Traffic — And lots of it! It is the dream of every netrepreneur. After all, without steady stream of visitors — or should I say “potential customers” to your web site, how will you earn your e-fortune?

The first place most e-business start-ups go when they need a quick traffic fix is the search engines. And rightfully so! After all, a top ranking position in one of the major search engines is an effective way to increase the traffic to your web site without spending your hard-earned advertising dollars!

Statistics have repeatedly shown that anywhere from 20% to 80% of your visitors will find your web site via a search engine. However, you should also know that statistics show that most web surfers never search beyond the top 30 results they receive. With that in mind, it is clear that a top position a top position should be the goal of any savvy site owner.

But top spots are no longer achieved by crossing your fingers and blindly submitting your web site to 900+ search engines and directories using a free submission service. Competition for top spots is getting fierce, so it is important that you learn the “right” techniques if you want to ensure that your web site is well ranked… and it is very important that you do so while this great advertising medium is still FREE!

As I said before; for high traffic generation to your website, it is very important that your web site ranks in top spots in search engines. You may ask “What are the search engine looking for when they rank my web site?” Well, although each search engine uses different set of algorithms to rank web sites, but generally speaking, however, here are some of the main factors currently being considered by the search engines.

1. Link Popularity
Alta Vista, Excite, Lycos, and the web pages search promotion of Yahoo! use a ranking system that involves measuring and ranking the number of links that are directed towards a particular web site. This is an extremely powerful traffic generation tools because:

Reason # 1
Building a well thought-out linking strategy is a powerful way to attract large volumes of high targeted traffic! By putting your web site on every major web “intersection” where your target market meets, you will ensure that your web site receives a steady flow of qualified potential customers.

Reason # 2
Links are equivalent to recommendations! They established credibility even before the visitor reaches your web site, dramatically increasing the likelihood that they will buy.

Think about it… David arrives at his favorite web site and notices that they have posted a link to your web site. He knows and trusts his favorite web site and therefore assumes that, because they have a linked to you, your business must be credible too. He clicks through the link to your web site and is immediately open to offers you present him with. Why? Because your credibility was established before he even arrived at your homepage!

Reason # 3
Since many search engines now factor link popularity into their ranking decisions, your linking strategies are all that much more important! If you want to be ranked as high as possible in search engines, you now need a factor in your link popularity - and, as you already know, earnings a top spot in the major search engines is key to increasing your web site traffic.

Obviously, developing a linking strategy that generates a high volume of targeted traffic to your web site is not an overnight process. It will take you anywhere from two weeks to six months to secure quality links you need. However, I promise you that it is worth the effort! Once you have done the initial footwork, the links that are established will remain on these web sites for years to come. Your perseverance will pay big dividends in the form of a continuous flow of targeted traffic generation.

2. Your Domain Name
A domain name plays a vital role in traffic generation to any web site. Domain names rich in keywords will rank higher in search engines because search engines love URL’s that are saturated with keywords! Brainstorm keywords and key phrases for your web site and then use them to create a catchy URL… or load the domain name with your best keywords to get ranked higher in the search engines.

3. Key Word Density
Keywords definitely refer to the number of times your keyword appears throughout your site. Your keyword density is a factor that is heavily weighted by search engines, so it’s very important to make strategic use of your keywords.

So, these are the golden facts and tactics through which you can drive high traffic to your web site. I should also mention that you do not expect to enter a couple of your top keywords into the search engines and instantly start making money through your web site— that is very rare. But yes, you can really make high traffic through search engines without crossing the line into “keyword stuffing” and with a little time.

Wayne Robinson is a senior marketing consultant with 7 years of experience and presently writing for eByro. If you want to take benefit of his experience and learn more marketing tactics visit eByro; the Vertical Portal for Internet Entrepreneurs at: www.ebyro.com

We all need traffic, that goes without saying, but are your hard earned marketing dollars doing any good?
We know we should test our campaigns. You’ve read that statement about a hundred times or so, but has anyone told you how to tell if the traffic is real people or ‘Ghost’ traffic that just makes your counter spin and generates no results?

