Most bloggers gain their traffic from 3 sources, inbound links (other websites linking to yours), search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc.) and social media (Facebook, MySpace, Squidoo, Digg, etc.).

Take your content to where the traffic is (Facebook, YouTube, etc.) and use your Blog/Website to bring it all together for those find you on the social networks.

Link Building

Link building allows your website to be more easily found by others. The more websites that are linking to you, the more potential you have for getting higher rankings by the search engines.  It’s not just quantity that is important, but the quality of the links coming in to you.

Content is King

Great content is an important key component of search engine optimization. After-all, you want people to look up to you as the expert. With lots of original, valuable, entertaining, and inspiring content you can dominate your market.

Keywords and Key Phrases

Something to consider… What keywords and key phrases are people going to search for to find a website/company like yours?  Once you have answered that question you can optimize your site and content to those words/phrases.  Use them throughout the content of your website, but don’t over-do-it.  Be wise.

Contact Brian @ Weblife LLC today to use our services for your project.

There are mutliple things to consider when going about this.  Here are some questions you may want to ask yourself:

• Who is my target audience?
• What am I offering?
• What is the end result or action I want my website visitors to take?
• What do I have to offer for free?
• What do I have to offer for sale?
• What compelling offer should I make on the front page of my website?

Now that you’ve gone through these simple questions it’s time to determine what to do next.  You may want to make one offer, or multiple.  Perhaps you’ll compel people to sign up for your newsletter by providing their name and email address in exchange for a free article or other download with valuable information.  By signing them up for your newsletter you now have an opportunity to market your services to them on an ongoing basis (just don’t forget to provide something of value in each newsletter).

If your purpose is to sell a membership or a product, make that clear on the front page.  Many online visitors don’t look any further than the front page.  The front page is your most important page, use it wisely.

Keep these 4 steps in mind for how to effectively engage your visitors:

INTERUPT – ENGAGE – EDUCATE – OFFER… more on those later.

It’s easy to create a great looking website, but what’s the use if there’s no one looking at it? ‘How do I get more people to look at my website’, you ask.

Online Marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Online marketing and SEO can be just as important to your business as local marketing.

The amount of marketing you’ll want to do depends entirely upon what results you want. For some people it is enough to simply include their website address on their business cards and use their website as a way of validating that it is a real business. Some use their websites as a place for people to learn more about that business. Others have their websites work for them!

Your Website Can Work for You!

Online marketing generally consists of having advertisements and links on other websites that bring people to your website. This could be done using services such as Google’s AdWords, Whitepages, Yellowpages, and etc. You can market your website using blogs, forums, directories and articles. Also, you could even choose to target your marketing towards a certain geographical location or towards people with sepcific interests, the possibilities are endless.

If you want your website to work for you, contact Weblife LLC today and we’ll help you get started.

Some time ago I wrote an article titled ‘Are you marketing your blog?‘ where I argued that there is a myth around the Internet that bloggers and webmasters should not spend money on advertising. The myth comes in great extent from the success stories of people that managed to create popular websites without spending a dime on advertising or other paid promotion techniques.

The reality is that most of those successful websites were pioneers on their niche, hence why they became popular without spending money on advertising. Now a days the market is crowded and you have thousands of websites and blogs even for small segments. As a consequence paid promotional techniques are becoming an important factor of any successful marketing strategy.

Below you will find 7 ways to promote your website or blog with a bit of money. You can use them to generate raw traffic, improve your search engine rankings, gain visibility on your niche and so on. Despite the initial investment most of those techniques will pay off on the short to medium term. If you are expecting to make money with your website there is no reason to assume that you will not need to spend some as well, right?

1. AdWords: Google make billions of dollars every year from the AdWords-AdSense combo. Why is that? Because they work. Adwords is probably the most efficient method to generated raw traffic for your website. In order to get started you should create an account, add lots (by lots I mean hundreds if not thousands) of keywords that are related your site and set the maximum Pay-per-Click rate at $0.01. After that raise the rate by $0.01 every week or so until you start getting the desired amount of daily clicks. Notice that at lower bids the keywords will be reported as ‘Inactive for Search’. Do not worry about it, it just means that your ads will not appear on the search network (Google’s search results), but they will appear on the content network (websites of people that use AdSense).

2. Site-Specific AdWords: if you pay attention to the AdSense units you will see that most of them have a link titled ‘Advertise on this site’. This feature enables AdWords advertisers to create customized ads that will be displayed only on specific websites. Those ads work on a CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) rather than a CPC (cost per click) basis, but they can generate a good amount of very targeted traffic since you will be in control of where the ad will be displayed and of the message. You can get even better results if you use some creativity when designing the ads, click here for some examples.

