HuaiYangRen

I have gone through a lot of courses on online business and traffic generation models, and still found myself failing miserably at it repeatedly! I simply couldn’t see myself making those “golden figures” that all the internet business “gurus” seemed to be boasting about! So what did they know extra that I didn’t?

And then I wondered if these internet “gurus” would really reveal ALL their success formulas to other budding entrepreneurs! I came to the logical conclusion that they wouldn’t! While they do provide several good techniques for generating traffic towards your website, they keep the good stuff to themselves – viz. the biggest traffic generation secret!

Drawbacks Of The Usual Methods

There are some very common drawbacks with most of the traffic generation tips offered by the most successful money-making tycoons on the internet! Let’s take the example of targeted traffic acquired through pay-per-click programs. In this kind of program, it is true that you get quality web traffic your way, but the disadvantage is that you are paying a very high price for that traffic – at times as much as $5 per click! In addition, there is absolutely no guarantee that this method would give you a certain minimum percentage of “conversion.” I mean, what if your competitors started clicking on those “pay-per-click” ads?

As for search engine optimization – agreed that you can do a basic level of SEO on your website on your own, without having to pay “professionals” for it, but, it requires a lot of hard work and grind – with all that keyword research, analysis and implementation! There is a similar problem with article submissions too. Either you spend all your time in writing articles for free ezines and directories, or, if you are not very creative, you pay money to outsource the job. Surely, there must be a better way of traffic generation than these! As a matter of fact, there is!

Joint Venture Partnerships

This is the best traffic generation method; especially if you are new in this field. Tap on the customer lists of all those “successful” internet entrepreneurs! Rather than starting on your own “list building” from scratch, form joint venture partnerships with other website owners who already have considerable sized lists! Offer them a good percentage of the profits and most of them will agree to your deal. Initially, it can be a bit difficult to convince them, but use a “scatter gun” approach. Contact as many people as you can; it costs nothing to do that, and they in turn don’t have to spend a penny to send an email to their list, promoting your products.

This was the one missing, and also the one most successful method of traffic generation, which all those internet “gurus” failed to mention in all their courses and books and videos. And this is the one method that worked for me. Let’s see if it works for you too!

Social bookmarking has revolutionized the way business is done on the Web. Yes, the Web has indeed changed. Just fifteen years ago the internet was nothing like it is today. There was no internet marketing, at least not the way we know it today. There was a time when selling on the internet was a taboo. It was there primarily as a means of communication and looking for information. But all that changed for the better, the day some brave marketers saw the marketing potential of the net. They came forward and seized the opportunity. There has been no turning back since then.

Web 2.0 and Social Bookmarking

Over the years the marketers have had to adapt to the changes that the net has undergone. That is the only way to survive in any medium or market. Otherwise they will soon fall by the wayside and die a slow death. They instead chose to follow the dictum, ‘While in Rome do as the Romans do’. The traditional way of doing marketing is slowly dying a natural death. The need of the hour is to adapt and change. The Web 2.0 and social bookmarking are the harbingers of that change.

Social bookmarking is an integral part of the new ‘Participation Marketing’. Now you no longer need to shout your message at the top of your voice, and force it down the throat of unsuspecting people. All the other advertisement medias are in any case giving them enough of that. Now you conduct your business with dignity and élan. Now you let people have faith in your authority on the subject, service, or the product that you are promoting. Now you converse with people and understand their needs. Now you participate in discussions on subjects that other people are interested in. That is the extent to which we have had to adapt.

Why do some people resist social bookmarking? Making relationships and participating in meaningful conversations is not everyone’s cup of tea. You need to invest time and discipline in doing that. You need to really care about people to do that. Or at least show that you do care about them. In the short run, it is too much to do. In the long run, it pays more than you put into it. You can’t have a short term tunnel vision in the day of Web 2.0. The Web is moving and you need to move with it.