Here’s a very simple ‘Non-Existent Traffic Test’ to see if the program you are using is worth anything before spending a lot of money. Easy to do and all you need to create is 3 pages.

NOTE: Make sure you have a counter on EACH of these 3 pages.

For this example we are going to use: PetFood.htm, DogFood.htm and CatFood.htm

Let’s say you are using the keyword/phrase: “Pet Food”
And your description was: “A great place to buy discounted dog and cat food”

On your landing page (the page people are directed to (PetFood.htm in this example)) put a short statement about “Dog Food” and “Cat Food” with links to DogFood.htm and CatFood.htm.

If the counter on your landing page is climbing BUT you are not getting any hits on your “second” pages (DogFood.htm and CatFood.htm), rest assured these hits are NOT coming from people. They are coming from auto load programs/scripts.

After all, if a “PERSON” searched for ‘Pet Food’, saw your ad and read your description, they are at your site for a reason and would click to one of the ’second’ pages. (Not 100% of the time, but you get the drift.)

See the results I have (or have not) gotten since I started testing.
http://yorkinternetmarketing.com/TrafficReport.htm

About the author:

Michael York

Owner: York Instructional Services

http://YorkInstructionalServices.com
Has been developing and managing websites since early 1997

Why would you want a linking strategy for your site? The most important reason is to drive traffic to your site, which in turn would increase visitors that would either purchase from you, make your web site more popular, or reach a larger audience to inform for your cause. The second reason to develop a linking strategy for your site is to help increase your rankings in the search engine. With Google this is very important for achieving high web rankings, and I expect the other search engines to follow suit relatively soon.

There are many ways to develop a linking strategy where the links to your site will multiply without any effort from you. This is the most effective way to generate links to point to your site. In this article we will discuss how to do this, debunk myths, and how to do this without unintentionally harming your site’s status.

Debunking myths:

Linking software

I personally don’t approve of linking software that does the work for you. Why? Because the software does not do a good enough job where it can tell if the site it has the same theme or relative content that matches your site. Many errors slip through the process when this is done, that can cause damage to the reputation and rankings in the search engine. Also each site that you would like to link to you should have a decent PR ranking from Google to help your site’s rankings. (PR ranking is a method that Google uses to put a value on the web site) If you have too many web sites pointing to you with a poor PR ranking it could actually make your site drop in the rankings. And in addition sites with excellent PR rankings would help your rankings a great deal.

Linking farms and automated link exchanges

Linking farms and automated link exchanges are not recommended for the same reasons as the linking software. Poor quality links and potentially harmful to your site. In addition these two methods carry another danger. If the site that links to has been put onto a black list for spam, and your site points to that site your web site will automatically get black listed and your rankings will go down as well. That is why I prefer one way links to your site instead of reciprocal links. It may sound hard to do, but it isn’t and I will show you a way to do it below.

The more sites pointing to your site the better. Right?

Wrong! In the past search engines would rank you higher in the search engines by judging the value of your site to the number of links pointing to it. But because people have abused and try to cheat this system, the rules have changed. Now they actually penalize you for too many sites pointing to yours if they are deemed suspicious. For instance many other sites pointing to you with the same IP address (caused by you putting up mirror sites to build links), links that point to that do not have the same content as you (”once I saw a web design site having a reciprocal link with a lingerie site”), and links that have low PR rankings pointing to your site (in this case the more the merrier does not work).

“I’ve seen a site with only 10 links pointing to it (links from government sites) do better with searches than a site that had over 10,000 links pointing to it.”

Another thing to consider: Google has just bought rights to register domain names. So, here is a theory of mine that may show up later. Google may update their algorithm to check links to see if the domain name those links are registered under contain the same registration information. This way it could penalize sites that register a bunch of domain names to point to their site and try to cheat the system.

