Design My Own Website

Posts Tagged ‘get traffic to your website’

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Are you struggling to find ways to capture your reader’s attention with your articles or blog posts ? Here is a really easy and quick method to educate yourself on great copy writing and attention grabbing headlines.

This is going to be a really quick post because it is an idea I have been playing with and wanted to let you in on.

First, the golden rule:

Include your keywords in your title of your article and post. This is a “given” for many internet marketers not so much for usability sake but for search engine sake. Search engines put a lot of weight on the title of the page.

The Method:

That being said, here’s the method to try out. You may sometimes need to put the golden rule aside. And that is this: learn by example.

Sure you already knew that

Web Design 101: Learning By Example Is One Of The Fastest Ways To Educate Yourself

How do you do it? Check out eBay auctions. Because eBay is so competitive with so many auctions that people are just dying to get your attention.

And the auction titles are limited in character length.

So read through a list of auction titles, figure out which ones catch your eye and why and then apply that to your Article Headline.

Combine that with searching article directories (like ezinearticles.com and goarticles.com) and search for your keyword and see what articles come up. Go through the same exercise: why are some article titles popping out to your more than others?

Learn by example.

And in no time at all you will have great article titles and blog posts for when you build your own website.

Many people are drawn to the internet for making money.  Why?  Because you hear about stories all the time of people opening website businesses up and online business up and making a lot of money.

Making money online is one of the "easiest" ways to earn an income.

Well, it’s partially true.  It is not “easy”, it takes some time, but compared to a regular store front it definitely takes a lot less money.  For someone willing to work hard, online business is a great way to earn income. However, to do so, you need to know some rules and tips.
To be successful you need a product or service that people actually want; either your own or someone else’s.  This is a big key.  And with web user psychology, you have to think about if it is worth their time to buy your product or whether they can find it elsewhere for free. People will pay for quality content and for convenience.  Instead of having to waste time searching and compiling the info they may just decide your product will work best or them.

Before you start building your web site, research to discover what people are looking for and what they really want.

•    Brainstorm ideas part 1: Think about what you yourself shop for
•    Brainstorm ideas part 2: Think about what the world at large shops for.  Alexa.com is a great site for hot topics and hot products
•    Do your keyword research so you know what search phrases to target.  Google’s keyword tool is excellent for this.
•    Check out the competition part 1:  Check out the competition for that certain product.  It needs to be enough to know it’s a good market, but not overwhelming that your website may get lost.
•    Check out the competitino part 2: Determine SEO efforts: even if there are a lot of competing websites, you just need to get onto the first page of Google.  So figure out the SEO efforts you may need to put forth to do that.
•    Check out the competition part 3: Determine your sales point and if you want to have affiliates.  Having a strong sales page and strong sales means you can attract affiliates to sell your product for you.

Here are your steps:

•    Decide on a niche that you’re interested in and that there’s a demand for, one that doesn’t have a too much competition but enough to know people are spending money in this market.
•    Produce a lot of quality content for your website.  It not only has to be good quality but also SEO optimized for your keyword phrases.
•    Build web pages full of useful, original content and turn your site into an authority in its niche.
•    Build backlinks to your site to get more traffic.

An online business is like any business: it requires consistent effort and dedication.

Then keep repeating those last steps.  Continue to produce great content.  Continue to build backlinks to your site.

Once you have a great website and traffic coming in, you have some credibility and from there it is a matter of offering a product for sale.  Do not tie yourself to one product, but add several different monetizations to your site.

For example you can offer:
•    Your own products
•    Other people’s products
•    Your own coaching services
•    Advertising such as GoogleAdsense

Sure it sounds easy, but the key to succeeding is perseverance and commitment.  This is something you definitely need to treat as your own business. You need to work on it every day. You cannot expect everyone to buy.  It is a numbers game so you need to get a lot of traffic and then from there get people to want to come back to your site.  From there, it’s a matter of having great sales copy to increase your conversions of traffic to sales.

Success depends on doing each of these steps well. If you’re motivated and you work on it every day, your website will become a great online business for you to make money online.  So you want to build my own website for an online business? Yes it is possible.  Go for it!

What good is a website if it does not get any traffic?  Did you know some of the websites that earn the most money actually look a bit crappy?  Why is this? Because internet marketing is the key.  You need traffic, and from there it’s a numbers game.  This article is a brief overview of internet marketing.

If your website doesn't get traffic, then what good is it?

When I first got into designing websites, I was pretty proud of myself for putting together very nifty websites.  Then I learned more about web usability and web psychology and it knocked me over.  (For more info on that, check “Web Pages That Suck“).  But then my clients started getting upset because they would say they would Google even their own names and nothing would come up.
The solution?

Internet marketing and SEO.

That is when I started becoming a student of internet marketing.

