Articles are a powerful way to generate traffic, in addition to bringing you a whole lot of other benefits. When you post articles, you build credibility and trust which is very important for an online marketer. When readers believe what you have written, they don’t hesitate to click to your site and know more or sign up with you. You build a reputation with your niche market. When you are perceived as trust worthy, you also attract joint venture partners.

How do you write articles that will bring loads of traffic? Here are some tips:

• Your keyword rich articles must be focused to your niche market. Decide who should read your articles and write for them.
• An attention-grabbing headline with your primary keyword tucked into it is essential. People read the headline first, and if they find that it shows a benefit, decide to read the rest of the text. People love useful information, and you should write your title accordingly. Some suggestions are:
  • How to…
  • The complete guide to….
  • The truth about…
  • What you don’t know about ….
• Make sure your article has a proper introduction, flows well into the conclusion and states what action the reader should take after reading it.
• Your resource box at the end of the article is the most important component of your article next to the quality content. This resource box will have your contact information in the form of a link to your website. It must be worded in such a way that there is a call to action - depending on whether you want the reader to sign up for your ezine, purchase your product, claim a free report, etc. Your resource box is a lot like an ad so write it with care. Preferably use language your readers will identify with. You must include a benefit to encourage your reader to take immediate action.
• While there is no rule about the length of your article, generally about 500 words should be adequate. Don’t forget to include your keywords.

Articles are an efficient way to get back links and traffic to your website. If you already have a blog, you can always use your own content to write good articles and submit them to article directories. Article directories let you link back to your blog or website via the resource box so that they can generate traffic. Just make sure you have a headline that tempts the reader to get to the whole article.

One method to have your reader clicking to your website or blog is to post a part of the article and at the end, say “part 2 is at link” Your article must be divided at a point where the readers will quickly rush to your link to read the rest of it.

You can post your articles to your blog, your website and on forums. No Internet marketer can afford to ignore article marketing because keyword rich content is the single biggest traffic builder. Search engines love information in the form of articles especially if they are original and updated regularly.

Popularity: 92% [?]

Link building takes time and effort but the long-term benefits are worth it. So how will you build link popularity for your site? That’s our focus for today.

In a previous article, “Why Should You Build Links?“, I talked about how important it is to build your site’s link value since it will increase your chances of getting linking requests and gradually get other sites to link to you, increasing your link popularity at the same time. There are certain things that you must bear in mind when you build link popularity:

• Go only for the relevant links. Quality scores over quantity any day and you need to ensure that the links pointing to your site are from web sites relevant to yours.
• List your website in all the major directories.
• Submit your website to the about.com site if it is relevant to a particular topic.
• Which sites link to your competitors? Find those and try getting them to link to yours.
• Make a list of links when you get in touch with related sites for linking.
• You can also try to get websites complementary to yours to link to you. if you sell dog food, then you might want to a website dealing in kennels to link to you.
• While visiting websites related to yours, if you comment on their guest books or participate in their forums, include your website URL in your signature.
• Write a testimonial for the website you want to link to you so that they can link to it on your website.
• Affiliate programs are a great way to build link popularity

Search engines prefer to see links that come naturally to your site and there are several ways to achieve link popularity, increase your search engine rankings and generate huge traffic to your site.

How Great Content Can Help With Link Popularity:

Just as search engines love natural inbound links, they also love quality content. This is a major factor that brings in natural back links. You can write keyword rich articles, publish them in high-ranking websites, and also submit them in article directories. By adding a resource box where there’s a link to your website, you can see a lot of traffic and inbound links.

Consider Blog Publishing

By starting a blog, you can post the kind of content you want your niche market to see. Unlike in article directories, you can also freely add links to your products or services where appropriate. Blogs can be submitted to blog and web directories enabling you build link popularity. In addition, RSS syndication will also make you more visible.

Posting In Forums:

These are search engine friendly places where you can sign up for free and provide useful content. Apart from the advantages of establishing yourself as an expert, you can also generate a lot of natural inbound links to your site through your signature file on the forum.

Obviously, there are plenty of other ways to build links to your site. High page ranking by the search engines equals traffic equals better conversion rates and profits.

Popularity: 33% [?]

