Increase Website Traffic and Sales: Tips and Tricks

Yahhoo! Making Traffic From

2008-11-27T00:46:00.000-08:00

I heard about the misspelled Yahoo!, Yahhoo!, since last year that it is getting lots of traffic. But I was too lazy to ride the trend so, I haven't done anything for the keyword, "Yahhoo".

However, just yesterday I decided to make use of this keyword. I need more traffic for my blog and I think, I can try using this keyword, SEO it, and let's see if we can get few traffic from the users who are looking for the Yahhoo!.

Text Messages Blog at 500 Traffic

2008-10-30T19:37:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I couldn't believe that the text messages blog of my wife is now receiving more or less 500 unique visitors today. Just consider the screenshot of the traffic stat of the text messages blog.

Text Message Blog on 100 Traffic

2008-10-16T01:33:00.000-07:00

After controlling over the Text Message blog, the said blog finally reached the 100 mark of unique visitors. The way of blogging that I applied on this blog is quiet successful. If you'll look at the graphic presentation of the traffic, you'll notice how the traffic continuously increases. And just this day, the said blog has 130 visitors already.
And I will continue to apply that technique until that blog will receive thousands of traffic every day.

Pinay Scandal Traffic

2008-10-06T21:02:00.000-07:00

My post on Pinay Scandal has been dropped from Google SERP. I don't know what's the reason of this. It can be true that Google penalized the page, but it can be also true that the drop is just temporary and that after several days the page will be back again on the top SERP.

For now, I don't know yet what to do to gain traffic from scandals. I will still be thinking what to do.

From 20 Unique to 40 Unique

2008-09-29T17:14:00.000-07:00

I created a blog, "Text Messages", that should be maintained by my wife. However, she felt not interested to blog on it. The only good thing is that even if it was left untouched for many days, it still draws traffic from TOP Blogs, the blog ranking service. The traffic at that time has an average of 20 unique visitors.

Just last week, I decided to take over on it. I posted lots of search engine friendly post. And as just after a day, the traffic started to climb up.

Consider the screenshot of the graph of the traffic of the said blog.

Two Myths about the Search Engine Listing

2005-08-24T18:17:00.000-07:00

By: Mohamad Zaki Hussein

Getting top search engine listing is perhaps one of the hottest subjects in the internet marketing world. The problem is that many discussions on this subject are based on speculation. Almost no one knows the exact algorithms of the search engines. And what make it worse is that the search engines have a habit of changing their algorithms.

However, some people are so obsessed with top search engine listing that they tend to undermine the importance of other web traffic generation techniques. These "trances" are partly caused by some misleading myths that surround the search engine marketing subject. Below are two of those myths with some empirical facts that contradict and refute them.

Myth #1: "You can't get loads of targeted traffic without the top search engine listing."

This is completely wrong. Jack Humphrey, the power linking guy, has given us a picture that it is possible to get huge amount of web traffic without the top search engine listing. In his Special Report, "What if Google Didn't Exist?," he shared one of his sites' stat in April 2004 and guess what? From 71,444 unique visitors that he got at that month, "google search" referred only a small portion of them, i.e. 0.07%.

You can read Jack's complete report at http://www.webmastertraffictools.com/weblog/index.php/weblog/googleexist/.

I also found another similar fact from Tinu Abayomi-Paul, the free traffic chick. In her blog post, "Site Promotion is Multi-Faceted," she said that the search engines only constitute 6 - 10% of her traffic in any given month. While she didn't tell us about the monthly amount of traffic to her website, I believe that her site gets huge traffic every month, because she has an Alexa ranking of 38,371 (that's what my Alexa toolbar showed me at the time I wrote this article).

You can read Tinu's complete blog post at http://www.freetraffictip.com/2005/06/site-promotion-is-multi-faceted.php.

Myth #2: "The major search engines are reliable sources of sustainable, residual, traffic."

This is also inaccurate. Look at what happened to Alice Seba from Internet Based Moms. One of her websites, http://malcolmsweb.com, has been banned by Google, even though that website was full with good content. Since May 21, 2005, her visitors instantly dropped from about 700-800 per day to 200-250 per day.

You can read Alice's complete story at her blog post, 'Alice "White Hat" Seba Has Been Banned,' at http://www.aliceseba.com/2005/06/alice-white-hat-seba-has-been-banned.html.

Now I don't mean to undermine the importance of the major search engines. The major search engines are one of the biggest traffic sources on the net and so, you should do proper optimization and try to get top search engine listing.

But, don't let yourself be misled by these myths and thus ignore many other web traffic generation techniques. With the unstable nature of the search engines, it would be wise to use the search engines only as one of your traffic sources and look for other traffic generation techniques to build multiple sources of traffic.

About The Author

Mohamad Zaki Hussein is the webmaster of http://www.webtrafficideas.com. To learn how to increase online traffic to your website by using a combination of Viral Marketing, RSS and Blog, grab the FREE "Instant Traffic Formula" report at http://www.webtrafficideas.com/getviral.

How To Get Directories To Submit Your Site - With This 5 Steps Guide !

2005-08-22T23:30:00.000-07:00

So you have completed that new site and want to start your site promotion campaign by getting listed in some directories? Well,definitely a good idea, because those directories will provide you the initial thrust needed for visibility of your web site. But then how do you find those directories to submit your site to?

No need to despair! Help is at hand! , allow this simple 5 steps guide help you out with your campaign:

1. Check out your competitions back links. Your competition is sure to have got links from some directories. Try to get into those first.

2. Do a search in Google (the most obvious one!) using keywords like 'submit site directory’. You will come up with many directories for your site. And you can use your imagination to come up with new combination of keywords for searching in Google.

3. Do a search in Google with "allintitle:webdirectory". I did a search with these keywords and came up with some good directories. Or you can use "allinurl:webdirectory" also. The command "allintitle:webdirectory" shows those sites which have "webdirectory" word in the site title. Similarly the command "allinurl:webdirectory" shows those sites which have "web-directory" in the site url.You can change "webdirectory" to "internetdirectory" or any other keyword of your choice.

4. Visit various Search Engine related forums .In almost every such forum you will find some threads discussing directory sub-missions. Follow such threads – dig deeper if needed! You will be aptly rewarded with lists of many directories posted by members of these forums.

5. Visit some good directories like http://dmoz.org, http://dir.yahoo.com, http://www.joeant.com, http://www.goguides.org and search for the ‘directories’ category. These prominent directories provides lists of other good directories on the net.

Follow these simple 5 steps to get directories on your left, right, everywhere and set your promotion campaign rolling !

Have fun hunting for directories!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lakhya Phukan - Web Site : http://www.hedir.com You can also submit your site at http://www.hedir.com or join http://www.hedir.com/groupthink/index.html to get some more DIRECTORY
LISTS .

The Biggest Benefit Of Using A Long Domain Name As A Marketing Strategy

2005-08-20T21:13:00.000-07:00

By: Justin Koh

In the world of 21st century, it is no longer surprising to find that most business had already establishes a web presence to support their brick-and-mortar businesses. There are many advantages of establishing a web presence on the Internet such as selling globally to prospective customers and disseminating information to the public.

Most business owner would have already understood the importance of a web presence to their business. What most of them had failed to understand is that the domain name in their website can contribute significantly to their online marketing strategy.

