Web Traffic and Leads

Marketing with Digg

We’ve come quite a ways with our discourse concerning web traffic generation for our web sites and leads production methods for our businesses. Once again, we’ll assist in opening doors and creating opportunities to produce business success. Let’s move our conversation towards a web site that enjoys quite a bit of popularity. I’m talking about Digg. Sure I know you thought I would mention one of my popular web pages like my free software downloads page. (lol). But we’ll stick with Digg for our message today as it can become one of the most powerful tools in your marketing toolbox if you were to take full advantage of it’s attributes.

Getting started is easy, just sign up for a free account and download their software and your’re ready to start Digging. Now when you land on a web page you like, you simply click the button the result being that you are “digging the web page”, letting the website know you like their web page. It’s just that simple.

A social oriented web site, Digg helps people find and share interesting content from anywhere on the worldwide web. Submitting links and passing on stories to be commented or voted upon is part of the activity. Referring back to previous marketing techniques we’ve discussed, Digg could be the best way to to utilize all of them. The more visitors that Digg a webpage and the corresponding website, (hopefully your website), the more popular it becomes. Assisting getting a website seen by more users, can snowball to more and more exposure. As you know the more exposure equals more traffic, meaning better for you and your business. Even if you are the only person Digging your website, that still gives you the opportunity that it may pick up other Diggers and become more popular. At the very least you get a strong backlink from a a highly ranked website. That alone is worth a little effort.

Therefore here’s a good example.

1. First lets go to www.digg.com.

2. At the home page you might see the pages that have been dug so far today. It’s one of the web sites that will allow a user like yourself to make your web pages available ro all. You’d want your page to be attractive to others so they will like it and Digg it.

3. It behooves you to encourage friends or associates of yours to make web pages also and to start Digging. The better you do the more encouraging to add other web pages promoting your business interests and giving a big boost to your website traffic. On this blog post, I’m promoting giving away marketing, SEO and webmaster free software downloads. it helps my business and gets my foot in the door with new web visitors and potential customers. Use some of these techniques and build your business.

Till next week, John

Offline Advertising

In our session today we’ll move away from our online comfort zone and discuss offline promotion, and how we can utilize it to bring traffic and sales to our web sites and business. Making use of offline advertising opportunities for our online business is typically an under exploited strategy that if done right can produce very profitable results with little competition from online competitors. For centuries there wasn’t any online/offline choices of doing business so all advertising and promotion was offline. it’s where business and it’s promotion was created. Look around and you’ll notice how small of a percentage of online businesses take advantage of offline advertising. The facts are, offline advertising can be very effective regardless if your business is primarily local, regional or national. Since online promotional processes are restricted to the Internet they lack the physical aspects of advertising. In some cases potential customers show a preference for dealing with real people and what they might perceive as a more real business.

Think of a product like software that can produce business leads for online or offline businesses. A two pronged online/offline approach can double your sales production or more.

Now if you’re just getting started with your web business you should concentrate your efforts online and probably leave the offline stuff for later on, though you don’t have to restrict yourself. Offline competiton can be every bit as fierce if not moreso than web marketing. Now in previous posts we’ve talked a lot about free sources to promote your business online along with some that require a monetary investment. Offline advertising primarily requires a capital investment that can be quite expensive. Newspapers, magazines, billboards and other offline advertising can be much more costly than many of the online sources we’ve discussed. You might find some bargains purchasing ads in local newspapers. Having good online and offline advertising strategies can be very effective and
with promotions on both the online and physical business worlds can attract
business from both sources. For example lets say one category for your business leads software are those that need insurance leads and would like to contact business owners. This is a type of lead that is highly sought after by both online and offline insurance sales people.

Now let me be honest right up front. Some web marketers have tried doing
offline marketing and had great success, on the other hand some have failed
miserably. But don’t let that dissuade you from giving it a try if you have a product or service that you think can attract customers from both areas. Offline advertising won’t produce SEO beneficial results, but it can get your brand in front of a whole new audience that can lead to more sales and traffic to your web site.