“The only time you would like a lot of links pointing to your site is if they are from respectable sites, have a high PR ranking, and have relative content.”

Who links to your site now?

An easy way to find this out is to type in link:www.yoursite.com into a search engine and you will receive a list of web sites currently pointing to you.

Are they quality links?

You can use Google toolbar located at their site to read the PR ranking, an add-on extension for Firefox, or visit a web site that will tell you the PR rankings of sites that you type in. If you type in page ranking tool in the search engines you’ll find plenty of resources for this.

Who links to your competitors that are high in the search engines?

Examine and study the links to and from your competitors web site to learn more. And request links from the same people for your site.

How do I build links pointing to my site?

These are a list of ways to build links to your site that are one way links instead of reciprocal links. I highly recommend these ways to build a solid link foundation:

1) Content and more content. Content will increase your rankings in the search engine and people are more likely to link to you if you have valuable content. One time I had a large college link to one of the articles at my site for a research paper. The college had a high PR ranking and the link is in their archives. (This is a way to have your links multiply without the effort)

2) Add a link to us page to your web site. Where you can give the visitors to your site to apply a text link or banner. I recommend a text link to your site that contains keywords for your site. For example, web development contractor would point to my site via hyperlink. (This is a way to have your links multiply without the effort)

3) Start a blog on your site that people can go to and bookmark for the latest information in a category that relates to your site. (This is a way to have your links multiply without the effort)

4) Offer a free helpful ‘how to’ e-book to give away that has links inside of it that point to your site. (This is a way to have your links multiply without the effort)

5) Submit to online directories. Online directories usually have high PR rankings and get picked up by other directories and web sites to include on their sites.

6) Write a testimonial for a site you like that has the same relative content as yours. Chances are that if you praise their site and sign it with a link (to your site) of who praised them they will post it on their site giving you a fr^ee one way link.

7) Create a free article directory asking people to submit articles to your site, and in exchange for posting their articles on your site have them post a link on their web site stating where their article can be found. (your site) I’ve seen people put a list of where there article can be found to impress the visitors on how popular they are. (This is a way to have your links multiply without the effort)

Lastly, and most importantly write articles yourself! When I wrote my first article I submitted it to 25 places. (places with higher traffic views) and the next day over 180 sites were pointing to my web site, because I had a nice keyword enriched link pointing to my site in the article. The next day the total was over 300. How do you find out if they are pointing to your site? Type in your article title in quotes into the search engines and then you’ll find out how many sites are posting your article on their site. (This is a way to have your links multiply without the effort)

One thing to do for sure is monitor your results. Who is driving the most traffic to me? Which ways of linking are producing multiplying links without any effort on my part? Which links are actually harmful to me? Do these links compliment my site? Do these things and I guarantee you that the links to your site will increase ten fold.

M Grangerop
NewDesignWorld.com
http://www.newdesignworld.com

In this discussion, we are going to move one step beyond what most people know, or think they know about affiliate programs. We will assume that most people reading this are aware of the fact that they can associate with, or affiliate with, many companies, and can earn commissions by sending customers to these companies through links on their web site, in emails, and so on.

Do you know you could earn more money by altering your understanding of and implementation of, affiliate programs, and possibly even creating your own?

Here’s what you need to move a step further and use these programs to make your web site successful.

Once you have an internet business of your own, you hope to join the thousands of other businesses which realize the importance of the internet and launch web sites every day. You will open your business up to all the citizens of the cities, countries and nations of the world. Soon, thousands will be following the internet’s myriad threads to your door, buying your products, boosting your sales and making you rich!

Okay, you can wake up now!

Despite all the millions upon millions of potential customers awaiting your important message, there are also millions and millions of businesses elbowing and shoving one another in an attempt to get their attention. You have got to position yourself in such a way as to avoid the impression of someone handing out flyers on a street corner, and take your rightful place among the successful online businesses, claiming your share of customers and steadily increasing your sales.