With this new social power linking, called social bookmarking, you have no other option but to adapt. Some people saw it coming before you did and they are already reaping the fruits of their foresight. They have an early mover advantage. This new way is not just a fad. Be very sure that this trend is here to stay.

Social bookmarking sites go a long way in promoting your website. They are one of the most popular tools available on the internet. They have very helpful features that can be utilized to improve your business. These sites allow you to store, organize, share and search your favorite bookmarks. Thus the internet users can access their bookmarks from just any computer, anywhere. This provides a lot of flexibility and ease. The bookmarks are organized using informal tags. This scores over the traditional system of browser based folders. You can use these sites to measure the popularity of your website vis-à-vis other websites of similar nature.

Uses Of Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites let you know the favorite bookmarks of a lot of people. Out here it becomes easy to learn new things as others have done the task of finding out the best sites for you. All you need to do is look. On these sites you can share your favorite web pages with your family and friends. Group accounts may be created to organize bookmarks for the benefit of the entire group. In today’s world where time is money, social bookmarking sites help you save time.

Social bookmarking sites have become very popular today. When you come on to their front page, you help increase traffic to your website. In a short period of time many inbound links will be created that lead to your site. These will be your link references. The popularity of your link will efficiently increase your ranking. Thus you end up with high inflow of traffic and increased popularity. What could be better than this?

Since you can share your bookmarks with like minded people, social bookmarking becomes a valuable tool in your kitty. It becomes an excellent marketing strategy. It is all about labeling the Web. That way it makes finding of content a lot easier. You find some good content and you pass it on to others looking for it. Your tag makes it profitable for you by getting interested visitors to your site. So it is a win-win situation for all.

Social bookmarking offers an excellent marketing venue. Specific bookmarking sites help your business grow. There are some topic specific sites that have come up of late. These make you approach a more targeted audience than ever before. You can write articles or stories and post these. Do not sound too promotional, but keep your business in mind while writing these. Eventually the people will read you stuff and click through your link. Once they reach your website, they will get to read your hard core promotional stuff.

In short, social bookmarking is a proven method of increasing traffic of potential customers to your website. But only those people really succeed who provide quality content. Your content should be worth bookmarking in the first place.

Being a regular user of the internet, you must be aware of the role of traffic generation in any online venture for making money. People come to you only when they get to know about you – that “such-and-such website exists for this particular product”! If nobody has heard of you, or is even aware of your existence, then chances are that nobody will come to you for business.

Just like in the traditional ways of doing business, you have to make use of the media and other resources to “spread the word around” about your business, similarly, you have to announce your “web presence” to the world too. In addition, while there are options for “paid advertising“ and ”directory listing” in the virtual world too, there are some free ways also that can be used for a good volume of traffic generation.

Search Engine Optimization

Make sure your website is somewhat optimized for the search engines. In other words, if a person searched for your product keyword, your site should be able to get one of the first 10 positions in the search results. You can do this yourself – just make sure that your main keywords are present in at least the page title, the main headings and subheadings, and a few more times across the rest of the website. This will ensure a heavy volume of organic traffic generation towards your website, consisting of people who are genuinely looking for your products.

Article Submission

There are hundreds of sites that allow you to submit any number of free articles to their database, with a referral link to your own website at the end. This is one of the most popular ways of free traffic generation. You write 10 keyword-rich, high-quality articles and submit them to 100 different websites, and attract free traffic from those sites.

Directory Listing

Many high-ranking websites all over the Internet, offer free directory-listing services to upcoming entrepreneurs. If you make some effort and submit your website to at least a 100 of such directories, it can assure you a pretty steady traffic generation after a period of time. Although this is a little slow process, you can still give it a try, because time is what you have in plenty, when you start a new business, as against money!

While there are other “free” ways too, for directing traffic towards your business, chances are that the traffic generated by those methods will have a very small percentage of a “potential customer base.” Most of the people visiting your site through those “channels” will be the ones who are simply looking for “free” stuff – “free information”, “freebies” – anything that is free. The above mentioned ways of traffic generation do require a bit of planning and hard work, but they can assure you of “serious” traffic, who are actually looking for your products or services with an intention of buying them.