First, we look at a few rules of a good domain name. Most would agree that a good domain name should:

1) be able to describe your business when people first look it.

2) include hyphen in between the words to make it easier to read.

3) have an appropriate .com, .net, .biz, .info, .org to reflect the nature of the business.

What I differ in opinion is that a long domain name "mysuperduperbrandflyingsite.com" can be as effective as a short domain name "superduper.com" depending on the context where the domain name is used. Many people would definitely disagree with me on this point as they believe that a short domain name is easier to remember. However, a long domain name can be just as effective depending on the context where it is use.

Having a catchy long domain name such as http://www.dont-miss-a-thing.com or http://www.once-in-a-lifetime.com/ would definitely helps to draw attention to your business promotion rather than promoting your website name http://www.yourcompanyname.com which is mundane.

When people reach http://www.dont-miss-a-thing.com or http://www.once-in-a-lifetime.com, you can communicate a short sales message before driving them to the appropriate web page.

Thus, depending on the context where the domain name is used, a domain name can actually help to make or break your overall marketing performance.

About The Author

Justin Koh is the contributor of this article for http://www.domainnamecenter.info

You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.

What Did We Learn From The Great Search Engine Experiment!

2005-08-20T21:09:00.000-07:00

By: Mike Makler
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Last Week I did a Search Engine Experiment. I wanted to see if I could brand myself as the coolest guy in the universe. I created a web page that said Mike Makler is the coolest Guy in the Universe. In that Web Page I repeated that Phrase over and over. In less then 24 Hours I was Number 1 in Yahoo for the Phrase coolest Guy in the Universe in Double Quotes. A Few hours later I was no where to be found in Yahoo.

So I then created a few more web pages did a few more blog entries and not only was I back to #1 in Yahoo But I had the top 3 Spots and the 5th Spot in Yahoo as Well. Searching on the same Keyword Phrase in MSN I have the 2nd Spot and 4 total spots on the First Page.

Now if you run the exact same search in Google "coolest Guy in the Universe" don't forget the Double Quotes Not only am I not on the First Page of the Results but I am nowhere in sight on the first 4 or 5 Pages. You will also notice that the entries on the first few pages in Google tend to be very different for The Keyword Phrase the coolest Guy in the Universe. They tend to be more Commercial oriented. RandomHouse, Amazon and the BBC all Appear in the top 5 Results. They all have Google Page Rank values of 8 or 9.

This experiment seems to point to the fact that Google seems to stress Linking and Link Partners over Key Word Density in there search Criteria. An Alternative conclusion might be that Google is slower to index then Yahoo and MSN and Perhaps I just need to be patient. One would be more inclined to believe that 2nd conclusion if some of the other entries from Yahoo and MSN appeared in Google as opposed to those High Page Rank Ones.

About The Author

Mike Makler has been Marketing Online Since 2001 - Subscribe to Mike's Newsletter here: http://www.ewguru.com/hbiz/list-sign-up.html - More Articles by Mike: http://weeklytipsandtricks.blogspot.com.

7 Warning Signs of an Unprofitable Web Site

2005-08-19T16:39:00.000-07:00

By: Ash Kawa
___________________

7 general mistakes which you should avoid to make your web business successful and not Unprofitable.

1. Selling To Everyone Means You Sell to No One

If you do not target your offer, it will confuse your customers. People are not patient. In a recent survey, 73% of people claimed to be "insanely busy". If you do not develop a target customer profile and appeal directly to them, you will lose customers. And they will never come back to your site again.

2. Web Flea Market: Buy a Web Site or Get a Grocery Coupon

People are selling Web Sites, classified advertising, pre-paid legal services, long distance phone cards, and reminder services via affiliate programs...All on the same Web Page!

Think about that the next time you go to your grocery store. Do they offer to sell you a Web Site with your pickles? Flea markets diminish the value of what you are selling. Most people who own these sites tell me they depend on selling a high volume of low price items. How do I know this is a doomed approach? Visit their sites and see if there is any life there

3. Huge graphics that make your site take 30 seconds to open, which is all the time you have to sell your customer on staying.

The worst thing about computers is that they enable us to do things we just should not be doing. Graphic design is a skill; most people get some Paint program and have absolutely no sense of size, or what the graphic makes them look like. If you want to SCREAM AT YOUR AUDIENCE AND BE OBNOXIOUS, then use big graphics.

4. This site has xxxx number of visitors (How many bought?)

Does it really matter to anyone how many people visit your store? The sure sign that a store is visited often is the success and profits of the owner. All the rest is empty bragging.

5. Explaining what technology you use, frames, etc.

To this day it amazes me how people explain the technical design of their Web Page. If you use any reference to technology, you are distracting your customer. Keep it simple.

6. Download the following plug-ins to get this site working.

No one will spend ten minutes downloading the plug-in to see your cutesy message. Avoid plug-ins, with the possible exception of Real Audio.

7. No place to send an email, or gain a free report.

After spending all this time to create a site, most people forget to ask for inquiries. They just think people will work hard to contact them. Assume that a person will visit your site once, and never return unless you remind them to via email.

About The Author

Ash Kawa has written hundreds of articles specializing in helping people succeed when the competition is tough. President of a successful Website Hosting Company http://www.hostforwebsite.com [$0.75/month & Get Un-Limit Movies & MP3 Songs on your PC!]

What’s the MOST effective SEO Tactic for 2006?

2005-08-19T16:33:00.000-07:00

By: Brad Callen
----------------------

Today, I’m going to try something different. I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a blind assumption about you.

"You think that the Q-square formula (quality + quantity) of getting inbound links (reciprocal or one-way) is the best way to increase your search engine rankings."

Just about right, eh? And unless you are a complete newbie to search engine optimization, this is exactly what SEO experts have been telling you time and time and time again. And if there was any doubt that search engines were being spammed, paid links put rest to those fears. The SEO experts make money, you get a boost in your rankings, everyone’s happy.

Or so they’d have you think.

Over the past year or so, search engines have started to take serious measures to combat spam against them. Search engine spamming usually occurs in one of three ways:

Multiple submissions of your web pages (you’d be surprised to learn that people still do this).

Keyword spamming in low quality content.

Link spamming (building tons of links to a new site REALLY quickly).

On the other hand, you’ve probably heard about the need for quality content ever since you started learning about search engine optimization (hopefully). Either way, here’s a refresher:

Search engines are looking for unique and useful content – information that is accurate and important to the people interested in that field. Search engines also look for fresh content – regular additions to your website, etc (this is why blogging became / is such a huge craze).

So let’s put that all together:

Search engines are working towards fighting SEO spam – bad, keyword stuffed content and link spamming – by:

Devaluing the "ranking boost" that these elements give.

Penalizing the websites that are obviously spamming search engines.

The end result?

Traditional link building is no longer your best bet to get high search engine rankings.

That’s not to say that you should dump your link campaigns all at once and scamper for the hills – links will continue to have value within search engines and until the search engine algorithms develop well enough to distinguish between "organic" linking and links generated through a link-building campaign (not easy to do at all, even with Google’s or Microsoft’s resources), getting inbound links will stay the easiest way to bump up your search engine rankings by several pages.