3. StumbleUpon Ads: StumbleUpon is a very innovative social bookmarking site that allows users to discover great websites by using a browser toolbar. When the user clicks on ‘Stumble’ he will be delivered a website that people with similar interested rated positively. The user is also able to give positive and negative ratings to any website that he visits on the Internet. StumbleUpon also offers advertising campaigns, called StumbleUpon Ads, where you can deliver your website directly to those ‘Stumblers’. It costs $0.05 per page delivered, but since the websites that appear on StumbleUpon usually have a high quality it is very likely that part of that paid traffic will convert into regular readers.

4. Text Link Ads: if you are trying to increase your search engine rankings to leverage organic traffic you should consider buying some text link ads. While those text links can also generate direct traffic the biggest benefit you will have is an improvement on your search rankings, specially if the links are placed on authoritative and relevant websites. There are several places to buy text links, including specialized companies like Text-Link-Ads and Text Link Brokers or online forums like Digital Point’s market place.

5. Direct Banner Sales: most established websites sell banner ads or sponsorship plans directly. Those advertising deals usually are structured with weekly or monthly fees, regardless of the number of impressions or clicks that you will get. Despite this characteristic a banner placement can represent good value for money because apart from the direct traffic you will also create visibility and brand awareness. Readers of the website where you will display your banner will associate the message on the banner with your site or blog. Should they come across that banner or message two or three times it is very likely that they will get curious and decide to check what the buzz is all about. Another advantage of banner placements is the fact that people will unconsciously think that the author of the website endorses your content or product.

6. Sponsored Reviews: buying some sponsored reviews is a good way to kick-start a website. They will bring backlinks, traffic and RSS subscribers. There are many market studies confirming that ‘word of mouth’ is the most efficient way to capture people’s attention, and that is just what you get with sponsored reviews. You can either pay a low price (sometimes as low as $5 per review) to get a large number of reviews from small sites or you can focus on large players (which can charge several hundreds of dollars for a single review) that are authorities on your niche. The best way to purchase sponsored reviews is through sites like SponsoredReviews.com, ReviewMe or PayPerPost.com.

7. Blog Networks: there are several blog networks founded around a traffic exchange principle. Basically you create an account for you blog and you earn credits by surfing other members’ blogs. Afterwards you can use those credits to make people visit your blog or to display your banners around the network. The interesting part is that most of those blog networks allow users to purchase credits with money, and the price is really convenient. You should be able receive hundreds of visitors or to get thousands of banner impressions for less than 10 dollars. Some blog networks that sell credits include Blog Explosion, Blog Soldiers and Blog Advance.

Is your business listed yet?

You might want to take some time to see if your business is listed on Google Maps, Yahoo! Local and other online business directories. Being listed in multiple online directories can help you get more visitors to your website, but best of all (even if you don’t have a website) it will increase the chances of someone using your services.

To make it easy and simple for you I have listed some of the more essential online business directories and provided a direct link to where you can get listed:

• Google Maps (Local Business Center)
• Yahoo! Local
• Yellowpages.com
• Superpages.com
• ListYourself.net

• List your business and website on directories such as Google Maps, Yahoo Local, Yellowpages.com and Superpages.com (they all offer free basic listings).
• Create a profile on facebook.com, myspace.com, linkedin.com and other social networking sites.  Make sure that your profile contains a link and descritpion of your website, if possible.
• Search for industry related blogs and forums. Post comments on the ones that allow you to provide a link back to your website.
• Your front page is the most important page!  The key to successful internet marketing is getting your site visitor to the “end result” or “action step” in as few ‘clicks’ as possible. If your purpose is to generate leads or have a potential client contact you, it’s a good idea to have a simple contact form on the front page. If your goal is to sell a product, make sure you’ve got either a prominent link to the store area or featured products on the front page. Be creative.
• Try some Google Advertising.  With Google Ads you can set your budget to as low or high as you want.  You can even target specific regions such as the state or city you live in so that the only people seeing your ad are in your region. It’s worth at least trying out a Google Ad Campaign.
• In your blog posts remember to use your sites keywords when relevant and even mention locations (city, state, etc.) if your target market is in a specific region.
• Have you thought about Duplicating yourself?  This is especially good for those who provide an educational service. You could create a video, e-book, podcast, or something else that allows you to reach more people with your message.
• Join some meetup.com groups and put your website link in your profile. It’s best if you can actually make it to your local meetup meetings, but if not, you can network with people on meetup.com.
• Figure out which keywords and key phrases will bring in more traffic. You can do this by visiting Google Trends. An example of what to do on Google Trends: If your business helps people get out of debt think of what keywords people might be typing to find this kind of website. Examples: “get out of debt” “debt free” “pay off debt” “financial freedom” “financial help”, etc. Type each on of those in to Google Trends (separated by commas). Click here to see the results. You can even narrow it down by location. As you can see, those phrases are getting a lot of results but are “financial help” and “debt free” being searched for the most. But are those phrases relevant to helping people get out of debt? Click the links to see: “financial help” & “debt free“. It appears that “debt free” is more relevant and might be the better choice, but it wouldn’t hurt to use both phrases in your content.
• Remember that your front page is the most important part of your website.  That’s what people see first.  This goes along with what I stated in #4.  Your call to action should be very clear and focused on the front page.