All search engine optimization programs talk about increasing a website’s page ranking. A high ranking with the search engines translates into greater traffic for your business. If you’re dealing with a specialized market, like pencils, for example, the market might be less competitive- the chances of getting a good page ranking with the search engines are pretty high. In a more competitive market however, like finance, it’s a much harder proposition.

The Science Behind It

The science behind how a page ranking works is pretty simple. Large search engines like Google analyze how many ‘vote’ links point to a particular site- the more links, the higher the ranking. Most search engines use a complicated algorithm to determine page rankings. As a result, search optimization tools are often geared around cracking or finding the gaps in this system.

So how does an online press release play into this situation? In simple terms, it’s a way to bypass all the algorithms by securing high rankings the easy way. Here’s why online press releases work:

• Internet press releases are fresh, unique content which the search engines love to hone in on. This actually one of the basic, golden rules of online marketing- if your content is original and unique, it will get indexed. Online press releases work because they are based in this simple principle.
• Online press releases also provide inbound links, which point back to your website. This is another search engine magnet and is a great way to drive more traffic your way. Inbound links are the strongest way to increase page rankings.

Critics And Skeptics

There are still a number of people who don’t believe that online press releases boost page rankings. This is mainly due to two reasons- one is that, believe it or not, the online press release phenomenon is still very new. Many don’t realize its marketing potential and find it hard to believe that it can be such a powerful tool. Secondly, a number of people have complained that these press releases simply don’t translate into thousands of dollars instantly. The reason for that is simple- the press release wasn’t effective. If you write a poor press release, you can count on poor returns.

The bottom line is clear and simple. If you write a strong online press release, you can bank on the following results:

• You don’t have to wait for your site to get spidered. You can count on landing a solid page ranking in a very short span of time.
• You can generate a large amount of traffic on your press release alone. This means people will be visiting your site even before the actual product is released. This is a bit like having people line up in front of a store before a big sale- that buzz alone can generate huge amounts of traffic.

To be absolutely sure of getting the best page rankings with your online press release get Press Equalizer now.

Popularity: 26% [?]

In my last article, “Discover The #1 Secret To Leverage Forums For Traffic“, I talked about forums and how you can leverage them for traffic through the content you post. Blogs can also be monetized through content. Blog marketing is a hot topic with internet marketers, so lets see how you too can get the best out of them.

Blogs are easy to start. Blogs are cheap Internet advertising strategies. You can start one for free on blogger.com, wordpress.com, etc. They are often a great alternative to building and maintaining a website. In fact, most Newbies in online business get started with a blog to get a feel of the whole thing and then plan bigger projects.

The success of blogs is mainly due to that thirst for information, which leads visitors to browse the Internet. Happily, the search engines also demand good quality content and since you need to rank high with the search engines so that they bring you focussed traffic, you can use blogs to achieve this.

Blogs are must-haves for Internet business success. Bloggers wield a lot of powerful influence because when someone is considering buying something, they prefer to turn to their favorite blogs for more information and product reviews and to express their concerns. People trust blogs and visit them regularly, especially when it is refreshed on a daily basis. See what we mean? Now lets move on to ways in which you can pull traffic using your blog.

• Your blog title and description must be keyword specific. When you sign up to start a blog, say at blogger.com, you are asked to give a title and a brief description. Here’s where you think hard. Based on who is your target audience and what topic you are passionate about writing on, you can do some quick keyword research with the help of a keyword research tool and name your blog.
• Generate keyword rich content for your blog. You want to be found by your niche market don’t you? Update your blog on a daily basis so that your visitors bookmark you and keep visiting to see what is new. While original posts are best, you can also use an automatically updating feed getting content from other blog posts and articles. With each post treated as its own page, to the search engines your blog will appear like a multi page website with regular fresh content that is rich in keywords and links.
• Your blog profile must be complete with information about yourself as a person. Visitors love to see that you are for real, what you like and dislike, your favorite things etc. Sprinkle in a few relevant keywords, too.
• While at it, you can also post on other blogs and link back to your blog. Make contact and start the process of relationship building. The more links you have to your blog, naturally the more traffic you will see.
• Allow people to subscribe to your blog through RSS feeds. The advantage is, your content will be delivered to your readers by their consent. Each time you post new content they are notified about it.
• Submit your blogs to RSS directories as a one time activity.
• Each time you update your blog, ping it to let the directories know.
• Preferably create an RSS reader of your own - it’s a good branding exercise for increased visibility.
• Consider pod casting. Technology changes by the day and you might like to keep up with it. There are pod casting services that can upload, store, host and set up the RSS and submit to directories as well as ping.
• Try video-blogging.

