How Do I Increase The Traffic To My Website?

This is a question that any internet marketer has come across during their time online. It doesn’t matter whether you are a seasoned veteran or a hopeful “noob”; everyone wants to bring in thousands of people to their website each and every day. The question though, is just how do you manage such a feat?

There are two primary systems used to bring in traffic via the web (actually 3 big ones now). They are:

• Pay Per Click
• Seach Engine Optimization
• Web 2.0 (the 3rd “new” one)

Each one of these aspects, is in their own right, a great way to boost your website’s prescense and market share. Where most people fail, is spending some time in each and calling it quits. For at least one of these traffic generation methods to be effective, you have to actually spend time planning the strategy. If you have money to spare then go ahead with a full fledged pay per click campaign.

Send those visitors to targeted pages on your website. You can use PPC for a variety of methods. It doesn’t have to be for selling a product. It could be for branding, market promotion, lead generation, specials, surveys, and even for ACCURATE seo testing.

Yep – so many people argue over the best keyword tool for Google. You know what I think? Would you rather spend a couple hundred bucks (if that) and see how many times your keywords are searched for 1-2 weeks, then double that to have the exact data for monthly searches… or would you rather waste money and time and end up ranking for a worthless phrase? We have all been burned with a keyword tool, let’s face it. So wise up and use Adwords to determine the exact number of searches. You can then deduct 10-15% of those searches for bots and research.

SEO is the same principle. Why only spend a week or two doing optimization and then quit? SEO is a long term process. It’s a marathon – it’s a procedure. I spend 10+ months doing SEO for just one phrase if I really want to capture it. You should too.

Last but not least we have “Web 2.0″. Granted the internet has really always been “Web 2.0″ but it’s just more a fact now. There are social networks etc… and what that can do for you is twofold. It can bring many visitors and it can help to freely promote your website if enough people get on the bandwagon. My suggestion to you for increasing traffic to your website – is to pick one method and work it until you have a winning formula.

XML Canonicalization And URL Canonicalization

So you have been working hard to get your site ranking well. You have gone through all of the necessary steps to achieve SEO greatness, but somehow, somewhere along the line, you messed up big. You commited an SEO crime, and it starts with the letter “C”. Yep, we are talking about URL Canonicalization. Before I go any further, it would be best to state what this fancy word means.

In essence, any kind of URL is able to show a different set of data. So if you had the following urls:

• example.com/
• www.example.com
• example.com/home.asp
• www.example.com/index.php

… each one of them would be able to show something different. Now this is where a lot of folks get confused when laying the foundations for their SEO. When you have other websites linking to you, you want all of those links to point to the same url (when talking about one page in particular – you always want to diversify). What happens though, is that when you link to different variations of your site, such as the example above – you will not get the link juice you had hoped for.

Holy canonical! What do I do??

There are a few things you can do here. You have the option of specifying your preference from within your Google webmaster’s account. You can also tell the robots directly that you want all non-www pages, to redirect to a www page. You can even setup this preference from within your WordPress settings, if you are using WP of course.

So remember, when you are getting those links – make sure all of your hard work pays off, by directing the juice to the same place, because sometimes, the juice is worth the squeeze! Actually, that thought makes me thirsty… time for some juice.

PageRank Is Not The Be All End All

Howdy folks, just a quick note today on Pagerank. I see a lot of buzz around the net regarding this topic so I thought I would address it in the quickest way possible. Before we get into the discussion of whether or not pagerank is a justifiable reason for debate, we should be on the same set of terms. Pagerank is a measure of importance for an individual webpage. It has absolutely nothing to do with where you website is ranking in the search results (although the two play a role).

Since pagerank does play a role in anchor text and backlinks, people seem to get all wound up in the little green bar. For this reason – this blog post was born. So is pagerank important? Sure. Should you worry about it? No. Does it make or break your marketing efforts? No.

You should not be focusing on pagerank if you are optimizing your website. See, because your site will gain links over time and this in turn will raise the green bar for your webpages. Your site could be well optimized and outrank another competitor, even if you have a lower pagerank. It may just so happen that their page which is ranking, also has a higher pagerank, but since it is less optimized, it is shown below your result.

Let’s look at this another way. Pagerank affects backlink strength. This is why it is common to see sites with a high PR that have great rankings. They have lots of backlinks…. so high backlinks = high PR. This isn’t set in stone though.

So the point is, just focus on building on your site and getting quality links. Forget the green little thinga-ma-bob )

The 1 Big Secret of Pay Per Click You Cannot Live Without

The internet is a cash machine, no joke. The problem with the mindset of most folks though, is that this cash machine should operate like an ATM. It’s a bit shocking to “us” marketers who have “been there and done that”. If there was one thing I could say about the internet, is that it most certainly does NOT throw out cash like an ATM (when you are getting started).