Hope this helps.

From the obvious to the “Hey-I-never-thought-of-that-great-idea-before”, here are 10 of the top 52 tips on how to optimize your website for its turbo-charge rocket ride up the search engine rankings.

Be bold. Use the <b> </b> tags around some of your keywords on each page. Do NOT use them everywhere the keyword appears. Once or twice is plenty.

Deep linking. Make sure you have links coming in to as many pages as possible. What does it tell a search engine when other web sites are linking to different pages on your site? That you obviously have lots of worthwhile content. What does it tell a search engine that all your links are coming in to the home page? That you have a shallow site of little value, or that your links were generated by automation rather than by the value of your site. Here is an example of deep linking, in this case to my personal happiness workbook.

Become a foreigner. Canada and the UK have many directories for websites of companies based in those countries. Can you get a business address in one of those countries?

Newsletters. Offer articles to ezine publishers that archive their ezines. The links stay live often for many years in their archives.

First come, first served. If you must have image links in your navigation bar, include also text links. However, make sure the text links show up first in the source code, because search engine robots will follow the first link they find to any particular page. They won’t follow additional links to the same page. You can see this in action at the link to the home page on this web site monitoring page

Multiple domains. If you have several topics that could each support their own website, it might be worth having multiple domains. Why? First, search engines usually list only one page per domain for any given search, and you might warrant two. Second, directories usually accept only home pages, so you can get more directory listings this way. Why not a site dedicated to gumbo pudding pops?

Article exchanges. You’ve heard of link exchanges, useless as they generally are. Article exchanges are like link exchanges, only much more useful. You publish someone else’s article on the history of pudding pops with a link back to their site. They publish your article on the top ten pudding pop flavors in Viet Nam, with a link back to your site. You both have content. You both get high quality links. (More on high quality links in other tips.)

Titles for links. Links can get titles, too. Not only does this help visually impaired surfers know where you are sending them, but some search engines figure this into their relevancy for a page.

Not anchor text. Don’t overdo the anchor text. You don’t want all your inbound links looking the same, because that looks like automation – something Google frowns upon. Use your URL sometimes, your company name other times, “Gumbo Pudding Pop” occasionally, “Get gumbo pudding pops” as well, “Gumbo-flavored pudding pops” some other times, etc.

Site map. A big site needs a site map, which should be linked to from every page on the site. This will help the search engine robots find every page with just two clicks. A small site needs a site map, too. It’s called the navigation bar. See how the second navigation bar at the bottom of Last Minute Florida Villas is like a mini-site map?

There you have it: 10 of the 52 Top SEO Tips, a free tip sheet that comes with Don’t Get Banned By the Search Engines:

There is a lot more to search engine optimization, and there are always more details when looking at an individual site. But these tips should help any website significantly improve its rankings.

First of all a big ‘thank you” for every one who participated. As I said before the number of entries surprised me (and the quality as well, I will definitely apply some of those tips myself).

Now, without further delay, the 30 Traffic Generation Tips:

1. Sridhar Katakam
Keep track of blogs and leave comments on them. A good way to keep the conversation going is to install a MyBlogLog widget and visit the blog of people visiting your site.

2. Ian Delaney
Nothing creates long-term traffic more than value. Consider writing posts with resources or explaining how things work. Useful things get linked to and they get onto del.icio.us, which is far better long-term than a digg front page.

3. Scott Townsend
Inform search engines and aggregators like Technorati (using the ping functionality) when your blog is updated, this should ensure maximum traffic coming from those sources. (check the List of Ping Services)

4. Kyle
Simplify. Pay attention to complex issues in your field of work. It may be a big long publication that is hard to wade through or a concept that is hard to grasp. Reference it and make a shorter ‘for dummies’ version with your own lessons learned and relevant tips. When doing this, I have been surprised to find that the simplified post will appear before the more complex version in search results. Perhaps this is why it results in increased traffic; people looking for more help or clarification on the subject will land on your blog.

5. Grant Gerver
Try to be polemic. I write obsessively about all-things political from the left-wing perspective in the form of humorous, sarcastic one-liners.

6. Daniel
A simple tip that will probably boost your page views: install a translator plugin. I decided to use a paid plugin for this, but if I am not wrong there are some free ones as well. The translation is not very good, as you can imagine, but it helps to attract readers that are not fluent in English.