However, for SEO purposes, that brings us back to square one. We like things to be easy, but we also want things to work well. If link-building is a good tactic, but not the best tactic (especially when everyone and their mother is getting a few hundred links every month to their 30-page AdSense websites), then where does it leave the rest of us?

The answer lies with what the search engines have been saying all along – quality content, wrapped around quality, organic links.

Let me explain that.

Search engines have taken two specific measures to improve their results and reduce commercialized spam from their search engines:

Link pages are being "identified" as such and therefore are being considered as low-quality links (you’ll remember from Link Building 101 that the quality of the link is a big factor in how much it improves your website’s rankings). Some of the identifying criteria for a link page are: the number of links on that page, the ratio of text to links on that page, and relevance of the link, which I explain in the next point.

Search engine algorithms are now looking at the context that the links are placed in (i.e. surrounding text as well as the page’s keywords) to measure the relevance of the host site to YOUR website – in other words, checking the text of the page your inbound link is placed on to find out whether that site is relevant to your industry / niche.

This leads us to the following conclusions:

The linking page must have as few links as possible.

The links should be focused on as few sites as possible (to funnel the value of the link page).

The links should be surrounded by "relevant" content.

The linking page should contain "quality" content (written for human reading rather than written for search engines – there’s a sharp difference between keyword optimization and keyword stuffing).

Now you must be wondering....”is there a point to all this?” And I respect that, because this is exactly what internet marketing and SEO gurus have been saying these same things for a long time now. Just like I often ask myself:

So WHAT?

So...

What if I told you that you could use a blindingly simple marketing tactic that will not only bring you relevant, powerful and valuable inbound links, but that it will ALSO bring you regular visitors?

How many SEO techniques can promise visitors from other websites?

Now I’m not trying to sell you a product here, so I’ll cut to the chase.

Take a single page. Take ONE core keyword describing your industry / main business, and a few more keywords for a couple of main category pages. Write 350-550 words of unique, quality content that gives the reader useful information. Each paragraph should be tightly focused around one keyword, and should contain one link (not more) to a related page (for your main keyword, link to your website, for your category keywords link to your category pages). Use keywords (but not sentences) as anchor text.

Once you’ve completed this page, contact link partners in YOUR niche – not direct competitors obviously, but complimentary businesses (if you sell information books on candle-making, your ideal link partners would be informational websites on candle-making), and make them this pitch:

"Are you looking for a quick and easy way to boost your search engine rankings? Search engines demand relevance, they demand quality, they demand freshness. I’d like to offer you the chance to do a valuable exchange – I’ll provide you with an optimized article on a subject relevant to your business, and in return all I ask is that you allow me to place some links to my website on the page. In fact, you can even plug in your own links – affiliate, to your own website or any other website."

Of course, you’ll probably have to write a more sophisticated approach letter than those 6 lines, but the intent is clear: write quality content, and then place it on websites relevant to your industry. Usually, the website hosting the page will want some monthly payment in return (after all, you’re effectively buying a page on their website). If you’ve followed my advice and picked well-ranked websites with quality content, the money will be worth it. In addition, you’ll probably be paying less than an out-and-out link purchase as you’re also giving them something in return (quality content to boost their search engine rankings).

Got all that? Congratulations. You’ve just learned about what I like to call a “Hosted Marketing Page”. Don’t be fooled by its simplicity. What I’ve explained in 4 paragraphs (318 words) will probably be the subject of endless marketing campaigns and short $49 reports over the next year.

Now some of you might be saying: “I know this – isn’t this just another version of marketing your website through articles (where you write articles, submit them to article directories and have webmasters pick them up to post on their websites)? What’s so great about this? We KNOW this.

The question isn’t that you know this, the question is: are you doing this? Article submissions are shots in the dark – article farms do give a better boost in search engine rankings than simple links, but most article directories are too general to help you rank well on the relevance factor. If your article gets picked up by a few webmasters, the extra links will be dampened by the fact that now the content is "duplicated" – thus reducing its value.

Search engines are wising up to article submissions just as they started combating link spam an year and a half ago – at any rate, article submissions are marketing tools / branding tools, not pure SEO tools.

Experiment with a Hosted Marketing Page of your own. If you don’t have the time to contact link partners directly, talk to your link-building expert (or company) and explain what you are looking for (heck, you can forward this article to them).

The beauty of Hosted Marketing Pages is that they compliment your regular SEO strategy. Link building, if done right, is still a quick and cheap way of getting higher search engine rankings. However, if you are looking to make a HUGE splash instead of just poking around, then I urge you to seriously consider the power of Hosted Marketing Pages.

If you would like help with your "Hosted Marketing Page" campaign, visit Textlinkbrokers.com. They are the leader in link popularity building programs and are the only company offering this particular service.

About The Author

Brad Callen - SEO Specialist and Internet Marketing Consultant for http://www.textlinkbrokers.com http://www.seoelite.com.

How to Turn Your Articles Into a Viral Traffic Stampede

2005-08-16T08:12:00.000-07:00

By: Alli Ross

By writing articles you can send targeted traffic to your website at any time without paying a single cent. Articles are one of the best online marketing investments you can make because you write them once and they send you instant visitors each and every day. The more articles you have circulating the internet, the more targeted traffic they will send to your site.

Now, you may be thinking that writing just isn't your thing, but I'm about to show you just how easy it can be.Read on to find out a simple method that will have you ripping out articles in record time.

1. Killer title - The first step is to create a killer title. Authors know that the difference between a bestseller and a dud can come simply through the title of a book. The same thing goes for articles. You must grab the reader out of their chair with an attention-grabbing title. Here are a few to get you started.

Powerful Secret that pulls in thousands of devoted subscribers
3 Strategies that will triple your conversion rate
7 Overlooked Methods that Drive Daily Traffic to your Site
How to Get 1000+ Targeted Visitors a Day
5 Ways to Generate More Traffic Next Week.
Instant Traffic With Expired Domains

2. Grab your audience with an eye-opening introductory sentence. An example might be:

Did you know that 90% of all traffic comes from search engines? Are you taking advantage of this traffic goldmine?

Next, you would uncover your valuable information in the body of the article.

3. The body of the article is the main course of the entire juicy feast. A simple way is to create an outline You could use:

Problem 1 > Solution 1 > Problem 2 > Solution 2 , etc.

If you're writing a "tips" article, you can simply write about each tip, divided into paragraphs.

Make sure your articles are fast and fun. Use bullets, numbered lists, and sub-headings to make it easy to read.

4. Summarize your article with a call to action. End your article by summarizing the main points and getting the reader to take action.

5. Next is one of the most crucial steps: a powerful resource box. This is a 3-6 line ad that sends readers to your website. To get readers to click you must offer a strong benefit. Don't try to sell in your resource box. You must first establish a relationship. So first, try to get them subscribed to your newsletter or autoresponder. Entice them with a free offer. Here is an example of a powerful resource box:

Alli Ross, is the wacky marketing chick at http://www.stickyarticle.com . She also publishes a newsletter packed with powerful tips that will send hundreds of targeted visitors to your site. Grab your power-packed newsletter at http://www.trafficoverload.blogspot.com.

Your resource box should include your name, your website address, a strong benefit, and a call to action.