These days, I do not spend as much time with website design.  In fact many of my sites are build on WordPress.  Instead, I build very functional sites and spend the rest of my time on marketing.

That being said, there are so many internet marketing possibilities for promoting an online business. Following is a simple explanation of some of the most common ?internet marketing options that you can use to promote and get traffic to your website, blog, and online business.

Article Marketing

This is the most conmon way and is a convenient way, especially for bloggers or any other website that produces articles and blog posts on a regular basis.  What you do is take that blog post or article and then submit it to an article directory.  In the author resource box of that article, you then put a link back to your website.  This works great because when people read your article, they can then see the link to your website.  This works even better because search engines will also see links to your website and rank you higher.
The more article directories you submit to, the better.  Just to get you started, three of the best are: ezinearticles.com, buzzle.com, and goarticles.com

Forum Marketing

Consistent effort with internet marketing will get traffic to your website

There are likely many forums out there related to your online business. So why not be a contributing member?  Most forums let you put a link to your website in your signature and in your forum profile.  So you get backlinks to your site right away.  But in addition with your thoughtful posts, people are more likely to visit your website.
Directory Listings
Directories are a lot like search engines, only listings in the directories are managed and ranked by people rather than by automated, electronic means. Many directories ?accept directory listings free of charge, so they can be an inexpensive and effective form of internet marketing.  For search engines, you also are able to get additional backlinks but submitting your site to a directory.  Dmoz.org is the most popular.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a must for just about any business.  Why?  Because then you have access to your website visitors to come back.  If, for example, the search engines change their algorithms and you no longer appear on the front page, you have your mailing list to write to.  Think about it as repeat traffic.  What you do is when someone visits your website, get them to send you their email address. You then put them on your mailing list.  Most often you want to offer an incentive such as a free report or ebook for joining your mailing list.  From there, you need to make sure your mailing list provides a valuable service with great content and also plugs for helpful products.

Ezine Advertising

Ezine advertising, as an internet marketing option, is a lot like advertising in a magazine; only the “magazine” is delivered to subscribers electronically rather than through the mail. By placing an ad in an Ezine, many readers will become aware of your website.
Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing

Pay-per-click search engine marketing is one of the most successful forms of internet marketing. Basically, pay-per-click search engine advertising is a process whereby you bid on ?specific keywords that will direct targeted traffic to your website. Google Adwords is the most popular Pay-Per-Click marketing resource.  Have you ever searched for something in Google and saw ads appear?  Those are Google Adwords ads.  You target specific keywords and then you tell Google how much you can afford to pay.  They will figure out where and when to place your ads.  You do NOT pay until someone clicks on your ads.

Social Bookmarking

In the old days, people bookmarked websites they liked in their browsers.  Then came the idea of “Social bookmarking”.  These are websites which allow you to “bookmark online” so to speak.  So you can share your bookmarks with many other people.  This has now become a source for many internet marketers to add backlinks to their own websites.  There are many social bookmarking sites.  You should check out socialmarker.com as that is a semi-automated tool to let you post your website URL to many social bookmarking sites at once.

Those are six very tried and true ways to get traffic to your website.

So try some of these internet marketing tips. Just remember to put out consistent and constant effort and you will see your website traffic grow!

Kind of a “bane of my existence” for many online entrepreneurs. This question happened to come from someone running a dating website. The question was on http://answers.yahoo.com (where I seem to be hanging out a lot). Here was my answer for him which he chose as the best answer:

You didn’t post a link to your website so I couldn’t take a look, but people who come to your website probably are not interested in clicking on your ads. One thing about adsense is people know they are ads and maybe they’re more interested in dating and meeting people.

I’d suggest finding a few products you can sell (affiliates products) that may be of interest to your users. Something about how to pick up women, etc.. etc..

Also find ways to market your site for free without paying adwords because than you can get organic traffic instead of adwords traffic. There are a lot of resources for this. Search for how to generate backlinks… examples like
1) submit articles to article directories with link back to site
2) answer dating questions on answers.yahoo.com with link to site (if applicable, don’t want to get banned)
3) social bookmarking
4) if you have a for pay product (like a membership), create a generous affiliate program
5) hold some sort of event for your forum users, maybe local events? And advertise it in the events section on craigslist

Those were some of the ideas I posted to him.

The thing with adsense is you need to have a site where people will want to click on the ads. In this case, a relationship site, you have an end product. Why would people want to click away from a relationship site? They want to find a relationship. The only reason they would buy something is something that will increase the likelihood of them getting a relationship such as a membership fee with increased features (ala classmates.com) or possibly an ebook, something about now that you have a successful first date, what do you do next?

People do definitely click on the ads though – as this online businessman found out because he definitely was getting the clicks (and paying for it), but then trying to make money on adsense alone from that would be very tough.

If you are going for adwords, make sure you have a sellable end product and not just an adsense site.

Good luck!