Blogs are probably the easiest way to be indexed by the search engines for your specific keywords, and are a great platform to launch your products, pre sell your products and keep in touch with your niche market.

Popularity: 27% [?]

I’ve already discussed how effective online press releases are in boosting page rankings in my last article “Do You Know The Incredible Back Door Shortcut?“. One of the main reasons for this is the fact that internet press releases give you a number of free backlinks to your site. But why are these backlinks so important in the search engine optimization game?

Links For Sale!

One of the most expensive propositions on the internet today is buying links. Since they are such an important part of search engine optimization, people are willing to spend a lot of money buying lists of links. Exactly how much are people willing to spend? The numbers are pretty big- in fact, many people have invested so much in buying links that it’s almost run them dry. This is how important backlinks are in search engine optimization.

For those who simply can’t afford to invest in expensive backlinks lists, the online press release is really a life-saver. You don’t have to shell out loads of cash and you don’t have to worry about the kind of links that you’re purchasing. Best of all, you don’t have to worry about being labeled as spam- online press releases are completely legitimate. In fact, they are exactly what search engines love!

Why Online Press Releases Are Better

To understand why online press releases are better than buying backlinks, we need to understand how the press release works in our favor. It’s actually very simple- when you send out a press release, you also include a link back to your site. The search engines pick these up because they are original content- best of all, the links are all pointing in your direction. Having a number of press releases circulating in cyberspace is exactly like having a number of free backlinks.

Online press releases have a number of other advantages over buying backlinks:

• Perhaps the most important factor is the money factor. Releasing an online press release will cost you less than a fraction of the amount needed for a well-populated backlinks list.
• A winning edge that the press release has over other methods is the content. Since it is original and unique, it immediately makes a personal connection with the consumer. This builds a feeling of trust in the consumer. That’s something a backlinks list simply can’t do. If there’s one thing that’s as good as high traffic, it’s high traffic consisting of repeat customers!
• Online press releases are structured around one of the most important things in internet marketing- content. This means that you can use your press releases for a number of other promotional activities. Many successful online businesses archive their press releases in a separate section of their website. Others post them as blogs and still others have included them in things like eBooks.

Purchasing backlinks can drive more traffic your way but they can be an expensive proposition, especially when you have to invest in them more than once. Online press releases bring you free backlinks and far more traffic.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Web 2.0 is the latest buzzword in Internet marketing. Not surprising at all, considering what a goldmine it is in terms of all the benefits an Internet marketer can draw from it. Basically, web 2.0 is a platform that allows people to connect, interact with the website and with each other and share information online. Therefore, web 2.0 encompasses all those online communities like blogs and social networking websites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, video sharing websites like YouTube, social book marking sites like Del.icio.us, Digg, StumbleUpon etc. You get the general idea. Now the question is, how do you get the web 2.0 to give you a steady rush of highly traffic? That is the focus of part 1 of this training series.

Every Internet marketer loves free-traffic. This has become a huge possibility, thanks to web 2.0 sites where users have a high level of interaction, passing around information to each other.

As a result of this, there are hundreds of niche topics and markets people tend to be a part of. And just because of this, the web 2.0 social networking sites have become a goldmine for Internet marketers.

You have a huge market to which you can market your products and services, and not spend a dime towards this effort. Your first task is to find the most popular web 2.0 community-based websites where you are allowed to insert your URL. This will help people who want to share your information, making your URL more visible as it gets passed around and this, in turn, brings back highly traffic to your website.

You will be amazed at the number of marketers who are still not using the power of the web 2.0 to get a lot more traffic than even the search engines can turn up.

So create your free account right away with the following top ranked sites, and start building your community, with links that point to your main website.

• YouTube
• Squidoo
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• MySpace

There are several more, and we’ll talk about them through this training series. Creating a profile on these sites is quite easy and all you need to do is spend around fifteen to twenty minutes on these sites every day.

Savvy marketers also increase their page rank with the search engines by creating multiple user profiles for related topics. Once this is done, they link these profiles to each other.

On most of these sites you will find a Forum or a discussion board that allows its members to discuss any topic. These are highly influential locations where members share stuff. Social networking sites allow you to belong to different groups or networks within the site.