Each of your articles has the potential to send you hundreds of visitors. Short articles perform the best, usually 200 - 600 words. Be sure that each of your articles contains a killer title with an attention-grabbing opener. Continue your article with a body packed with great info. People won't come to your site if you don't provide valuable information. Do not load the body of your article with links back to your site. This will lower the acceptance of the articles for reprint by other publishers. Allow your resource box to flood your site with quality traffic and soon you will be on your way to increased visitors and increased sales.

About The Author

Alli Ross, is the wacky marketing chick at http://www.stickyarticle.com , where you can submit your articles for free exposure.

Increasing Link Popularity

2005-08-13T06:49:00.000-07:00

By: Paul Buckley
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Search engines are the gateway to the Internet; they are the first tool that potential customers use to find the products and services they need. This is why link popularity is so imperative. If the customers do not find your website, you have no possibilities of making any sales.

You're probably wondering what the blazes is popular about a link! Well, in a word - plenty! Link popularity refers to the ranking assigned to your website by the search engines, and it determines the ranking your page gets when keywords are entered into a search engine. So, you're probably wondering, how do I make my link popular?

Search engines are discretionary, giving status and ranking to sites that have links to their pages from related, quality sites. It's a simple formula, but a very important one. Google created the system, and now virtually all the most popular search engines employ it to rank your web pages in their indexes.

The more commonly used your keyword is, the harder it will be to achieve link popularity, but without achieving this step, it is almost certain your site will never rank highly on any search engine. But don't be discouraged; there are tried and true ways of achieving link popularity using the most competitive keywords.

There are a few things you should be aware of. The first is that just linking up with a large number of other websites will not achieve link popularity. In fact, it may have quite the opposite effect. This is particularly true when pertaining to websites that are nothing more than "link farms" - pages containing line after line of indiscriminate links. Search engines may aggressively discriminate against your website if you are associated with a link farm, so steer clear of them!

The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the site you are linking to. Never link to a page you have reservations about your visitors seeing. The last thing you want your website to appear as is indiscriminate and cheap. Linking to sites of poor quality will only lessen your link popularity, if not completely destroy it.

So let's get to what you need to do to achieve supreme link popularity and improve your rankings to stellar status on all the popular search engines.

The first step, and the fastest way to get your foot in the door, is to get a listing in a popular directory, such as Open Directory Project and Yahoo. If your site is business-related, you will want to be listed on Yahoo, and despite the fact that it will cost you around $300 a year, it will be money well spent. If your site is non-commercial, the listing will be free, but it will take time and follow-up to actually get it listed. Open Directory is gives you a free listing whether you are business-related or non-commercial, but be prepared to make a lot of follow-up inquiries before you see your site listed.

You are aiming to get listed in the highest level of appropriate category, and this just takes some common sense. For example, if your company ships Alpaca wool from an Alpaca farm located in the middle of Nowhere, Tiny State, do NOT submit your listing to "Retailers from Nowhere, Tiny State." BIG MISTAKE! All you have to do is look a little deeper - and submit your listing to the "Fine Alpaca Wool" category. You will not only associate yourself with culture and quality, but you will be listed in a national category.

The next step after you have attained directory listings is to locate other quality sites that will increase your link popularity. Try to find sites that are in some way related to yours, so not only will your link popularity increase, but your customer base may also be expanded. You want to avoid your competitors and look for sites that are useful to your site's visitors. Let's look at the Alpaca Wool site example. Linking up to a site that sells knitting supplies would be helpful to your visitors, and the chances of the knitting supply site wanting to link up to your site are also greater. By linking to a related site that will be relevant to your website's traffic, you are increasing both of your site's business prospects - and both of your sites' link popularity.

Not all sites want to link to other sites, so you will have to do some research when you are looking for possible linking partners. Google is an excellent starting place for your search. Make sure you enter keywords that you think quality customers will also enter to find your own site. Remember, your criteria are quality, highly ranked, non-competing websites that have a links or resources page. Go to these sites and objectively assess them. Look at the quality of the product, the graphics, and the ease of use. Then check out the other sites they are linked to, and determine if your own site would fit in with the crowd.

When you decide you have found a good prospect, you must set out to woo them. The first thing to do is to add a link on your own links page to their site. This is an essential first step; it shows good faith, and ups your chances significantly of their reciprocity. After you have added their link, you must contact the webmaster of their site. Since this is almost always done by email, you want to make sure it is immediately clear that your message is not junk mail. This requires that you tell them right off the bat that you have added a link to their page on your site. A hook like this almost always insures the reader will read on.

Next, be sure to be flattering and let them know how much you appreciate their website. Make sure you emphasize that you have actually visited their site, and that their site is not just a random pick. Give them the address of your links page, and ask them to check out the link for themselves. It's a good idea to mention that they will not only benefit from the increased traffic your website will direct their way, but you will also increase their link popularity. Briefly, explain why link popularity is so essential, but do this in a sentence or two so you don't sound like a professor! Finally, tell them you would greatly appreciate if they would reciprocally add a link on their own links page to your website.

Go through this process with as many appropriate sites as you can find, bearing in mind the criteria of quality and non-competitiveness. After you have emailed all relevant sites, be sure to check these website frequently to see if they have added a link to your page. Give it about a month, and if no link appears, try another charming email. Then give it another month, and if your site is still absent from their links page, it's time to remove their link from your own links page. The only time you want to pursue a link further than this is if you believe a site is crucial to your link popularity and your business needs. Just remember to keep all your communications complimentary and cordial.

Then set up a schedule to check your ranking in search engines frequently to see if your link popularity has improved. This is not achievable in the blink of an eye. It will take some time and a good deal of work. There is no way around the labor-intensive quality of improving your link popularity, which is why search engines regard it with such importance.

By the way - make sure you have a beautiful, streamlined site or you will never persuade anyone to link up to you. Be prepared to keep plugging away at this process, as long as it takes, until you achieve link popularity stardom!

About The Author

Published by
Paul Buckley
The Profit Eye
http://www.theprofiteye.com

How Interactive Websites Keep Visitors On Site Longer

2005-08-13T06:46:00.000-07:00

By: Patti Santee
-------------------------------

There are three factors that a webmaster is concerned with when it comes to increasing traffic to his website.

Getting new visitors.
Getting repeat visitors.
Increasing the amount of time a visitor spends on his site.

Interactive sites encourage all the above desired behaviors in several different ways. When a visitor logs on to the interactive site, he or she is attracted and drawn into the site by the various options available. Instead of sitting back and reading information passively, the visitor is encouraged to interact and be part of the entire information gathering process.

A new visitor is attracted to interactive websites because of the many offerings on display. The visitor feels important and welcome because interactive sites generally customize the website to suit the visitors taste. Using cookies some interactive websites even welcome the user with his or her name. Thus one can significantly increase traffic to interactive sites using online tools.

Once the visitor has been drawn into the interactive site and gives out some basic information like his email, name, address and age perhaps, it is not difficult to lure him back to the site. Interactive tools like Ezines can be sent to the visitors Inbox to encourage him to come back to the website. Some revenue generating sites will even offer discounts on products and services to lure the visitor back.

Interactive tools by their very nature require the visitor to spend more time on the website. Once a visitor starts playing a game, reading an article and responding to it, sharing his views on the discussion boards and gaming online he is hooked. The interactive tools make for a fun surfing experience that visitors are loath to end.