Among the many effective methods of achieving this goal, one has proven itself to be of undeniable importance and is used by many online businesses and web sites. Many of these entrepreneurs, new and experienced alike, have discovered the importance of having a good affiliate program. While many web sites have caught the fever and have initiated their own affiliate programs, many do not have the knowledge to do so, or at least, do so effectively. This lack of good affiliate programs in so many areas has fueled a search for the effective performers in this area.

The most important information for someone thinking of initiating one of these programs are the answers to these four basic questions:

>What is an effective affiliate program?

>What does an affiliate program do?

>How can it affect my business.

>How do I start an affiliate program?

In its simplest form, an affiliate program of the type we are discussing is simply a…well…program where an online business links with, affiliates with, another online business or ecommerce site which has the same, similar, or closely related product or service. These businesses complement one another…a site offering a series of health and fitness training videos and a site offering exercise equipment or vitamins and other supplements, for example.

Once they have established the relationship, these sites can in effect link to each other, each offering the products and services of their affiliate partner as well as their own. Each time a site, through their marketing efforts, causes a sale of the other site’s product, they receive a commission for the sale. This is the standard step we are all familiar with. The more sites carrying these sorts of affiliate program links, the more potential for sales and hence, for profit.

In our discussion, however, by establishing your own affiliate exchange program, if you will, all the extra links you have exchanged with all these other web sites have the potential of leading more customer traffic to your web site as well because each link is in effect a free advertisement on each of these other sites. The equation is simple. The more visitors to their sites means more possible visitors for you. The more visitors for you, the more possible sales of your own products and services on your own site.

Another positive effect is that because there are links exchanged, traffic may increase in your website because they are advertised in a multitude of other sites. With more visitors you can effectively showcase your business to more people. Some search engines also have been known to sometimes view links from other sites favorably, thus offering another possible increase of traffic due to higher rankings.

Now that you understand this enhanced concept of using an affiliate program, the next piece of information you need is how to start one!

Now we are getting to the tough part. Starting some affiliate programs will require what seems to be esoteric programs (at least to most of us), such as CGI scripts, within your web site, in addition to all the details to be attended to either by hand or by various computer programs. You will need to track the visitors to your web site, accumulate order data, compute commissions, distribute payments, fulfill orders, and more. You can do these yourself, or you can acquire the services of a company which specializes in setting up affiliate programs. Many of these, in addition to setting up everything you need, can also help you find the other websites that you would like to include in your affiliate program.

Just a reminder. You will also need to get a merchant account for accepting credit card orders and processing payments.

Some pitfalls to look out for:

As you can imagine after reading just the small bit of information above, this apparently simple solution can become complicated. Also, as you are probably new to this area, you will be susceptible not only to unscrupulous vendors and sales people, but if you do not know exactly what you are looking for, the vendor might not, even with the best of intentions, be able to supply the exact program or affiliate program information you need. You will have to do your homework in advance and draw up an affiliate program plan for success that includes as many details and questions as possible to present to the companies you seek out. Don’t accept the first proposal you receive, and, if you can, get the advice of someone familiar with these sorts of things. Many vendors offering affiliate program information and services are simply the affiliates of other websites themselves.

Doing the legwork and due diligence now will help make your online business a success and earn you extra income and increase traffic flow to your web site in the future. Take the time to get all the affiliate program information you can before you take the step and start your own affiliate program.

The author is retired from the Army after 21 years of service. He has worked as an accountant, purchasing agent, optical lab manager, restaurant manager, instructor and long-haul, over-the-road truck driver. He has been a member of Mensa for several years, and has written and published poetry, essays, and articles on various subjects for the last 40 years. He has been an active internet marketer since 2000, and now makes his living online. To learn more about improving your marketing performance, please visit http://marketingsecrets.xtramoney4me.net. To read more articles by the author, please visit his blog at http://donovanbaldwin.blogspot.com/, or http://xtramoney4me.net/internet_marketing_links/articles/index.html.