Web 2.0 sites are great places to share viral videos, which are a very effective marketing medium online. Millions of viewers see and share videos that appeal to them, thus spreading the marketing message and driving traffic to your website.

Social networking sites let you feature links to your website and blog. For any Internet marketer, one-way links and traffic along with high search engine page rankings are crucial to their success. Web 2.0 helps achieve all these, free of cost.

To find out more ways to leverage web 2.0, watch for my next article on “How To Turn Customers Into Raving Fans Before They Even See Your Site”.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Apart from the conventional tried and tested methods as an online marketer you must also keep track of new methods and concepts when it comes to traffic generation. And if it costs you nothing - even better. This brings us to Squidoo, the Web 2.0 program that’s being raved about by everyone who knows about it.

What sets Squidoo apart from similar sites is that it has quality content. Most of the pages on Squidoo, not surprisingly rank high with the search engines. The site itself is ranked seven on Google and in the Alexa rankings Squidoo is rated among the top thousand websites on the Internet.

On the Squidoo website you can set up your own ‘lens’ or web page on any topic that you are passionate about. You can leverage your lens by making a keyword rich Squidoo URL. Most forward-planning marketers create more than one lens for different topics using their primary keywords.

The keywords can also be used in the page title and scattered strategically through the content on the page. The concept of long tailed keywords, which are keywords that run to more than just 3-4 words, works effectively here, bringing in the focussed traffic that you want to grow your list and your profits.

Squidoo owes its success to the fact that its members are a dynamic community that is continuously coming up with excellent content and links. You can easily establish yourself as an expert in your area.

By optimizing your Squidoo lenses to the search engines through keywords, you will be accessing the entire Web 2.0 media tagging system. Your rankings will improve to a great extent if your links to your other sites and content are relevant.

Creating original content is the first step. It must be appealing to the visitors and the community. Since there’s community ranking, with quality content, you can be rated highly by the users. By browsing around the site, you get a good idea about how others are tapping into Squidoo and use the same methods to be successful yourself.

Squidoo tips on tags

When you make your lens pay close attention to ‘tags’. You will be asked to choose your primary keyword or tag along with three more. Don’t stop here. Add at least 25 - 30 more tags. Why do you need to do this? Tags attract the search engines. These tags, with no intervention from you, are coded into the html of your website - so imagine the result. Google just swallows it. So when users use Google to search for your tags, chances are good that your page will come up, or at the very least, the overall tag page on Squidoo. By adding the right tags to your Squidoo lens, you can maximize the chances of your being found.

The next thing about tags is this. When visitors search on Squidoo using the tags, the results are brought up based on the tags on all the pages and then by page rank. So if your site is about affiliate marketing, one of your tags must be ‘affiliate marketing’ for you to actually receive traffic on your site. Elementary.

Keep adding tags to your Squidoo lens via the edit tags option.

Now you can see how you can use Squidoo to generate traffic and back links to your website. If you are in affiliate marketing, you can display affiliate links.

Popularity: 17% [?]

A well designed link building campaign can rank your site high with the search engines, and also increase traffic to your website. When you link to quality sites, you will build your brand and receive a lot of exposure, with webmasters wanting to link to your site.

Back links or incoming links are links at other sites that lead to your site. They are one of the most vital components in the search engine optimization process. This is because search engines assess the importance of your website based on the quality of back links coming into your site. Link popularity tells you how many websites are linking to yours and you can check this with a free tool.

If there are a large number of links from related or complementary sites that already have a high search engine ranking, coming in to your website, then your website will also automatically rank high with the search engines.

To develop an effective linking strategy, the following will play an important role:

• The quality of your links
• The anchor text in these links
• The total number of links
• The quality of content on the page that has these links
• The number of outbound links on the page
• The page rank of the page your link is on

Search engines smile upon natural incoming links to your website. But how do you build incoming links naturally? How to make webmasters want to link to your site? There are sites that will offer to link to yours if you link to theirs, but this does not always work. Instead you need to focus on getting productive one-way links, since the idea here is to make the search engines happy. Here’s how you can add ‘link value’ to your site:

• Get related sites to link to you because your site offers value to their traffic. This is hard work but when you accomplish it, you can enjoy unprecedented traffic, better conversion rates and therefore, profits.
• Offer value to the website that can link to you by offering complementary products or services or useful information that the site can link to.
• Add special reports or guides to your website so that you can address a specific need.
• Publish articles, hints and tips based on what customers want. This material must be link worthy to your target market so that they want to link to you.