Thus, interactive sites encourage increased traffic because they create an active, involved environment where the user can seek the knowledge he wants. This is a novel change from the offline world where a user is a passive recipient of knowledge.

About The Author

Patti Santee is Director of Project Development at Phpville.com http://www.phpville.com selling quality PHP scripts for small business, affiliate marketers, site managers,and Webmasters

Search Engine Scoring System

2005-08-12T16:46:00.000-07:00

By: Jon C
----------------------------------

This article covers TITLE TAGS, MAIN BODY CONTENT, and META TAGS (which is what you see below).

Well-designed sites make the sales! Take some time to seriously evaluate your website and follow the steps in this article, that will help you for achieving high ranking in all the important search engines to you more visitors. If you can implement the methods decribed in this article, you should have no problem getting a fairly high ranking (but I cannot guarenttee that you will get the highest rank possible). All tips are categorized according to its area.

Search enginges give more importance to some items in their ranking algortithims. Following is a list of what items are given the most importance to items that have the least importance, in search engine rankings.

TITLE . 2.0
LINK POPULARITY . 2.0
THE MAIN BODY TEXT . 1.5
DOMAIN NAME . 1.0
KEYWORD PROMINENCE . 1.0
HEADING TAGS . 0.5
PROXIMITY OF KEYWORDS . 0.5
BOLD or ITALIC . 0.4
FOLDER or FILENAME . 0.3
META DESCRIPTION . 0.3
ALT TAG . 0.2
TITLE ATTRIBUTE . 0.2
META KEYWORDS . 0.1
TOTAL HIGHEST SCORE POSSIBLE = 10

TITLE TAG . 2.0/10

The title tag is an important part of a website. It is basically a short description of the page, and the most important words should go first. Every HTML (web page) should have a title tags and all tags should be unique. It is recommended that you do not use the same tage for multiple documents. Some tips to keep in mind when creating title tags are:

It should always appear immediately after the opening tag
It should be specific keywords and phrases
If you use the same keyword twice, do not use it right next to each other. (eg. Professional Marketing Tips . Tips On Marketing>), and do not use one word more than twice.
Titles should be between 5 . 12 words (less than 60 characters).
Place primary keyword at the starting of the tag.
Try to minimize/eliminate the use of commas in this tag.
Strive for a keyword density of 25-35% for each keyword.
Always remember to close the tag ()
All pages MUST have a unique and descriptive keyword phrase in the title.
Do not change the tag regularly.

THE MAIN BODY TEXT . 1.5/10

Use the following tips to increase the effectiveness of the main body text. These tips also cover Keyword prominience (1.0/10), Heading Tags (0.5/10), Proximity of Keywords (0.5/10), Bold or Italic (0.4/10), and Alt Tag (0.2/10)

Make sure to put the most important keywords into a carefully crafted paragraph at the beginning of your HTML Page
Keyword Density: If the page contains less than 500 words, keeping 1-3% of those words is better. If the page contains more than 500 words, keep 3-5% of the overall content.
Try to keep the word count of anywhere between 250 . 750 words per page.
Use CSS instead of font tags
Get rid of JavaScript in the code, and instead use an external file.
Keep image buttons as text links, or have image and text links.
Repeat page title in a heading at the top of the page, if possible.
Use heading tags (, , ., ). You can alter the way these tags look via CSS.
Keyword proximity: It refers to the closeness between two or more keywords, Always try to group words together that might be searched on as a single phrase by a user.
Place some important keywords in Bold or Italic.
Use .Alt. tag to describe images.
Make sure the code of the homepage is not greater than 32k.
Try to keep max font size 11px or 12px. (2 or 3 in most web programs).
Avoid the use of nested loops in structure.
Use W3C technologies and guidelines
Update you body text at regular intervals, as many search engines prefer websites which are updated regularly.

META TAGS . Meta Description (0.3/10), Meta Keywords (0.1/10)

Meta Description

Write it in sentence structure
Should be relevant to the similat 25-30 words (under 150 characters) description of the first text on the visible page.
Do not repeat keywords more than 3 times in the description tag, or use different forms of the keyword.
Minimize the use of stop words such as .and., .the., .of., etc.
Keyword phrases that appear earliest in the Meta description will generally receive higher ranking value.
Try to include this tag in all pages by describing the content, and try to be unique in all descriptions.
Don.t fill your descriptions with only keywords.
Strive for 5-10% keyword density.

Meta Keywords

Keep it less than 130 characters for better results.
Start with the most important then least important.
Use keywords/phrases.
Do not repeat any one word more than three (3) times.
Do not place repeated keywords together.
Use keywords that will be actually found on the page, and ones that reflect the essence of your content.
Try to use small case in keyword/phrases

About The Author

Jon C

I am veteran programmer in over 7 languages. I currently run my own webhosting company at http://sustainedhits.com.

Last June we released our software development site and came up with some pretty great products that can be found at http://nerdlib.com/

I currently own and operate these sites and have been studying search engines for the last 6 years.

Driving your website through Google Sandbox

2005-08-11T16:35:00.000-07:00

By: Monia Hassan
----------------------------

What is Google Sandbox?

Google Sandbox is applied on new websites, it determines the timing of site inclusion as well as ranking in Google search engine results (SERPS).

This process could take up to 6-8 months, which could be against your plans causing frustration to webmasters.

The question is what is to be done during the time in which websites are in Google Sandbox?

Do not waste time on checking your website listings in results page instead emphasize on SEO methods to accelerate your listings & improve status of ranking results.

Also make efforts to appear on other major search engines such as MSN & Yahoo since they do not have sandbox like Google, this will help drive traffic to your website while waiting for Googlebot to index your pages.

Link building strategy is another important issue not only will it improve ranking but also it will help Googlebot spider to find your pages easier while it’s in the sandbox instead of repeatedly submitting your website every time.

Content is king

Main part for ongoing development of your website is to add new content on continuous basis since the most thing search engines are after is good quality websites with relevant content.

Conclusion at the end is that waiting for Google Sandbox is nothing but a waste of your precious time; instead do some useful efforts on developing your website with relevant content & adding inbound links as a part of your linking strategy to make Google happy with what it sees as well as your target visitor.

About The Author

Monia Hassan is specialized in providing SEO services. Working for Moon Search Engine Optimization Company (www.moonsearchengineoptimization.com) specialized in SEO services.

Writing SEO articles is part of her task, to help increase people knowledge of what trends are used by search engines on an updated basis

5 Easy Ways To Get Traffic To Your Site!

2005-08-08T03:17:00.000-07:00

If you're not getting traffic to your site, then you're not going to make money online. The internet is about traffic, so getting traffic should be high on your list of priorities. There are many ways to get traffic. One of the fastest ways to drive traffic to a site is pay per click advertising like Overture. Using pay per clicks however costs some amount of money. Today I want to share with you 5 free and easy ways to generate immediate traffic to your web site.

1 - Write and submit articles

One of the most effective ways to get traffic is to write articles and post them in as many article submission sites as possible. You could write a simple 500 word "How To" article with detailed step by step instructions, and links to useful resources. Include a resource box with your links. A well written article on a popular topic can easily get hundreds of links back to your site in a short period of time.

Here's some popular article submission sites:

Also, you could compile a list of ezine publishers that accept articles and send them your new articles.