Common sense is a must and take the time to think out a good promotional strategy to target your prospects just as you would online. Again thinking about our business leads software example, you want to get your ads in front of insurance agents looking for insurance leads, or telecom equipment salesmen looking for business owners (telecom leads), that need telecom services, etc.. Take a peek at what all kinds of promotional materials and advertising that’s available to you offline. Learn about the best and most cost effective ways to utilize what appears will work best for you and your products or services and make the best of these advertising techniques in your offline marketing efforts.
Just like online, a little bit of trial and error may be needed to get to the best offline advertising for your business.

Till next week, John

Advertising at Ezines

Right now I’d like to speak to you or anyone regarding Newsletter advertising via ads in Ezines. Ezines are the web forms representing newsletters these days. Usually utilized by internet sites to update and keep in touch with site visitors, customers and clients. An example is say you are a serious web marketer and want to use video on your web sites, you would probably look for a web host that specializes in providing video hosting to its web masters. They are hard to find, which means you have to get the word out that the hosting you offer is a big step ahead of the vast majority of web hosts. Naturally Ezines are employed to write reports and keep readers updated on the Ezines topic, advertising and other varieties of data subscibers are interested in. Consequently the reality is men and women like to subscribe for all sorts of reasons and a variety of mailings. Currently the real key to finding site visitors and attracting them to our web sites using Ezines can be accomplished by simply sending to the Ezine or newsletter ads via email concerning your theme, product, or topic of interest. Considering that nearly all Ezines and Newsletters welcome advertising your ads are well received and can be directed toward several ezines and newsletters if that’s your strategy.

You may also spend cash to have your website promoted within these Ezines and some Nesletters. But there are plenty of opportunities that provide free access to get your message out. Prices may differ from one Newsletter or Ezine to the next one with respect of course to the quantity and quality of readership and subscribers the Ezine has. Many of the Ezines that charge for ads include a number of different advertiseing choices, depending on where the actual placement of ads within the publication and size of promotion. All other things being equal, location, just like with real estate is the prime factor in ad success. For individuals who tend to be absolutely serious about starting their own website or Internet business, several Ezine or Newsletter solo ads as a strategy is a good way to get recognition and attract targeted visitors. Of course purchasing an entire page of a single Ezine or Newsletter may produce similar results, though of course much costlier for the singe large ad rate.

You can begin simply by searching the Ezines which correctly targets your marketplace. After finding the potential Newsletters on your topic, in our example; video hosting and inputting your location at your chosen Ezines, it is possible to determine if there are many people already there who’ll possibly read your ads. It is possible to discover potential customers simply by inputting key phrases within search engines. Therefore as soon as we’ve seen all of the Ezines available, we can seek to find the best Newsletters to market our products or services upon. Perhaps we are able to additionally attempt evaluating the most effective pricing in order to maximize our advertising value while staying within our busget. Additionally it is crucial to see the actual newsletter’s conditions and terms, this particular data provides you with a good understanding about the websites advantages as well as client base.

By means of this system and a sufficient budget, we could commence today withour own Ezine advertising and marketing strategy and promote our own web pages like my video hosting web page. Thus considering that we have been previously signed up at our chosen Ezine web site, we do our research to determine it’s an effective Ezine to invest our time and money at. Yes, it can be challenging to do all the advance work, but good research makes for a better employment of a good advertising strategy. Thus when it is possible to locate a very trustworthy Ezine publication, commence advertising and marketing as soon as you’ve determine it’s worthy. Ezines are usually one of the better approaches to create a lot more revenue and also absolutely a lot more targeted traffic to our web site.

Till next week, John

Link Exchanges

Becoming a member of one or more link exchange programs could be a great way to get lots of back links for your site. It’s another area where you can submit your link to derive search engine optimization (SEO), benefits.

These hyperlink exchange programs are in fact composed of the confederation associated with websites which operate like web rings. This happens whenever webmasters sign-up their sites to some central business formation that operates the exchange to ensure they may receive back-links. So because of its complex framework and style, joining link exchanges might cost money although there are several sites available that provide services free of charge. In the many cases, this isn’t the scenario.

