One of the top concerns for anybody with a website is traffic. You need traffic to get them to buy your product, come to your store, or buy your services.
There are many ways to get traffic. Reciprocal link campaigns are good but they take time. Try linkmarket.net, linkciti.com, linkmetro.com, or linkdiy.com. There are plenty out there. You can request links in your category and by being listed people will ask to link to you. There are paid and free programs. Start with the free and then move on to the paid. This helps with your page rank so a link campaign should be ongoing.
Running a PPC campaign with Google, Yahoo or a smaller search engine (like exactseek.com) can work but you need money for that. You can start small and spend more as your business grows.
You can create a free blog at blogger com. There are plenty of other free blog sites. This one is easy to set up and use. As a bonus it is owned by Google. They won’t admit it but I think it helps you in Google. If you are passionate about your site topic or know the subject well you can easily write a blog. Postings don’t have to be long and add a post once or twice a week at a minimum.
Once you have your blog set up and your first post created – it’s time to ping. Ping after every post. A ping is simply an announcement that “I have new content on my blog”. Two free ping services are pingoat.com and pingomatic.com.
Article directories are also great ways to get traffic to your site. There are many out there. Do a search for article directories and you’ll see what I mean. A few good ones are articlecity.com, ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, articles411.com, and ideamarketers.com.
If you need content for your site you can pull articles to use. Post your articles here and people can use them on their site – with a link back to your site.
Submit articles to the directories on a regular basis. If you submit the same article to multiple directories try to change it a bit for each one. And don’t submit them all on the same day. Submit to a directory a day or 2 today and 2 tomorrow. It’ll help get those spiders after your site and keep the article fresher.
And remember it does take time to get traffic steadily coming to your site. Amazon didn’t launch have a million visitors dashing to their site day 1.
Robin Dary is the marketing power behind http://www.parkercomputerguy.com Parker Computer Guy is a computer repair and consulting business in Colorado.
Reading at least 10 to 50 articles each day, I realize that I am drawn to those articles that remember the old KISS Model – Keep It Simple and Short. Articles that are intentionally written with simplicity, are short in length and provide me with valuable and rich content attract me.
Simplicity does not mean that you, the author, need to “dummy down” the content, but rather write in such a way that the reader can quickly progress from one point to another without being confused. Your message should provide the reader with new rich content and not recycled content. Think of a funnel in which the beginning of the article is the top of the funnel and the tip is the conclusion. Your articles should draw the reader down with the desired end result of visiting your website or even better giving you a call or an email.
As writers, we need to remember that potential readers have limited time and that the human brain can only process so much information. Even though it is in our nature to want to share all of our experiences or expertise, sometimes this creates a feeling in the reader of “drinking from a fire hydrant.” Writing a series of shorter articles rather than one long article respects the readers’ time. Also, shorter articles work for many of the newsletters that search the Internet for new content.
For a moment, consider yourself as a reader. Do you actually read those long articles or do you skim through the content? If you are like me, you probably quickly glance through the content looking for a new idea or concept. Would it not make more sense to write a shorter article where the reader actually reads more words?
Articles that vary in word count from 300 to 600 words provide an opportunity for the reader to actually read and easily recognize the expertise of the author. Shorter articles force writers to expand their vocabulary by incorporating words that better describe the topic. HINT #4 – The Thesaurus is your best friend.
Shorter articles do take more time to write because being concise and succinct is a learned skill. In working with one colleague, Alan Boyer at www.leaders-perspective.com, Alan has reduced his articles from 1,500 words to 6oo to 1,000 words and is working to reduce them even further.
As more and more individuals use article distribution as an Internet marketing strategy to achieve the goal of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the quality of the articles becomes even more important. Your mission as an article marketer, if you decide to accept, is to write both for quality and submit enough quantity to accomplish that noble goal.
Copyright 2005(c) Leanne Hoagland-Smith, www.processspecialist.com
This article may be freely published. Permission to publish this article, electronically or in print, as long as the bylines are included, with a live link, and the article is not changed in any way (grammatical corrections accepted).
Leanne Hoagland-Smith, M.S. CEO of ADVANCED SYSTEMS located outside of Chicago, IL, is the Learning & Process Specialist. With over 25 years of business & education experience, she helps her clients to double their performance. By uniting systems, strategies and people to create loyal internal customers, Leanne delivers ROI solutions in 4 key areas: financials, leadership, relationships and growth & innovation within a variety of industries including education, healthcare, manufacturing and professional services. As co-author of M.A.G.I.C.A.L. Potential: 7 Capacities for Living an Amazing Life Beyond Purpose to Achievement due for 2005 release, Leanne speaks nationally to a variety of audiences. Please contact Leanne at 219.759.5601 or visit http://www.processspecialist.com if you are seeking to connect your passion to your purpose to double your performance for unheard of results.