So how does one get over the hurdle of this withdrawal limit? Easy. It’s something known as a virtue. It’s the “P” word. Can you guess it? OK I’ll just tell you – it’s patience. If you can sustain an online business AND have patience – you are off to the races. This is especially true in the pay per click industry and I’ll touch on that in a minute. It is also true in many other areas of life.

You see, the 1 big secret of pay per click is that even though it is instant (and yes that’s great) – testing takes time. Sure, you put up your ads and they are live within the half hour (95% of the time) but what about the rest of the process? Surely you don’t base your business on that alone?

A lot of people become discouraged with their pay per click efforts mainly because they lose money. It’s a given fact that most people will lose money when they try to advertise. The reason? Well, there are lots of reasons on that one. The two biggies are guidance and patience in my opinion.

Pay per click is an art of marketing. It takes TIME to figure out what works in regards to the combination of keywords/landing pages/ etc… You can’t just throw in the towel after 4 days of advertising, 40 clicks, and no sales. It happens every day, all day long, believe me. Don’t you want to stand out from the crowd? Give your business TIME to grow but do it slowly.

Building an online business slowly is the way to go. Use that motivation you have but learn to keep it bottled up and just let it out a bit each day. If you are advertising for golf clubs, don’t go bidding on the key-phrase “golf clubs”. You will be left wondering why you lost $300 and didn’t even make a sale. Go small and go hard.

Go for the brands, the types of clubs, the style, the material, this is the “stuff” that will bring you visitors. When people are looking to buy a car, they don’t search the yellowpages for “wheels”. They search for local dealers, brands, etc…

The answer then, is that patience and targeting your market is the winning combo to this so called “ppc” game.

You Make Money By Not Focusing On Money

Do you think that title is mind blowing or what? It’s an eye opener let me tell you. What is more important than money? Lots of things are but specifically when regarding an online business, the single most important factor is to NOT focus on money. Let that sink into your head for a bit and meditate on it.

Before I was earning a consistent few thousand dollars every month from my online efforts, I had spent years focusing on the wrong aspects of the business. Now while focusing on the financial freedom is a good thing in retrospect, it can distort your business perception. What I mean by this is to not let it captivate you.

When you are worried about how many dollars you earned today in the business, you begin to act strange and sway away from your business operations. You know you have a problem when you check your Clickbank account 30 times a day. Logging into your account 1-2 times a day is all that should be needed. Besides, logging into your account doesn’t earn you money. If that were the case, I’d be logging in all day!

That is time wasted, lost, never to be regained. You could of been focusing your time and energy writing another article, submitting it for publication, or adding it to your newsletter. Always try to think creatively and just add one new “thing” to your business each day. Whether it is some more keyword research, a new article to a website, another newsletter, or a new video for your members – make sure it is SOMETHING.

These are the actions that add value to your online “empire”. I put empire in quotes because no one person can really have an empire over the markets of the net. It is just too vast. You should however be concentrating on mini-empires. Build quality websites in niche markets and try to establish yourself as an authority within those markets. This is how you gain a reputation. This is how success is built.

Like I’ve said many times in the past, building a business online will not happen overnight but it can certainly happen. Once you are able to rid yourself of the “I want it now” attitude and just focus on what works, you will start to see things fall in place. Grab that marketing plan you had, set aside the distractions that you see daily, and just start building. The more you build the more you earn. Here’s one last tip too – keep building on what you already have. Each time you set off on a new venture, you are shooting yourself in the foot if you don’t know what you are doing.

Why? If it takes 6-9 months to really get something going, and you keep re-starting every 4-5 months, then you will never see success. So just build and build on what you have (making sure of course the market is profitable). Once you do this – you will see things in a new light.

Google Duplicate Content Filter

When it comes to content, it is imperative that the material you put on your website is original. There are some exceptions to this rule though and I will touch upon those in a minute. First on the menu is the ever popular Google duplicate content filter. Ah yes, the one and only filter to watch out for, or is it? Let’s have a looky shall we?

So what is duplicate content anyways? Is it simply one sentence that has been copied or is there a lot more involved? What happens to a site that participates in duplicate postings? These are common questions that I see all the time and it’s important to sort them out. As you very well know, Google works hard to be the best at what it does. You might think that entails providing the best advertising program, or the largest list of sites in their database. Neither of these is correct. They focus on the user’s experience.