So, what these types of link trade programs accomplish is to regulate the entire linking procedure by avoiding the normal two-way trade, which most search engines, like Google don’t care for. Unless you desire to get submitted and end up rgetting penalized, whenever possible the choice is to be using the three-way linking procedure. So essentially, the procedure begins whenever you will connect to one person after which in turn that individual will connect to someone else, the procedure is finished when that third person will link back to you, thus the three-way connecting program. So the object is whenever possible to avoid the 2 way hyperlink.

So if you are thinking about looking into and trying this method, better learn the entire process first. Given the basic information within joining hyperlink exchange organizations, you’ll have a fundamental understanding on its inner workings. So my personal suggestion is by using this technique meticulously you can derive good SEO benefits when you submit your link. This process is among the better simple back-link generating techniques for your website. Chances tend to be, if your website is high-quality with good content then you’ll attract high quality sites that want to echange links with your web sites utilizing the 3 way method. High quality sites also need and seek out good back links. Prior to trying this out as well as before making any investment of your time and money, you might want to take an objective look first as well as make a genuine judgment on your own if it appears that it’ll work for you personally. You may want to do a link exchange search within the search engines and type in the niche your business is in, “cooking recipes” for an example. Then attempt to review the entire process of the linking plans you find. You may also run across honest evaluations on becoming a member of link exchanges. So take a look, and maybe you will discover yourself benefitting by joining in one of these simple programs at some point.

Till next week, John

Video Web Hosting

Good marketing starts with great web hosting

People serious about web marketing have to get their own domain and hosted web site. Now I know there are a few businesses you can work with where you don’t need to promote your own domain, but for long term web marketing success you’ve got to direct your efforts to promoting your own business interests and yourself.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), will seldom if ever organically move to the first pages of a search engine a replicated web page from an MLM, network marketing, or affiliate site that may be passed out by the 1,000′s.

By having your own domain, you can simply make a “go between” page for any product or business. Then you promote your page and do your SEO work directed to your page and from your page you link to the replicated web page provided to you. It’s simple, www.yourdomain.com/productname or www.yourdomain.com/businessname. It’s just that simple. On your page you place a little good content about the business or product your promoting and include links on your page to the sales page or other replicated page.

Here are a couple examples of mine. Instant Lead Magnet, Business Leads Miner, Impact Web Audio. Now these are hyperlinks to my pages I’ve created for these softwares. If your were to just type the names into Google search, 9example type in instant lead magnet), or the other names mentioned and you’ll find them typically on the first page. Sometimes you’ll find more than one of my links there on the first page. How do you know which is mine? The ad links that start with mimbiz.com, or one of my blogs like webtrafficandleads.com. The idea is to promote and do all your SEO work on your pages from your domain. Promoting any of your pages helps your entire domain and you get your pages to the front of the search engines where you can benefit.

Now, that’s just a short lesson on SEO that let’s you know I walk the walk. I could show several more examples of products I promote and keyword search terms also, but let’s get back to web hosting, the topic of this post.

All I do is made possible by having good web hosting. If you don’t have a good host that keeps your site up and provides the tools and scripts to make your webmaster tasks simple and easy to do, then the whole idea collapses. Your effectiveness suffers and no one likes to have hassles to deal with needlessly. When choosing a web host look for attributes mentioned below.

Uncompromising Integrity. Something I personally strive to provide and an attribute I look for from those I do business with.

Commitment to quality support available 24/7.

Uptimes in the 99% range. No one is perfect, but close to it is possible.

True Video Hosting I’m not talking about the ability to post video hosting sites like YouTube videos. Anyone can do that. I mean to host and post your own videos on your pages. Many supposedly “unlimited” hosting plans don’t allow you to host any media on your sites other than images and many limit the size of image you can upload. If you have your own WordPress blog, just click on Add New Post, then click on an Add Media icon,(Upload/Insert), like to add an image, or other media file and see how large it says you can upload. My old hosting I was with for almost 8 years only allowed 2 MB uploads and no hosted video or audio files. This supposedly was a plan that is advertised as ” Unlimited Storage Space, Unlimited Bandwidth, Unlimited Domains, Unlimited Email Accounts, my sqls. etc., etc. Unlimited Everything”

Wow! Was I disappointed to find out the truth when I tried to host a video myself and load it into a blog post. When I confornted them about my “Unlimited” plan and not being able to host & upload a single 1 minute and 20 second video. They sent me a fine print paragraph hidden away deeply within their knowledge base that mentioned I could not store any video or audio media on my account.