Popularity: 23% [?]

It is a fact that when it comes to online success, content is indeed the king. Moreover, it can be leveraged in various ways through several media to get massive traffic to your website even as you build your lists.

Most online marketers are on a tight budget when it comes to advertising and the more creative ones are always on the lookout for practically no-cost ways to achieve their promotional goals. Forums are powerful places for generating traffic, because they are niche-related. People join forums to be associated with people with similar interests and needs, and to share views. Being user-run, it is genuine and as an online marketer, you can reap many advantages through forums. You can become a member for free. Of course, you must strictly abide by the rules of the forum, but it is that which makes the forum so attractive. Here is what you keep in mind:

• Identify the forums that relate to your niche and get an idea of how many members it has. You can read the message threads at most forums without becoming a member. Then, sign up with the ones that appear suitable.
• You can use a forum to establish yourself as a credible expert and to build a reputation of being trustworthy in your niche. Keep track of the messages and offer solutions to problems that you are familiar with. Forums are also the ideal places to write unbiased product reviews.
• It is important to post regularly to build trust and develop a strong relationship with the members.

Pay special attention to your forum signature

You can add a signature to your forum post. Create your signature in such a way that it inspires the reader to know more and visit your website. Preferably, include your keywords in the link.

What you want to keep track of here is to check whether the forum is “nofollow”. If it isn’t, then you can add relevant links to articles that you have on your blog or website in your forum posts. Obviously, these links must be to relevant stuff that is useful. Over time, this activity will help your own articles be indexed by Google, bringing you up in the search results.

If you are wondering how to test whether the forum is ‘nofollow’ - here is what you do. Browse back to the postings made in say, the last couple of months and identify a message that has a signature with a link to their web page. With Google’s page rank tool you can find the backward links to the forum user’s signature URL. Do you see the forum in the results? If you do, click it. Verify whether it is the same signature that has been indexed. If it has been indexed, aha! You have a forum where signatures are indexed. So your posts here will receive page rankings.

Another valuable tip here apart from growing your back links. Ensure that your title text and heading tags are identical to your URL. This enhances your page ranking and lets you get navigational queries.

Popularity: 26% [?]

This article is going to help you learn all about one of the internet’s best-kept secrets; online press releases. So far, only a select few have known about them and have enjoyed high page rankings, numerous backlinks and lots of traffic, just in a matter of days. Now you can learn about this online marketing tool that will completely change the direction of your e-business.

A press release is promotional but it isn’t an ad. It tells the public about events which might interest them, like the launch of a new product. These releases are distributed to different media outlets- if you’re lucky, the press will feature your release and maybe even interview you. This is a golden advertising opportunity for any kind of business.

But I’m Not Into ‘Big Business’

Prior to the internet, press releases were relegated to big corporations and business- small businesses rarely ever invested in press releases. But the internet changed all that. Now anyone with a business can send out press releases, no matter how big or how small they are.

Online press releases won’t give your e-business a tiny boost. They will have a significant effect on the kind of traffic and page rankings your website gets. Here’s why:

• Ordinary press releases have a short life span- oftentimes, if the company’s name isn’t big, they end up in the trashcan unread. With the internet, a press release literally lives forever. Press releases from years back can still appear on search engines and drive traffic your way
• Online press releases spread all across the world in a matter of minutes. This means that you can start generating international traffic hours after you send out your press release
• All of your press releases can be filed in an extra section of your website. This provides you with more unique content that can be picked up by the search engines

Why It Is Effective

There isn’t one reason why online press releases are such an effective marketing tool- in fact, there are three:

1. Greater reach. No matter how original and unique your articles and content is, they only get picked up by one thing- the search engines. Online press releases also get picked up by the media. Journalists, especially from niche publications, often scan through press releases to find out what the next big buzz will be!
2. Higher ranking with search engines. Press releases have proven to boost a website’s rankings in just a matter of hours. Since they are fresh and unique content, the search engines are especially fond of them!
3. RSS syndication. While ordinary press releases just go to the media, online press releases have the added advantage of going straight to the consumer as well through RSS feeds.

Popularity: 23% [?]