Google does not have the largest index of websites, a company called Cuil does (last time I checked). Does Google provide the best advertising experience? That is personal opinion. What they do well though, is provide relevant information (most of the time), to a user’s search on their engine. After all, if the only sites that came up on searches were lousy pieces of poo, then who would want to use their engine again? Quality = repeat visitors.

So that brings us to the duplicate content filter. This is sort of bittersweet. When it comes to content and duplication, it tends to be a first come, first serve basis. That means the first website to be spidered and crawled, will receive the trophy for that piece of information. Don’t let that fool you though. You may have a great article and another website could steal it from you. If their site is viewed as an authority, then they may even take the credit instead of your “small” site. This doesn’t happen very often though so it’s nothing to worry about.

I also would not panic yourself with phrases and sentences being 100% unique on every page you have. There is a high probability that somewhere on the internet, someone else has used the same phrase in an article somewhere. There is no way that 12+ billion pages will not have some words repeating and Google knows this. It’s taken into account when looking at a website. So what is the end result?

If you just focus on providing your users with an enjoyable experience, and do not copy/paste the same article 400 times on your site (figure of speech), you will be okay. There is no need to panic when writing content. Simply do your job, keep your site updated (once a week minimum) and work on other avenues of your business. All parts of a website will have some duplicate content such as a menu bar, navigation, footer bar, and the list goes on. Don’t worry about those things. Focus on the big picture and don’t get caught up in “dupe” land.

What Are The Most Successful Home Based Businesses?

Yea, you read the title already, but can you think of what the best businesses are? Go ahead and think about it for a minute. Is it affiliate marketing? Is it joint ventures? Is it eBay? Maybe selling your own product is the way to go. These are all fine and dandy but the answer is rather surprising, so hold onto your seat because you are about to get blown away!

The most successful home based business are the “mom and pop” shops, run by people who apply themselves and stick to their plan. Yup, take it for what’s it’s worth, but there are many more successful business people online, who are not the “experts”… as opposed to people who know a great deal and SHOULD be the ones doing well. Why is this and why is this so backward? Well to look at the cause of this, we first have to get into the mind of each person.

Person “A” for this example will be the average guy or girl. Person “B” will be the 4.0 university graduate who knows all the skills for every program he or she works with. Now at first glance, one would assume that person “B” is obviously the better candidate for starting a home business. After all, they were dedicated enough to finish school, had amazing grades, and holds the knowledge of many technical programs. Person “A” is… well just average? I mean, what do they have against this graduate?

Now, person “A” might be your run o’ the mill Jack or Jill, but they just do what they are told and stick to the game-plan. They didn’t finish college. Heck they had to go to remedial school after they graduated from high school. They work at the local restaurant, and have no hope of being the next big CEO. “Ouch!” you say… that is a pretty bleak picture you just painted… ah but it gets better.

When it comes to creating an online business for yourself, there are two main factors behind the wheel of success. Those would include:

• Focus on the “plan”
• Having the “plan” to follow

The major difference between these two imaginary people is…. their outlook. Ok, you say… what the heck are you getting at? I’m getting at this…

For the average person, following a plan seems simple. All you have to do is check off the items as you follow them. For the graduate, they have to think things through, discuss them, try to work in their own angle, and the list goes on. It isnt’ their fault. This is the way we are taught.

Many “average” people seem to make it big, because they can simply follow a formula for online success without debating it and arguing with it. They don’t try to know every single thing there is to know. They just get their feet wet and start “getting in there”.

It’s kind of like popping a balloon with a hunting knife. Sure a pin would have worked fine, but no matter what you use, it will eventually pop. The same principle applies to online businesses. If you keep at it and follow the plans you have obtained, you will get there one day. No it won’t be overnight. That is a common misconception with the populace today – everything must be instantaneous because it’s the Internet. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

So for all you people who want to “know it all”. Except the fact that you are wasting your time. Just start “doing” and stop “thinking”. You will be amazed at what it can do for you…

Learning The Basics Of Online Marketing – It’s Not Hard

Well today is a lovely 70 degrees, the sun is shining, and things are looking good. That’s completely beside the point of today’s lesson though. I want to discuss the topic of “coming back to reality” in reference to online marketing. This has to do primarily with two things; newbies and hype. So let’s start with the newbies category.

Newbies as you may commonly know is a word referring to beginners. It can be a beginner in anything, not just online marketing. Now what I want you people to understand is this. Setting out on a “journey” to make money online, will not yield results within your first week. Please let this information sink into your head folks. Far too often I see people saying that they are so confused on how to get started with their own business. The reason? There is too much information, too many courses, too many “angles” to tackle the problem. This is also called information overload.

