. It did years ago, but we have to keep up with technology, new Internet conditions and requirements.
Time goes by, technology develops, conditions change. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing. What was unthinkable before is very real now. For example: RSS feeds are getting more and more popular. As our schedules become busier every day, we don’t have much time to browse through the Internet looking for important information. Now it’s enough to subscribe for articles, blog posts, fresh web site content on the topic that interests you the most and you will get the useful content flowing straight to you so you don’t even have to look for it.
I often see the same question appearing on many business marketing forums: “I’ve created a website but do not get any traffic. Where do I get the visitors? Can someone tell me what to do?”
I’d like to compare a web site to an island Imagine a beautiful tropical island, a small piece of paradise in the middle of the ocean. Many people would give a lot to own it, or at least get a chance to spend few days on it. But it’s … unoccupied because NOBODY KNOWS IT EXISTS!
This island could become quite a “hot spot” with ships bringing in crowds round the clock. But unless there is a map with exact coordinates to it nothing will happen. Secondly, that map needs to get in front of people’s eyes. I suppose showing few good shots would help get crowds interested. With other words some decent marketing should happen before we can see the desirable results.
Ok, back to the “traffic” question. Before I answer it, I’d like to ask you this:
1) What was already DONE to get the traffic?
2) What is the budget you can afford to pay for the traffic?
3) What is your time frame to generate traffic to your web site?
Depending on your answer I’d develop your “plan of attack”. Let’s look at three possible options:
1) Sufficient funds and time to invest into advertising campaign.
2) Little/no funds, enough time.
3) Little/no time, sufficient funds.
Option #1 – the best one, unfortunately does not happen too often in real life. I believe there will be no problem achieving great results with enough persuasion. Take your time (you’ve got enough of it anyway), learn every possible strategy and marketing method. Invest in SEO, PPC and every other advertising program you can lay your hands on.
Option #2 – I’d suggest to work hard on your Search Engine Optimisation. If you play your cards right, your site will come up within first few organic results and attract very decent amount of visitors. The down point is – it will take a long time for your site to be indexed within major search engines and appearing close to the top will require good SEO skills and patience. Don’t forget to spread the word through viral marketing, use reciprocal links, classified ads, article submission.
Option #3 – Most certainly go for PPC (pay per click advertising). Yahoo and Google will be your best bets, but don’t neglect smaller but less expensive engines like Kanoodle, LookSmart, MIVA.
In this article I’ve just started to scratch the surface. There are many other ways to market your website and receive tons of highly targeted, ready-to-buy visitors. To get invaluable information for the internet beginners as well as more advanced advertising techniques, please visit my website www.provenincomemagnet.com.
About The Author
Victoria Munro is an established home business owner. Specializing in cutting-edge internet marketing strategies her web site http://www.ProvenIncomeMagnet.com is a constantly growing resource for Internet Entrepreneurs, beginners and advanced businessmen alike.
This article may be reprinted as long as the credits are given to the author as well as the link to the author’s webiste and is provided.
Blog Design: What Can You Do To Increase Website Traffic
Posted on 21. Aug, 2009 by admin in List Building
Today, in this fast-paced world, people get annoyed when they visit a blog that doesn’t look good. They get frustrated and leave. That little X box is clicked on and you have lost a potential visitor. We all want our blog to look good, I know I do.
To get your visitors to read your content and to want to come back for more there are some simple blog design strategies that you can do.
#1: Design
You have a very short time for your blog to make an impact on your reader. Does it hit them in the face with bright colors or does it draw them in so they want to stay and read your content. Having a simple or minimalistic design can create harmony for the reader.
Is your ‘above the fold’ area too cluttered? Does your text tell the reader what the blog name is and what the blog is about?
The use of white space is very effective in drawing your readers into your blog. White space means the empty space on your blog. The human eye needs this space so that we can easily see what is there.
#2: Does the design compliment the content?
Blog design and related content go together. If you visit a blog that sells dog blankets and they have an article on trout fishing, would you stay? Most likely not, I know I wouldn’t. It would confuse me and I wouldn’t go back to that blog.
Font and font size needs to be considered as well. Are your fonts modern or are they curly and old-fashioned. Images are another important factor in designing your blog to be visibility enticing. Keep your images to one size and place them in the same place in your posts. This gives the reader familiarity and confidence so that when they go back to your blog things will be in the same place.
#3: Is Your Design a Platform for your Content?
The purpose of your blog design is to draw your reader to the content. Are your posts easily found? Or are they buried under uncategorized categories. Do you have ads that detract from the reader and make them want to run from your blog.
#4: Is your design functional?
Blog readers want to know about you, they want to know your story. Have you got your ‘My Story’ and ‘About Me, on your blog.
Navigation Bars – Is your navigation bar on the right side, left side, top or bottom of your blog. Books read from left to right so it makes sense to have our navigation bar at the top and on the left side. Eyetrack research has shown that our eyes are most often fixated on the upper left of the page. Only after looking at the top of the page do our eyes explore further down the page. It makes sense then to put your navigation bar top and left of your blog.
Take a look at other blogs to give you an idea of want you want your blog to be. While you are looking, write down what you like and don’t like. Then and only then change your blog or get your web-designer to do it. It will be worth it.
I’m off to do this myself to this blog.
Introduction of Search Engine Optimization
Posted on 12. Aug, 2009 by admin in search engine optimization
SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization”, and is the process of designing, building, and promoting a website with the search engines in mind. The purpose is to rank well in the search engines, which will then in turn provide you with organic search engine traffic. Organic traffic means free traffic.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is very important if you ever want to gain decent rankings in the search engine. Even though the word “SEO” can sound intimidating, actually applying it to your blog is not as hard as it sounds. All you have to do is invest some time in the beginning into learning the basics, and soon your blog will be better than many others out there, simply because you have done what the search engines want – SEO.
SEO is not only the initial design of a website, but the promotion as well.
Before I go any further, I would like to talk a bit about the many advantages of SEO, and why you absolutely need to apply it to your websites or blogs
The Advantages of SEO:
- Free Traffic
- Makes your website more “friendly”
- A lot people don’t do it!
- It will increase your profits
As you can see there are several reasons why you should be doing SEO.
Before we start tackling SEO, I would like to first talk a bit about how search engines work. It is very important that you know the basics of how they work, because SEO is essentially all about doing what we can to please the search engines.
Search engines gather data from any website they can find. Search engines send out little helpers called “spiders” and they crawl the net, putting their webs out and gather and store information about everything that they find. The search engines then rank the websites in order of importance, based on a variety of factors. They also penalize and reward websites, based on what they find.
Important factors include:
- Number of quality of backlinks
- Freshness of content
- Uniqueness of content
- “Authority” status
- Age
Our goal then, is to provide the search engines with a website or blog that the spiders have determined to be valuable. That way we can achieve a high ranking which will in turn bring us traffic.