Most companies that have websites have access to traffic statistics, usually provided by their web host. Those that don’t look at these files (or use a bargain basement web hosting company that doesn’t provide them) don’t know what they are missing- there is a wealth of information to be found, and reacting to this information can have a positive impact on a company’s bottom line. What follows are some of the most basic stats that are typically available, followed by brief suggestions on how to use the information.

The Myth of “Hits” Most web surfers have come across sites that boast about “20,000 hits per day” or something similar. But what does this mean? To an internet marketer, unfortunately, not much. “Hits” actually refers to the number of requests for information the web server receives. To use an oversimplified example, if your company homepage has 20 separate graphics on it, each visitor to that page will account for 20 hits. If you were boasting of 20,000 hits per day, you would really only be talking about 1000 visitors. Obviously, this statistic is not a fair indication of actual site visitors, and shouldn’t be figured into your traffic analysis.

Average Visitors (Daily, Weekly, Monthly) This is the true measure of website activity. Of course, more traffic is desirable in most circumstances (provided it is at least somewhat targeted). Without access to this data and the ability to look at visitor history, it is impossible to tell if your traffic building initiatives, whether online or offline, are working. It should be noted that the more your traffic increases, the more accurate the rest of your data becomes. This is simply because trends in a larger sample are more telling than trends in a smaller sample where a small number of atypical users can skew the results.

Average Time Spent On Site and Average Page Views Per Visitor This data can be very useful in determining how your site is connecting with visitors. If the average time that people spend on the site is small (for example less than a minute), or the average visitor only visits one or two pages, it may indicate some sort of problem. Perhaps your site is attracting the wrong traffic, with visitors abandoning the site quickly when they realize it isn’t what they were seeking. Perhaps visitors are confused by the navigation and decide to look elsewhere. Maybe your site, even though you love it, gives off an inexplicable bad vibe. Whatever the case, an awareness of the time people spend on your site and the number of pages they view can bring a potential problem to your attention, and help you gauge how effective your solution is.

Most/Least Requested Pages This information is helpful in determining the “hot” and “cold” areas of your website. If you notice that a page that you think is important is not getting any attention, perhaps the link to this page should be made more prominent or enticing. On the other hand, if there are areas of the site that you deem less important that are attracting a great deal of your traffic, you can shift some of your sales/marketing focus to those pages. Whatever you find in these stats, you can bet that it will give you valuable insight into the interests and motivations of your visitors.

Top Exit Pages There are probably certain pages of your site where you don’t mind visitors leaving (after all, they can’t stay forever). A confirmation page after they fill out a request for more information might be one example of a reasonable exit point. A contact page that tells visitors how to get in touch with your company might also be acceptable. Unfortunately, it is unrealistic to assume that each of your visitors is going to find exactly what they are looking for on your company site, so it is normal to see a wide range of exit pages. However, if a high percentage of visitors are leaving on any particular page, it bears some close scrutiny. Sometimes minor modifications in content can have a positive impact on visitor retention.

Top Search Phrases This data can be very useful in understanding what type of traffic is coming to your site. If you see relevant phrases that bring you consistent traffic, you can assume that you are getting some targeted traffic. On the other hand, if there are predominant phrases people are using to find your site that are unrelated to your business, you know that at least some of your traffic is of a lesser quality. In addition, if you notice that people find your site by typing in the name of your company, you should be pleased to know that you have achieved some level of brand awareness. By examining the search phrases that your visitors are using, you gain a better understanding of your visitor.

Conclusion Some people are intimidated by these reports (mostly because of the sheer volume of data available), but they shouldn’t be. While there are many highly specialized statistics that can be used for more in-depth analysis of site traffic, the above areas alone can provide invaluable information on site visitors and website performance. Remember- this data is available for a reason. It’s up to your company to use it!

Website traffic is deemed the single most important factor when it comes to the success of a website but that statement needs to be qualified. Although it’s true that a constant stream of traffic is the lifeblood of a website, the quality of the traffic is far more important than the quantity.