The success and failure of different traffic generation methods keeps changing with times. Internet is a highly evolving and dynamic world. The way people are browsing the internet today has changed. The kind of information they seek nowadays has changed. Even their response mechanisms have changed! What worked 3 years ago, turns out to be a totally “flop show” in today’s times!

For example, mass-mailers used to be a highly successful method of traffic generation until sometime ago. But then people got completely fed up of receiving promotional emails every now and then! Besides, the stern anti-spam laws practiced today make it even more risky to indulge in this practice in the current times! So what are the ways that DO work today in generating a good volume of web traffic?

SEO

This is still the safest and the best way of traffic generation! And it is relatively inexpensive too! You can do a fairly acceptable optimization of your website for the search engines without any help from paid SEO professionals. Use the main keywords in your page title, subheadings and at a few more strategic places along the body text. Optimize each page to the specific product it deals with, following the principle of “one product per page”, and at the same time, also maintain a general keyword theme across the entire website. If the search engines consider your site worthy enough of holding one of the top 10 search positions, then the visitors will also feel the same and will automatically flock to you!

Articles

This another traffic generation method can assure you a lot of organic traffic. And this method is also relatively inexpensive. All you need to do is write good content focused, product specific, keyword rich articles, related to your line of business, and submit them to all the top-ranking free article directories. You will be allowed to include a link to your own product page at the end of these articles. So if your readers are impressed with your knowledge on the subject and how you presented it, they are sure to visit your website to know more! Moreover, if you aren’t comfortable with this art of “juggling with words,” then you can even outsource the job to someone else!

Blogs

Blogs and RSS Feeds are one of the latest trends in high-quality free traffic generation! Based along the lines of article marketing, blogs provide a more interactive medium for promoting your products. Seriously maintained and regularly updated blogs carry an emotional appeal to the readers, and RSS Feeds automate the task of informing readers about any updates.

It is always best to stay in tune with the current times. While some ways of traffic generation may have worked in the past, it is not necessary that the same holds true even now! So keep yourself updated with what’s working today and success will touch your feet!

If you have an online money-making venture, you know the importance of traffic generation. Traffic is the single most important requisite, after setting up any business, for the success or failure of it! Traffic determines the sales-volume and the revenue-generations, be it a “virtual” store or a “real shop.” No matter how good a product you may be offering, if the people don’t visit your store to check it out, there is no likelihood that they will buy it. So how do you generate more traffic towards your website?

1. Google Adword Or Pay-Per-Click
This is one of the “paid” techniques for traffic generation. However, you can be very sure that if you have a good product to sell, you can earn many times over what you spend on this service.

2. USFreeAds
If you cannot afford to “buy” ads, then you can also find some high-ranking websites that allow you to post free ads on many Google keywords. This super-cheap method of generating traffic towards your website can help you earn a lot of cash, if used properly.

3. Blogging
Blogging is perhaps one of the best ways to get a whole lot of organic traffic your way! Search engines love freshly-updated content, and free blog spaces, like Blogger and Wordpress, providing you a great platform to post keyword-rich content that can guarantee instant top positions in search results.

4. Article Marketing
Article marketing also provides a free method for traffic generation. You can write as many articles as you wish to, related to your products, and submit them to top article directories, with your affiliate/website link at the end. If the articles are well written, you instantly create a good “first impression” on your readers too.

5. Craigslists
Craigslist is one site that gets billions of page-views every month. Therefore, if you have posted an ad about your products on Craigslist, you are sure to get a massive exposure. Bottom-line: Worth the investment!

6. YouTube
YouTube is another very successful method for free traffic generation. If you can get a little creative, a video can reach out to many more people than a page full of text.