2 - Blogging

Blogging is yet another easy way to get traffic. A blog is simply an on-line diary or weblog. Since blogs are usually updated frequently, the search engines love them and visit them often. For every post, include a link to a site or webpage that you want spidered by the search engines. Each time the seach engines visit they will follow the links. One of the easiest ways to start blogging is at http://www.blogger.com.

Here's a few ideas for writing blogs:

Tips related to your product or topic
A short "How -To" explaining the use of a product or service
Product reviews
News excerpts
Opinions on news

3 - Write an ebook and give it away

A great way to get free traffic is to put together an ebook report on a popular topic and distribute it freely. Allow other people to give away the e-book to increase exposure to your web site. Put your links on the title page or on the table of contents and in the resources section.This will give the most exposure for your web site. You could submit your free ebook to ebook directories.

4 - Exchange links

Trade links with other web sites. They should be related to the subject of your web site. Having relevent keyword links to your site will increase your site ranking. Linking is an important strategy for search engine optimization. A useful software that can help with your linking strategy is at http://linkmachine.net

5 - Online forums

Participate on online forums. Post answers to other people's questions, ask questions and post appropriate information. Include your signature file at the end of all your postings. Forums are also a great way to network and create business alliances. Get yourself a copy of the top 93 Marketing Forums List available for FREE download here at http://www.homebusinessedge.com/products/forums.exe.

All the best,

Ahmad Supaat
http://www.homebusinessedge.com
-----------------------------------------------

About The Author

Ahmad Supaat
"You Can Make A Living Online" FREE 6-day e-mail course.
Learn the secrets to a profitable online business.
Subscribe now at: success-575@responsebot.com, or
http://www.HomeBusinessEdge.com

Are You Hung-Up On Page Rank And Back Links?

2005-08-06T20:35:00.000-07:00

It's unfortunate that many website owners are so hung-up on Page Rank, they'll rarely if ever, link to a site with a page rank lower than their own.

I'm frequently approached by other website owners who it's clear want to exchange links with one of my websites for no other reason than its Page Rank and so they can get more back links to their own website.
That's my experience with quite a few of my own websites. It's not until you get around a Page Rank 4 do back links come without you having to go and find them.

Back link requests tend to come more from sites with Low Page Rank wanting to improve search engine ranking by getting back links from higher ranking websites. They're also frequently from websites that offer no relevant content to your visitors and are from totally unrelated areas.

Many website owners have read a little about why and how to gain back links, then set about gaining as many as possible from any site that will give them one in return. They know it's important to gain back links, but what they forget or never knew, is it serves little purpose if they're of poor quality.

Poor Quality Back Links are from Unrelated Websites with Low Link Value.

I was reminded recently of the Google Page Rank obsession by one of my linking partners. I had advised them that because of some necessary changes to my website I had moved their back link to another page.

The website owner quickly emailed to tell me they had checked the page rank on the new page and finding it to be lower, advised me there was little point in them continuing to have a back link to my site.

Although we had been linking for over a year, it only served to prove they were not linking to my site because of its great content or because of its value to their visitors, but just for the Page Rank. When I advised them that their Page Rank check must have been in error because the page was the same PR as the previous one, they retained the back link to my site.

The obsession with Page Rank and how many back links a website has, led Google to put limits on this information.

For those of you obsessed with back linking by Page Rank you probably know that it only gets updated about every 3 months. Google also no longer reveals the true number of back links to a web site. Limiting information about back links is also something other search engines are starting to do.

An article of mine published on over 17,000 Websites Gained only 4 back links in any of the major search engines.

I recently proved the limits placed on information about back links and the discounting of back links, after one of my articles got taken up on over 17,000 websites. Since the article has a back link to my website, in theory that should mean 17,000 back links to my website.

A popular tool for checking back links among other things was a software tool called Optilink. Its popularity became such a problem for Google that they set about trying to detect its electronic signature and then blocking it when people used it.

It looks as if in the past months, that Google have been successful, because Optilink has been disabled by the developer from conducting queries on Google for back links. It's also no longer able to do queries on back links with MSN or Yahoo and the only one left now is the minor search engine Hotbot.

I'm only telling you all this, because it proves how obsessed many website owners have become about checking for back links to their websites and checking Google Page Rank of potential and existing link partners.

But are these web site owners right to be hung-up about Page Rank and Back Links and are you one of them?
What if I could prove to you that the value of back links from another website is not just about Page Rank. That in fact back links from Low PR sites could be of more value to you than back links from High PR sites. Would you believe me?

No, well if you want the proof you'll need to read another article called: "How Low PR Web Sites Can Improve Search Engine Ranking" by Andy Theekson who advises on Search Engine Optimization.
The article shows how the value of back links from other websites is not just about Page Rank but also how many other outbound links there are from the same page.

It was possible to show how a back link from a PR 2 web page can be of equal or greater value than a back link from a web page with a PR 7, 8, 9 or even 10.

The article should be read by anyone who only looks for back links from High PR sites.

It's often said that people don't value what they get for free and only value what they have to pay for. This may also be true of back links since the website owners who value them the most will often buy links.

Many website owners who have the cash will buy links, or to be more correct with terminology, buy text links from websites with High PR pages. Some people would argue this is cheating and trying to buy links to improve search engine ranking.

The cost to buy text links varies widely from $5 to $30 per month for a PR 4 link up to $50/mnth for a PR 5 text link. They become progressively more expensive up to PR 8, when in some cases, you can expect to pay several $100's per month.

So why would people pay these prices to buy text links on high PR pages?

Is it for the traffic they expect to get by being on a high ranking and assumed high traffic page, or is it to gain from an improved search engine ranking for their own website?

If they want traffic there are cheaper ways, even if you include Pay Per Click where even at 50 cents per click your $1000 would give you 2,000 targeted visitors per month.

When you buy text links there are no guarantees you'll get traffic and you're paying for the text link not by the click but by the month, regardless of what traffic you get.

So I would suggest that someone who is going to buy text links obviously believes they're going to improve search engine ranking for their website.

But are people who buy text links getting value for money?

For the answer to that question you'll need to read the continuing part of this article: "Can You Buy Text Links And Get Value for Money?"
--------------------------------

By: Tony Simpson

About The Author:

Tony Simpson, Advises on Website Design, Promotion and Optimization. The continuing part of this article is at: http://www.webpageaddons.com/stp/buytextlinks1 - "Can You Buy Text Links And Get Value for Money?"

How To Rank Your Articles Higher in Search Engines

2005-08-06T20:08:00.000-07:00

All of us, the authors, know that to enhance our sites' listings in search engines we need to do certain things and some of them are :

get fresh content on our sites on regular basis
get backlinks from high PR (page-rank) sites

Get Fresh Content:

Inserting RSS Feeds on related subjects is a great way to create automatic fresh content in a website. However, we can also put our own published articles in a section, say, 'My Articles'. Many authors aim to write at least one article every week. So, every week whenever search engine robots come to our sites, they can get fresh content.
Get Back-links

Back-links are considered an important factor in search engine placements. When we submit our articles in article directories, we get a link back from those sites. Mostly all article directories have good PR (page rank). The benefit of submitting articles in article directories is that not only is there a fair chance of getting our articles published, but also our articles get published in many other web sites with our resource boxes. So, when different sites link to our site from a related page (the page where our articles are published), there are chances that search engines would look at our sites respectfully and rank us well. So, submitting articles to article directories is a good choice. We get link back from a page, which talks about related subjects.