Of course, any amount of website traffic is better than no traffic at all but even if you have the most perfect website, your site is doomed to fail if you are not getting visitors that are looking for the products or information you have available on your site.

It’s easy to get caught up in a numbers game. It’s exciting to see the number of visitors to your site climb from a few a day to a few hundred a day.
On the surface, this looks like exactly what you want but if your visitors are looking for something other than what you are offering, for the most part, your website traffic is wasted.

You could have a great website design, compelling copy, the lowest prices and fantastic specials but all your efforts will be useless unless your website is drawing traffic that is interested in what you are providing or promoting.

What you need are visitors specifically interested in your product or service — you need ‘targeted traffic’.

Don’t think of targeted traffic as a sub-category of website traffic because they really are two separate entities. If you’re marketing plan is designed to drive as much website traffic as possible to your site, no matter what kind of traffic it is, then you’re not making effective use of your time and you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.

The web is a very different venue than a shopping mall. A shopping mall relies on unfocused traffic, wondering from store to store, not looking for anything in particular but willing to spend it’s money on an impulse.

Believe it or not, people surfing the web will leave a website after viewing it for only about 2 seconds. They’re looking for specific items or information and if they don’t quickly find what they are looking for on your site, they’ll click out of your site and go to one of the other millions of sites on the web.

That’s why most of the successful websites are tightly focused on their ‘niche’ and their marketing plan is focused on driving people to their site that are looking for what they offer - they understand the importance of ‘targeted traffic’.

Of course, targeted traffic and a website focused on a particular ‘niche’ go hand and hand. Think about your website. Does it really lend itself to a specific product or service, or is it so broad that it tends to confuse potential customers?

Here are a few tips to help you prepare your website for targeted traffic:

Design your website to promote one particular product or service as your main item.

Determine the type of people that will be interested in your product or service and adjust your website to be attractive to them.

Establish the items or services that are ‘closely’ related to what you’re promoting on your website. If you think that they would be interesting to your visitors, offer those items on your website as well.

Keep a constant flow of free content, that your visitors will find useful, on your website and add new content and information often. Invite your visitors back to your site to see the new material you’re constantly adding.

Keep in mind, a website that’s focused on a particular ‘niche’ item or service lends itself to targeted traffic simply because there is something specific to target and the more targeted traffic your site receives, the more productive your site will be.

There are many conventional and many not so conventional ways to drive targeted traffic to your website but we’ll explore them in other articles.

The purpose of this article is to point out the difference between website traffic and targeted traffic. More isn’t always better and if you focus your marketing on ‘targeted traffic’ you’ll quickly find that the hits your getting on your website aren’t just empty numbers - they’ll be potential customers and, more importantly, sales.

Mike Burke is the author of numerous articles and has an affection for website marketing. Learn how to drive tons of targeted traffic to your site without spending a dime on advertising.
Visit us at http://www.starttheprofits.com

If you are looking to increase the number of visitors to your website or increase your hits, I have a number of ideas that I hope will prove beneficial.

By far the best advice would be writing articles, just like the one you are reading.

If you search for:

The best way to promote your website Stuttering and its effects

on Google and just look where these two articles are placed. As of July 2005 they were number one. This alone will create a good level of visitors to my websites as you are able to add a live link at the bottom of the article to your site.

When you have written an article you need to submit it to various article websites such as http://www.ezinearticles.com and just watch your hits increase.

To find other article websites you can search the internet, I also use a website called goarticles.

The other benefits are the fact that other webmasters or people are able to read your article and even use it on their websites, thus creating lots of additional backward links. These links are very important these days and in turn will increase PR ratings, which in turn will mean you are higher placed in search engines.

Ppc can also be useful as you drive targeted traffic to your website, be careful though not to spend more than you are likely to earn.

Link exchange programs are also of value as per the reasons above.

If you are able to find a cheap search engine optimisation company this may also be of benefit.