That sent me shopping and researching for a new host. I thought my search would be short, but it took several months to find a good video hosting company. Whe I found one, the best part of all, the prices they charge are extremely reasonable and in many cases less than hosts that don’t allow media storage on your accounts. Video hosting plans start at only $2.49 a month! by the way, I can upload 500MB files on my blogs now.

Now you might say you like the benefits of video hosting sites like YouTube, Dailymotion, or others similar for the viral benefits. I like and utilize them also, but on my own pages I like exclusive control of my visitors. I do a lot of hard work to get people to my pages to see my videos. I don’t like that when a video ends, my visitors are then offered a variety of videos from other people. Quite often it’s people I don’t know competing with me selling the same product. If nothing else, these other videos are distracting and as we know, distraction and keeping a visitor focused is one of the biggest problems we have marketing on the Internet.

So by being able to host your own videos you can post them to the video hosting sites for their benefit in addition to keeping exclusive control by hosting them yourself on your own web pages. By the way, my video web host even supplies free software & scripts to create your own video hosting sites just like YouTube and others.

So shop around, do your due diligence and find quality web hosting for yourself that fits your needs and budget and accomplishes the desires you have to be successful with your business.

Till next week, John

Networking Power

This is our tutorial about how to bring in more visitors to our own web pages. We have discussed numerous important training topics already in the past weeks. But there is certainly much more to look at as we move forward. Obviously you will find many more techniques and methods about our subject today if you look around for them. Today’s lesson is going to be about connecting with people by building networks and contact relations with others. Networking with other people especially in the realm of your own strengths is a terrific way to build your own base as well as your social and business connections.

 Many tend to believe that simply because we are conducting business on the Internet we have been restricted and boxed-in to the limits of the virtual globe. Exactly like what the majority of company slogans inform us, there’s much more out there to discover, even if this means that all of us venture out from the comforts of our own home to find our own personal surroundings filled with people within the sales and marketing field who we deal with that have similar topics of interest. Our training for today implores us to look beyond the obvious to get to the actual frontlines.

For instance if your website is promoting lead generation software you might want to take the additional time to discover the correct locations at which the targeted prospects are hanging out and interact with them there. So creating and expanding your business network will certainly help you in your own goal of effective promotion of your own products as well as increasing traffic to your web pages. If you understand networking you might be aware that many networking groups offer webinars, seminars or discussion board meetings. These communications avenues provide you a great chance where you can speak up and bring attention to your products and web sites. Becoming a part of these communication forums and business activities allows you to make friends within your network of people who may be of assisrance to you out later on. And we obviously don’t wish to do away with the genuine friendships that may be built by our efforts. Of course he absolute best time for you to find true friends is when you aren’t looking for them. But by building and possessing a genuinenetwork, it may take you to a higher level of relationship building.

So the main point of our tutorial today would be for you to reach out and engage others whenever you can.  So your own products as well as your web pages can be essential assets with regard to referral use. Your primary tool within networking ought to be the relationships and friendships brought about by your efforts. Most will certainly agree that benefits arrive after sincere initiatives and efforts to listen to and make contact with others. So by then with concentrated research efforts you can communicate with people and learn all sorts of things about how best to marketyour lead generation software to your market. So because you promote lead generation software you might consider other likely outlets like offline lead users as well as socializing with people further strengthening your network. Perhaps you could offer lead generation webinars giving away free software downloads as an incentive and when possible take the opportunity to sign up at forums with regard to Internet business and lead needs of marketers. So the advantage of networking may only become summarized ultimately as good buddies, and a flourishing business not to mention a boat load of ready and willing customers waiting around on the Internet as well as directing targeted traffic toward your site. Such may be the power associated with networking.