Actually, upto this part, I have not talked about anything special. Authors write free articles knowing these features.

But, how many of our articles are positioned high in the search engines? If not, what could be the reason?

Outbound Links

The another important factor of ranking high in search engines is 'Outbound Links'. Search engines consider this factor equally important as back-links. As back-links from related sites are important, outbound links to related sites are equally important. In fact, that's one of the main reasons why mostly all article directories have high PR. Because, in every article directory, there is a huge amount of outbound links. And each outbound link is sent out to a related site from a page where the subject is being discussed!

Sometimes we exchange links with related sites and both the parties put those link in a seperate pages. That 'links page' contains only links and links -- no content! So, how would search engines consider them as valid outbound links?

How can authors like me factor this element in our sites?

Not many of us would want to link out to sites which are of our competetors. But wait, article writers can do this wisely.

As I have discussed above, authors should publish their own articles in their own sites, before submitting them to article directories. There is a reason for this. When multiple sites publish our articles, the search engine finds duplicate content in large number of sites. Therefore, search engines list on top the site from where it got the article first. So, if we publish our own articles first on our sites, it is possible that our own sites would be listed on the top of all other sites that published our articles.

After submitting the articles to article directories, we should keep track of when our articles are published in those directories. Most of the directories inform us when when our articles get published. We must visit those sites and get the URLs of our articles.

Let us put the links of those pages in article pages of our sites. If we put, "These article is also published by :" with a list of links of the sites where those particular articles are published, we cleverly send out links to pages where our subject is discussed. This will definitely help us creating authenticated outbound links and rank well in search engines without hampering our businesses.
----------------------------------

About The Author:

Subhendu Sen is the owner and the webmaster of The Web Content - an article directory, which uses XML/RSS feeds. Authors may also submit their articles at : http://www.thewebcontent.com .

Five SEO Tips To Improve Your Search Engine Ranking

2005-07-21T01:26:00.000-07:00

By David Leonhardt

"Dear David: I just created a website on baby toy safety. What should I do to make sure gazillions of people find me through the search engines?"

I can't promise you gazillions, but there are a few things you should do to make it easy for search engines to find you. I assume you have already decided to submit your site to the major search engines and directories. I assume that you will develop some sort of linking strategy (hopefully a better strategy than most websites use today). I also assume you will have picked key search terms for all the pages on your website.

Beyond that, here are my top five tips for making your website easy for those "gazillions" to find it.

A picture might be worth a thousand words, but search engines don't read pictures. Make sure your key search terms are written out in text, not part of a graphic title you hire somebody to prepare for you. That also means you should not just show pictures of toys, but also write out the names, and possibly a keyword description with the title.
Have several pages of articles related to your website's topic. Use a different keyword search term for each article. For instance, one article might use frequently the term "safe toys for babies", while another might use the term "baby safety".
What's the URL of your website? Your name won't help you there. Your key search term will. In this instance, I might pick www.baby-toy-safety.com, for example (if that is one of your top keyword phrases). Hire somebody who knows what he is doing to develop the right keyword strategy for you BEFORE you choose your domain name.
What's the title of your page? I don't know how many times I see titles such as "Article" or "Contact us". Don't expect the search engine robots to get all excited about that term. And don't expect anybody to search for that term, either. Much better to title your page "Free article on safe toys for babies" or "Contact the *Baby Toy Expert* today". By the way, this is the single most important place to include your keyword phrases.
What about that navigation menu that appears on every single page of your website? Does it say "Contact the baby toy expert?" Or "about the baby toy expert". Or links about baby toys?" Need I say more?

If your website is about life insurance, you have little hope of hitting the front pages of any search engine. "Life insurance" is such a competitive search engine marketplace. Unless, of course, people are searching for a very specific and rare niche. Even then, I suspect you will need much more than these five tips.

In fact, there are dozens, if not hundreds of things you can do to win the search engine race. These top five search engine optimization tips are a great start, whatever your website is about.

---------------------------------
David Leonhardt is an effective, professional seo consultant and a website marketing consultant. For a free quote, call 613-448-1841, or send us an email.

How to Quickly Gain Traffic to Your New Web Site

2005-07-20T06:09:00.000-07:00

by: Herman Drost

The problem with a new site is that it often takes a long time before it is indexed by the search engines. This means you are missing out on getting traffic and making sales. Google places new sites in the "sandbox" which means they are on "hold" for a period of time before they rank.

Here are some ways to generate immediate traffic to your web site:

1. Start a PPC (pay per click) campaign – you can begin a Google Adwords campaign and start generating visitors the same day you set it up. Of course it is going to cost you some money but you can set a limit for how much you wish to spend. You will soon get a good idea what keywords produce the most clicks for your ads. You can incorporate these keywords in your site when you optimize it for the search engines.

While you run your PPC campaign get busy with preparing your site for the main search engines. Once you have been indexed by the main ones such as Google, Yahoo and MSN and start moving up in rankings, you can scale back the amount you spend on Google Adwords. Your goal is to eventually rank high enough that you won’t have to use PPC anymore because you are getting enough visitors.

2. Optimize your site for the search engines – the keywords that generated the most clicks from your PPC campaign, should be included in your web pages. Research alternative keywords using utilities such as Wordtracker or the Overture Suggestion Tool. You can determine the popularity of those keywords by seeing how many Google Adword campaigns are running. You accomplish this by entering the keyword or keyword phrase in the Google search engine and see how many ads appear on the right hand side of the page. If there are a lot, that means the keyword you chose is very popular and in high demand.

Integrate a few of your best keywords within the text on each of your web pages. The home page should contain the keywords which have the highest demand (most searches) with the least number of competing web sites. Then proceed with the other pages in descending order of keyword popularity.

Make sure you also include these keywords in your meta tags, title, h1-h3 tags, links and file names. Don’t overdo it for you may get penalized for spamming the search engines.

3. Increase link popularity – this refers to how many external and internal links are pointing or linking to any particular page. External links include those that come from web sites other than your own whereas internal links are those that come from within the same domain name. Link popularity is not based on the "quantity" of links but the "quality" of those links as well. Therefore increasing link popularity does not necessarily require having a large number of links pointing to your site but rather a good number of quality links.

4. Submit to the top search engine directories – many of the top directories have good link popularity that can be passed on to your site. They also have specific category pages that are related to the nature of your site. The major directories include The Open Directory, Yahoo and Zeal.

The Open Directory is one of the largest that is still free, however it can take months or even years to get listed. If you become an editor for Zeal you can get your site listed free. Yahoo costs $299.00/year to be included. It is worth it if you can afford it.

Here’s a couple of articles on how to properly submit your site to the search engine directories:

http://www.searchrank.com/resources/art007.htm

http://www.searchrank.com/resources/art015.htm

5. Submit to specialty search engine directories – you may wonder why I haven’t mentioned submitting to the major search engines. When you work on building the link popularity of your site, it automatically places you in the main search engines. Once you have submitted your site to the main directories, find specialized directories related to your business. Here’s a good resource:

http://searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156351

You can also research the link partners of your competitors’ sites by entering your favorite keyword in the search engines. Once you have found a number of top ranked sites, download the Google toolbar and check their back links. This can save you a lot of time researching other areas to find quality links.