7. Squeeze Website.
If you know a bit of SEO, or if you have the money to hire SEO professionals to do the task for you, then you can easily set up your own website with a review of your products. Get the site optimized for your product and it will most certainly get a ranking high enough for considerable traffic generation.

While some of the above mentioned ways are paid methods of traffic generation, yet others can also get you free traffic. The trick is in how to use a combination of both types of methods – free and paid – to get you those miraculous figures for the “number of hits on your site”, which, in turn, means more sales!

Affordable SEO is of extreme importance in quality traffic generation. The right kind of traffic from the right kind of sources can do wonders for your business. Click-through traffic, while okay for some bonus “cold market,” cannot be relied upon solely for making reasonable amount of profits from your business. You need some targeted traffic for that purpose, people who know why they are on your site, people who actually have the potential of turning into customers.

Search Engine Friendly Product Pages

When people search for a product, that your website may be offering, they type in certain “keywords” on a search engine, and they usually click on one of the links that is displayed in the top 10 search results. So the idea is to get the search engines to like your website so much that they display it in one of the top 10 positions. That accounts for a lot of free advertising and traffic generation your way.

The best way to do this is to make sure that your website is optimized for those keywords – not just the home page, but, the rest of the pages in your site too should be rich in those keywords. Moreover, “rich in keywords” doesn’t mean that you simply “stuff” your web pages with keywords, disregarding the vocabulary, grammar, and the overall content of the pages completely! If you do that infact, forget about traffic generation, you can rest assured that Google and all the other search engines will throw you off their grid completely!

Link Exchanges

Another good of way making the search engines fall in love with you is by acquiring a lot of back links to your website. But here’s the catch. If you are looking for back links simply for the purpose of additional traffic generation, then that’s okay – you can go ahead and exchange links with anyone and everyone! However, if you are also aiming to increase your rankings with the search engines, then you must ensure that those back links come from a high ranking page – “page” and not “website”!

For example, if you decide to exchange links with a website having a Google rank of say 5, but the webmaster of that site adds your URL on one of his obscure pages, having a rank of 0, it gives you no benefit at all in terms of a better page rank with any of the search engines. In fact, I doubt that it would help much in traffic generation either, for an un-ranked page would hardly have any traffic of its own that it can direct towards you!

So keep these few things in mind. While there are professional SEO services available, not everyone can afford them, and especially not the new entrepreneurs who just have a small website to take care of. Search engine optimized pages can help a lot in free traffic generation.

It is no secret that a lot of money can be earned quickly online. Niche marketing is a popular way to monetize websites. But which markets are really profitable and promise financial success for your business?
Here we have collected some helpful guidelines regarding all this for you.

Keywords And Niche

In order to select a profitable niche for yourself before you actually start online niche marketing, you should do some thorough research on what people have been looking for on the popular search engines during the last months. One of the most popular tools to do this is Wordtracker. With Wordtracker you can find popular keywords and build your website around them. Then by using these popular keywords for your online content you can also increase your ranking in the organic search results of search engines. A good positioning in the search engines will be crucial to the success of your niche marketing since it is through the search engines that you can reach the highest number of users.

Another useful tool that you should start using on a regular basis is the Google Trends tool. Here you can type in any keyword you want and watch the trend of keyword usage in all countries. With this tool you might find more popular keywords to use in your niche marketing campaigns.

What Is My Niche?

Once you have found a niche market that you would like to promote online try to gather as much information online and offline about that niche market to be always up-to-date and to provide users with all material which they might be looking for. An easy and effective tip is to go to bookstores and find out what books based on your niche market as selling very well. If you are targeting pregnant mothers for example, what is the hottest subject they want to know more about? If you are targeting teenage fans of music, what are the latest releases in that music genre, which stars are of interest, what stories are on the magazine covers? Find out what your target group is interested in the most. Then start building your online content around these subjects and bring them up to date them constantly. Once you have set up decent content, start your niche marketing with effective campaigns on search engines. Online campaigns can only be effective if you have the most relevant keywords in your lists.