Till next week, John

Marketing with Torrents

Regarding today I will be introducing you to another creative way to promote your product or bring more traffic to your website. We are going to do that by folowing along with the torrents flow. Although this is a somewhat unique plan of attack to obtaining more web traffic to our web sites I certainly want to recommend you take a look at this method and test it to see if it works for you personally. Torrents are files that store metadata that are typically used in BitTorrent technologies. A torrent file might incorporate URLs of various trackers and extensions used in the BitTorrent application.

Many would rather be utilizing BitTorrent because it provides users with the ability to transfer files quicker while minimizing bandwidth usage. Different from alternative download techniques available, using this technology increases download speed by grabbing various segments of the downloadable file from a variety of different sources on the web that already have the file. Because of this more efficient download method, torrents have been associated with all kiinds of illegal downloading including that of music, applications and videos. Now we do not want to violate any rules and kill our treasured creations with this download function. So we’ll create and upload our offering legally in the form of torrents. An example would be if we were selling lead generation software, we could write a free lead generation report as a PDF file Ebook and create a torrent file for it. By doing this interested parties can download our torrent file on the Internet. One of the astounding facts concerning torrents is that potential downloaders are inclined to make the assumption that your free report actually has substantial value like being worth $100 or more even though you created it with full intention of just giving it away.

Although our discussion here doesn’t explain all the details of utilizing torrents because of my limited knowledge at this time of their use. The idea of making you aware of torrents with some of the basic concepts about them should wet your interest in your possible use of torrents in your marketing efforts. So now you are aware of torrents, create yourself a file, do a little SEO, compress it and get it out there for download.

Utilizing a good application and methods, you might be pleasantly surprised how many downloads like the lead generation software report I mentioned or a report you might have for your offering. A good ebook will attract interested parties who have a hunger for good info. Once they download, odds are they will give your links a look. And all of a sudden you have a nice increase in traffic to your links. The challenge for newbies to torrents is to find the eight niches that are related to the more popular torrents used on the web. With the right combination you might make a lot of money while bringing in the traffic you want and need for a profitable web site.

Till next week, John

Web Ad Space Purchasing

In this weeks discourse we’ll talk about purchasing ad space to generate traffic
to our web pages and attract business. When talking about paying for ad space to
bring in business you’ve made a decision that you want more than just a free
ad strategy. Ads placed in the right locales can produce good targeted traffic,
but before you start buying ads, some research is in order to truly target your
success.

Let’s consider you were to have a dog grooming products web site. Finding high
traffic web sites to buy your ads is as simple as running a search for Dogs.
Pick out some of the top web sites in the category, then look into the cost of
advertising at these web sites. Though you’re always taking a risk, your chances
of making some sales is reasonably good if you place good effective ads on high
traffic targeted web sites.

You should find similar results as with most business speculations, that
profits usually correspond to the level of effort expended. First thing is to take care
in designing and planning ad layouts and presentation. The best well thought out
presentations typically produce the best results. Taking short cuts in ad
creation and presentation will usually produce inferior results. So best practices and
maybe a little bit of luck can generate a profitable situation for your investments
and efforts. More traffic generated producing more sales equates to more profit
which is the obvious outcome we seek and accomplishing this mission is the results
sought by all entreprenuers.

As far as purchasing costs for ad space goes, it’s going to be just as things
usually are. In most cases you’ll get what you pay for. In other words, the more
you spend the better response you’ll probably get, but not in all cases. So do
your research and choose wisely and always think about the targeted traffic
you’re interested in attracting as the primary concern.

A key component to consider is the 20/80 rule for your ad campaigns. Look only
at the top 20% of good advertisiers for your ad purchase as these advertisers
will typically produce 80% of the traffic you seek to achieve your goals. The Pareto
principal is effective when making ad campaign decisions. The vast majority of your
potential audience will be surfing and can be found at that top 20% of
advertising sources.

Some exceptional web sites to check out in relation to this ad placing subject
would be www.USfreeads.com and www.upfrontmedia.asia among several sites worth
checking out online via a search engine search. Common sense and following the
easy steps mentioned here will assist you to target your
success.