Once your site been indexed by the search engines and included in the directories, focus on adding more content and continue building your link popularity. This will help you to maintain and/or increase rankings with the result of gaining more traffic to your new web site.

------------------------
About The Author

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com. Affordable Web Site Design and Web Hosting. Subscribe to his “Marketing Tips” newsletter for more original articles. mailto:subscribe@isitebuild.com. Read more of his in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles

May 24, 2005 Ka Webspy Network Stats

2005-05-24T09:27:00.000-07:00

It' s another amazing day (May 24, 2005) for the Ka Webspy Network. Although it didn't received number of visitors more than 500 but at least its page views stat is higher than those of the previous days.

2005-05-16T08:48:00.000-07:00

Monday, May 16, 2005 is a great day for the Ka Webspy Network. As it was shown on the graph, it received less than 1,500 views and less than 500 unique visitors. It is not the first time the network received that result but it was just amazing as I thought since the previous days, it didn't received more than 1000 views.

Sunday and Saturday stats

2005-05-14T08:02:00.000-07:00

I was wondering what's in Saturday and Sundays. It seems that on these days my site gained fewer visits that during weekdays.

From that statistics graph, Friday was on its peek. Kasi 1000+ views lang and 200+ visitors. Anyway, the site is still on its growing stage. Sana tatas pa ang stats nito.

The Ka Webspy Traffic

2005-05-06T18:51:00.000-07:00

As part of my management on the Ka Webspy Network, it is my task monitoring its traffic. Currently I am using the Bravenet Website Counter as tool in monitoring it.

I already had tried different way of promoting the Network without paying a single cent. And it help a lot. For the current 7 days period, we got a traffic record as shown on the snapshot below (that was from April 30, 2005 to May 5, 2005 at 900AM Philippine Time):

Notice the increase of traffic from Monday to Thursday. I figured that this is due to the traffic exchange that I joined. I know it will be increasing somehow.

Traffic Exchange

2005-05-05T16:58:00.000-07:00

Recently, I figured out that joining a Traffic Exchange program can help your site boost traffic, especially if the program offers 1:1 traffic exchange.

1:1 traffic exchange, I mean if you visited one member site, it will be considered as one credit for your site to be visited too.

Of course, the visiting of the site will not be done by a manual clicking of the site, but it is better if it is automatically open under the host site.

So, if you regularly has 300 visitors a day, then through the traffic exchange program, it will be doubled into 600 visitors a day. Your regular visitor will be added from those visitor accidentally visited your site through this program.

Need audience to your blog?

2005-04-09T21:47:00.000-07:00

A blog without audience is sometimes considered a dead one, isn't it? I don't know if you'll agree with me on this. This was just my idea since I am a blogger too and is running several blogs.

There are actually several ways in getting some audiences who will read your blog.

Invite your friends and loveone to visit your blog.
Ask help from your friends who have their own websites to put a link to your blog.
Join online discussions and use a signature on your posts with a link to your blog.
Join a webring or blogrings.
Submit your blog to any of the existed blog and website directory such as, Pinoy Blogger, Google, Yahoo, DMOZ, etc.
And you can even pay for the advertisement.

Website Statistics Counter

2005-02-04T03:55:00.000-08:00

After successfully launching a website, we then need to track down the website's performance by counting how many visitors visited our sites, how long did they stayed on it and how many pages did they visited? And in doing so, we need a good statistics counter and tracker.

Below are a few of the available statistics counter which can be used on our websites:

Stat Counter Dot Com - A free yet reliable invisible web tracker, highly configurable hit counter and real-time detailed web stats. Insert a simple piece of our code on your web page and you will be able to analyse and monitor all the visitors to your website in real-time! It offers the following:

Completely Free, Fast, Responsive, Quick loading and Reliable Service
Invisible Tracking - no ads on your website
Accurate real-time website statistics with detailed visitor tracking and analysis
Detailed breakdown of pageloads, unique, first-time and returning visitors
Popular Pages - what webpages get viewed and what ones don't
Zoom in on your visitors' locations and watch in real-time as they navigate through your website!
Search Engine/Keyword Analysis - what keywords are people using to find your site?
Drill Down - Incredibly Powerful Tool. What navigation paths, referring links and keywords are leading to conversions
Do you have multiple websites? Manage them all from one account
Configure email stat reports to be delivered to you and your clients
Grant individual user access to your staff or clients
Enable public or private website stats
Incredibly easy to use - no software to install or huge log files to parse
Referring links - do you know how your visitors are finding your site?
Country Stats - does your website have a lot of international visitors? What percentage of domestic visitors do you get?
Browser/Resolution Info - is your website optimized for your visitors?
And that's just to whet your appetite and it's all FREE!

One Stat Dot Com - OneStat.com is the number one provider of real-time website analysis software in the world. Our superior technology powers thousands of websites in different countries all over the world. With our accurate, detailed & reliable reports we will be able to answer your questions about visitor behaviour, site performance and retention. OneStat.com has fifty thousand subscribers in more than one hundred countries worldwide.
Website Traffice Report - Web Site Traffic Report is the simplest way for Web Marketers, Managers, Company Executives, and Webmasters to get the answers to these questions.
Now it's easy to get traffic reports for your site. A complete tracking and reporting system is now available to help you understand and analyze your Web site traffic and evaluate the performance of your marketing programs.
Brave Network - Our comprehensive site statistics provide you with everything you need to know about your website visitors. Our easy to read, detailed traffic reports will keep you up to date with every aspect of your website.

Understanding Web logs

2005-01-31T03:27:00.000-08:00

I found an article which help me understand how to analyze website traffic by considering web logs, or the record on visitors entrance and exit on your website, how long do they stayed, and more. Here's the excerpts from Web Pro News:

Specific areas to take a close look at:

How long are users staying on the website or a specific page? This question addresses a website's "stickiness". Stickiness gives webmasters an indication of how important their content is. If users return on a regular basis or remain on a specific page for an extended period of time, generally the content is considered valuable.

Site entry pages? What pages in a website are visitors coming into? Is a specific page on the site drawing an unusually high amount of traffic? Do users come back to the website? Is there a reason for a visitor to come back to the website? Generally, content that is refreshed often will attract return visitors. What specific areas on the site are of interest to web visitors, and can those content sections be expanded to increase the overall value of the website?

Site exit pages? What pages in a website are visitors leaving from? If a specific page has a large number of visitors leaving the site, perhaps the content needs updating. It is critical that you consider the source of the traffic. Are visitors coming to the website through a pay-per-click campaign with a landing page that does not relate to the initial search terms? Directing visitors to content-specific landing pages will help reduce quick site exits.

Who is making the referral? What kind of website is sending traffic to your website? Assumptions can be made based on the quality of the referral source. Letâ€™s face it, if a crack site is the leading referral generator to a software site, it is unlikely that the bulk of visitors will be interested in purchasing.

Bad requests? Are visitors attempting to access pages on your website that are no longer active? Be sure to check logs for any pages or graphics that are generating errors for visitors.

Number of unique visitors? Don't get too hung up on the number of "hits" a website has, as this can be interpreted differently. Sometimes logs interpret graphic access as a hit. A more accurate reflection of traffic can be seen by tracking unique visitors.