This I agree with. So what we have to do is break it down into a manageable format for your “newbs” to follow. First things first here. Just because someone is having success or failure with one particular method of marketing, does not in any way mean that you too will experience the same result. I am sure you have heard of a “launch” before. Product launches may seem like a phenomenon related solely to the IM niche, but they are nothing new. Everytime a product is added to a company’s catalog in the real world, it is a product “launch”.

Now with these launches come “hype” and I say it in quotes, because it really isn’t bad hype, but rather a means of getting the customer base excited about a particular product. It happens everyday all around you, each day of the year. From restaurants to stores to friends – everyone is triggering an emotion inside of you, whether you realize it or not.

This I feel, is one of the main reasons why so many newcomers to online marketing simply call it quits. Their emotions are being stretched thin from every angle and every newsletter. They say to build a list, the next week they claim to use pay per click, and yet another week claims that social media is the way of the future. For someone just starting, how are you supposed to know who or what to believe? The answer is rather astonishing…

Believe yourself. Look at the core principles of business to see what works. In order to sell something you have to have 1) a product and 2) a market. It really isn’t complicated at all. All of these so called methods and ways of the “future” are just a new way of grabbing hold of visitors. People have been buying and selling for thousands of years and the internet is just another medium in which to do so.

So if you are scratching your head in doubt wondering which option works… the answer is they all do. So stop worrying and start focusing on your business. Build those websites, get those rankings, create those ads, and watch the rest fall nicely in order.

What Do You Think Of The New Google Adwords (beta) Interface?

Well what do you think? I personally find that the new interface takes a bit of getting used to. I found my eyes wandering around the page for a bit when the new layout was first loaded, and I got a bit “dizzy” looking at all the keywords in one slot. After some time though it seems to be a decent “upgrade” over the previous campaign management screens.

One of my favorite new features is the fact that you can see your click thru rate history in a graph format. Come on now, we all love graphs and charts – don’t you? This actually goes into more detail than one might think. By looking at your CTR history, you are able to get an eagle eye view of your ad copy’s performance. This in turn will allow you to adjust your sales promotions accordingly. Remember, when it comes to AdWords and PPC, it’s all about testing and more testing. Try to improve on your previous adcopy and get a better ROI.

While the features of seeing all of your adgroups and keywords in one panel is nice, I still prefer to view them in a single fashion, so I’m glad they included an option to just view by singular campaign. I just find it easier to look at a few groups rather than scrolling through hundreds or thousands.

One other thing – the indented “tree” menu is great! It is much better than the old layout and I think that 90% of Adwords advertisers would agree. Based on what I have seen so far, the switch seems to be moving towards an “eagle eye” view of everything. Faster, easier, more streamlined clicking is where it’s all going…

Free Hosting | Alabama Website Hosting

Free web hosting has been a relatively mis-conceived concept. Recently, many web hosts have started providing free web hosting services. Some services, contrary to popular belief, are really good and are worth the try. People are mostly doubtful about the efficiency and credibility of free web hosting systems and therefore, most people tend to run away from free services. In this write up, we unearth some of the good things about free web hosting – if it suits your purpose…

Does it serve any purpose?

For sites that are concerned with e-commerce, uptime and availability will be their two main criteria. There are companies that offer a full guarantee on the uptime, yet it is almost impossible to hold such companies liable if something does go wrong with the uptime. Hostgator and Lunarpages are two of the most successful web hosts, known for providing one of the best uptime statistics in the industry. So, it is advisable that if your business relies heavily on your site, or if you own an e-commerce website, it is obvious that you do not go for free web hosting. Rather, people who are experimenting with new ideas and blogs etc… should do just fine if they opt to go for a good free web hosting service.

Who does free web hosting service suit the best?

Well, for those who earn a handsome income, getting good paid web hosting services is not a big problem. They can even lease out dedicated servers for their sites. Free web hosting is certainly not for established webmasters and internet marketers. People who know how to milk the money out of the net, can afford a decent web hosting service without burning too big a hole in their otherwise inflated pockets. Free web hosting, on the other hand, is great for students and “starters” at website development. There are enough options which enable you to upgrade from free web hosting plans to custom plans as well.

Therefore, for those with a fresh new idea, free web hosting is the best way to try it out. If the idea doesn’t work well, you can always close it down and have nothing to loose. If the idea works out well and you feel the need to expand, you can always upgrade to a better hosting service. You can also decide to upgrade to customized web hosting services, like those catering to your local needs. For example, if you are based in Alabama, you can upgrade to a suitable Alabama website hosting plan… if your startup idea covers ground and becomes highly successful in the future. So take your time and take each day as it comes.

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