Till next week, John

Web Directory Submissions

Our discussion this week is on submitting to directories. A good directory submission strategy brings back links to your web site almost instantly. There is no shortage of directories that will display your web site links for free. Now all you do here is positive as far as I’m concerned, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you want to submit your links or submit your ads to all directories. If you were to just submit your links to the top 20% directories you’ll more than adequately accomplish your mission. So let’s get on with our
message.

Submitting to web directories is a surefire strategy to generate some traffic to your web sites. And the importance of additional backlinks is a plus. No question that a good directory submission strategy is one of the simplest methods to get good one way backlinks. DMOZ is one of the most popular directories to submit to. It’s also refered to as Open Directory Project. It’s the largest web directory of this kind you’ll find. Bing is another huge directory and having links at these directories are definitely benficial. I provide a free web directory for the benefit of readers called Webcatch. Go ahead and add your link to it. It only takes a minute.

So the first thing to do is to go and submit your links to these directories. Now the big directories may or may not accept your links, but you don’t know unless you try. That’s a small risk and the submission don’t take much time and is worth the effort. If you’re lucky, some visitors might place your link on their sites adding to your backlink benefits. So go ahead and jump in with some submissions, The potential benefits far outweigh the chance of rejection and it’s one of those things where you only do the work once and can benefit forever.

Some other directories to try out, Web World Index, JoeAnt.com and Resource Zone. Go take a peek at them. A quick and easy way to make directory submissions is to use software that does most of the work for you. I give away one of these softwares on my software page. Just scroll down the left column to Directory Submitter. Download it, click the “?” button for directions on use. It’s a full version, not a trial and you can use and keep it forever. You can submit to a couple hundred directories with it and add as many additional directories as you like. So Personally I suggest using the software, check your results and if necessary manually submit to any other directories to get the quality backlinks you desire.

Another part of this strategy would be to search particular keyword terms such as “dog grooming”, “weight loss”, etc., whatever applies to your niche and seek out directories or other web sites that allow posting your ads and links. The more effort you give, the more benefit you derive. So get out there and submit your links.

If you want your own web directory for free where you can generate leads check out my Webcatch Web Directory.

Till next week, John

StumbleUpon

This week we have a new topic pertaining to bringing traffic to our websites. This web site is quite different than the marketing methods, and tools we’ve already discussed in our ongoing conversation. We’ll be learning about developing large amounts of new traffic to our web sites utilizing a clever strategy to use a web site called StumbleUpon.com. StumbleUpon is a popular location these days on the Internet. Anyone can go to StumbleUpon and sign up for their own new free account. You’ll find this is an extremely easy to use tool. After registering you just download and install their toolbar onto your website. Your work is done.

It could be you’d like to promote a page of yours like this Business Leads Miner web page of mine.

This strategy is ready for launch as soon as you’ve installed the toolbar. Now whenever you come across a website you find interesting and attractive, you just click the button and that web site is automatically marked as what’s called “stumbling upon”. So what have you accomplished by choosing a web site as worthy of “stumbling Upon”? Well it sends the web site to the StumbleUpon database where others will now know the site is worth visiting. What else could you ask for to promote a site, but an introduction to the masses?

This creates a good situation for other people to check out these web sites and if they like it, they just do the same thing, click the button and the web site is further promoted to others as the positive votes add up. The more votes, the more popular a web site becomes. It’s a “snowball rolling down the hill” effect. So
the strategy is to create an account and start the snowball rolling for your web site. You just “stumble upon it” yourself accumulating points. It’s a simple way to create some traffic for your web site.

Next step in our strategy is to encourage friends of your to “stumble upon” your web site. The more exposure the better and adding a StumbleUpon.com link to your web site is a great help that will increase traffic even more. The more sites you have and employ this strategy, the better it works for you.

So why not? If you want an easy way to generate some traffic for a web page of yours like my business leads miner web page. This a is an excellent way to do that. If you have something simple like this technique that produces some trasffic for your web sites you’d be crazy not to put it to work for you. I suggest you give StumbleUpon a try an d with a little bit of luck, who know, You may be pleasantly surprised on the traffic it creates for you.

Till Next week, John