7. Rory
Submit articles to blog carnivals (http://blogcarnival.com) that are related to your niche. Your article almost always gets posted, and it must generate a handful of visitors, at least.

8. Ramen Junkie
Newsgroups. I always see a spike when I post a review to a newsgroup.

9. Eric Atkins
Create a new design for your website. Not only will it be more attractive to your regular readers, but you can submit it to some CSS gallery showcase sites that feature great designs. This will give you exposure on those sites while generating a lot of traffic and backlinks from those types of sites.

10. Megan Taylor
Participate in conversations on related blogs. Start conversations on your own blog. Don’t just post about a story and leave it at that, engage your audience, ask questions and call to action.

11. Guido
Comment on blogs, write useful content and make good friends on forums.

12. Brian Auer
You must be active to generate traffic. I post comments on other blogs that are related to mine, and I post my site link in my signature at the forums. Spread the word about your blog and it will certainly attract readers.

13. Shankar Ganesh
Just browse around MyBlogLog.com and you will surely get visitors to your blog. Also try to join as many communities as possible that are related to your topic.

14. Andrew Timberlake
A great tip for generating traffic is off-line by including your url in all your off-line liturature from business cards, letterheads, pamphlets, adverts through in-store signage if applicable. I even have our website on my vehicle.

15. Cory OBrien
Read lots of other blogs. Leave trackbacks. Make sure your blog is optimized for search engines. Leverage social bookmarking sites like digg (both for new ideas and for traffic).

16. Jester
Leave comments on other blogs. If you’re already reading them, it takes
just a couple of seconds to leave a message agreeing or disagreeing
with the author, you get to leave a link to your site, and you will almost
ALWAYS get traffic from your comments.

17. Goerge Manty
Post 3-5 times a day. Use ping services like pingomatic or set up wordpress to ping some of the ping services. Engage your readers. Put up polls, ask them questions, give them quizes, free tools, etc. Make them want to come back and tell their friends about you.

18. Engtech
Community. It’s one word but it is the most important one when it comes to blogging. The only ‘blog metric’ that makes sense is the vibrant community of readers it has. Building a community around your blog will bring you increased traffic, but how do you start? The boilerplate response to building traffic is always ‘SEO, social networking sites, and commenting on blogs’ but it can be simplified to ‘be part of a community’. The easiest way to seed your blog is with an already existing community. But the only way to do that is to be part of the community yourself.

19. Chris
Squidoo Lenses are a good way to generate traffic. By using a lense,
you can generate your own custom ‘community’ of webpages, including some
of the more popular pages in your ‘neighborhood.’ Including your own
webpage in such a list is a good way of generating traffic.

20. Splork
I’ve had good success writing articles and submitting them to EzineArticles. Articles that have been written from well-researched keyword phrases and accepted by EzineArticles tend to rank very high in Google for that search term. Placing anchor text in the footer of those articles so the reader can visit my relevant website has always increased my site traffic.

21. Jen Gordon
I came upon some unexpected traffic when my blog popped up on some css design portals like www.cssmania.com and www.webcreme.com. If you can put some time into the concept behind and design for your blog, I’d recommend submitting your site to a design portal not only for
additional traffic but to build an additional community around your site.

22. Kat
I’ve recently gotten involved with several ‘MySpace-like’ community sites that focus on my target audience. I share my thoughts in their forums, post intros to my real blog on their system blog and I’ve even created a group for my specific niche. It’s been very, very successful for me.

23. Inspirationbit
Well, obviously everyone knows that social bookmarking sites like Digg, del.icio.us, etc. bring lots of traffic. But I’m now submitting some of my articles to blogg-buzz.com (a digg like site for bloggers), and I always get not a bad traffic from there.

24. Mark Alves
Participate in Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn Answers where you can demonstrate your expertise, get associated with relevant keywords and put your URL out there.

25. Tillerman
Be the first to write a post about the ‘Top Ten Blogs’ in your niche. The post will rank highly in any general search for blogs in your niche and other bloggers in your niche write about the post and link to it.

26. Nick
Participating in forums is a great way to get loyal readers. Either link baiting people in your signature or posting great advice and tips will give you high quality traffic, which will result in return visitors.

27. Brandon Wood
A simple trick I’ve used to increase traffic to my blog is participate in group writing projects. In fact, that’s what I’m doing right now.

28. Alan Thomas
Don’t forget your archives. I just posted a roundup of all interviews I did over the past seven months. One of them generated a new link and a big traffic spike from a group of users that look like they will be loyal readers now.

29. KWiz
Write something controversial. I don’t think it’s good to write something controversial just for the purpose of getting traffic necessarily (especially if it’s only for that purpose and you’re being disingenuous), but it works.

30. Dennis Coughlin
Find the best blogs on your niche and contact the authors. Introduce yourself and send a link of your blog. This might help them to discover your blog, read it and possibly link to it.