Once your niche marketing is up and running and you get more and more users on your website, make sure that you update your marketing campaigns frequently – at least on a weekly basis. The interests of users change rapidly. Don’t lose track of them. Keep them interested in your website.

Niche marketing is all about finding a group of potential customers who are not getting a particular product or service by mainstream providers. The advantage of niche marketing is that you can target a certain section of people. It is all about finding a market to sell your specific products or services to. A niche market can also be defined as a group of potential customers. You should deal with those services or products that all retailers cannot provide to their customers.

How To Find A Niche Market

The first thing you will have to do is to find a unique service or product for niche marketing. The ideal situation would be for you to be the only one selling a particular product. This may not always be the case but at least you could be one of the few who provide it. There may be companies offering costumes to everyone but you could specialize in providing only a particular type of costume, like handmade medieval costumes. You may want to sell customized hand painted t-shirts for children which could have any cartoon character they want through you. Perhaps you could add a personal touch by painting the child’s name on the back of the t-shirt. These are some personalized and unique products you could offer to a niche market which is actually look for these things.

You can even offer services like blind cleaning or refilling of cartridges. These may seem to be very small services that nobody may want. But you will be surprised to find that there are a lot of people who are looking for such services. You should start off small if you are not very confident with the kind of response you will get. But as your customers grow, your niche marketing business will grow too.

You could either start off small or do a market research to find out if there is enough demand for your products. Market research is very important in niche marketing. You can go out there and ask people, or you could do a survey on the internet. If you have confidence in your product then you can go ahead and start a website where you can put up the products for sale and see how many customers you get.

When you start niche marketing, you have to market your services well. Without proper marketing, you will not get the response you want. If you are offering a unique product or service, like hand painted t-shirts or providing virtual tips to soccer coaches, you must give an explanation of what you are offering. Your potential customers may not be sure of what you are offering so you must educate them accordingly. This way, you will get more customers who are interested in what you have to offer. With proper and smart niche marketing, you can make lots of money online.

Anyone who wishes to make money online must invest in an effective link building program. Whether you are an affiliate marketer or you sell your own products or services on the web, in either case it is absolutely essential to build a good reputation on the internet first. This means that you need to get high page ranks with all the major search engines, because in the “WWW world”, reputation is directly measured in terms of your search ranking. And one of the most effective ways to achieve higher search engine ranking is by driving a search engine optimization program that includes an extensive link building campaign as well.

Visibility Leads To Sales

The basic idea behind any kind of advertising is that “What gets seen is what gets sold”! If people are not aware of your products, how will they ever end up buying them? This same principle applies in the case of online ventures too. You need to mark your presence across the web, in order to make people notice you and your products. And this is where a well planned link building program comes into use.

Targeted Traffic

An effective link building program has the potential to obtain one of the top 10 search result positions on Google, Alexa and all the other major search engines, for your website. This means that when a person searches for any of your products, your website gets displayed on the very first search results page, thereby attracting a bigger percentage of the visitors who click-through, looking for your products.

Not only do you get a more advantageous position in the search results, but a quality link building program also gets you inbound links from other related websites in the same market segment that you cater to. This means that the visitors who follow these links to your website are already interested in your products, and hence, they may already be half-sold! This kind of targeted traffic can boost up sales volume to unimaginable figures!

Reduced Cost Increases Profit

There are 2 basic ways to increase profits from any business – increase sales and reduce costs. While there aren’t too many overhead office expenses involved in running an online business, you still need to bear the advertising costs. A good link building program can even help you bring down these advertising expenses by getting your website higher search engine ranks. Most of the Pay-Per-Click advertising programs today are priced on the basis of your page ranks, and higher ranks invariably bring down your PPC rate. This can save you a lot of money over time.

Hence, the combination of increased sales volume, greater visibility and decreased advertising and marketing expenses adds up to higher profit margins. In other words, a well chalked-out link building program can bring you that “success” you’ve always dreamt of, but never thought it could actually happen for you!