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% [?]

So, you’ve done everything from building a dapper website to creating rich content. Members have started trickling in and you feel jubilant.

What should you do next? Sit back and gloat, or look for ways to multiply your income, easily and quickly? If you’ve chosen the latter, as I’m sure you did, I have the perfect solution for you: Viral Marketing.

Viral marketing is marketing that spreads news of your website at the same speed as a virus rushing unchecked and undetected on the Internet. It is quick, effective and easy.

• Attract search engines: Using keywords effectively has been the age-old formula for attracting people searching for information. However, there is a new twist to this old game. Instead of using keywords, use keyword phrases. These phrases should be two to three words in length, should explain your business aptly and succinctly and be placed in all the right places like the page title, meta description, alt tags, headers and meta keywords. Paid ads in important search engines are a very good way to attract traffic. Why pay when you can get it free? In the world of online business, walk-in customers are many but only a few of them convert to paying customers. To succeed, take measures to ensure that the maximum number of people visit your website. This way, you will get traffic large enough to attract that small percentage of buyers who will make you a handsome profit.
• Put up some free stuff: These days, you get to see so many websites offering free e-cards, free e-books or free web hosting. Why? Viral marketing, of course. A good free e-card will find its way to a large number of people. This will pull in more visitors and a few of them may browse through the paid section and buy. Do you see the logic here?
• Hold contests, games and quizzes on your website. For instance, you often see end-of-the-year poetry contests on several poetry websites. Every time an aspiring poet sends in a poem, a new prospective client is spotted.
• Spread the word: Did you know that the ever-so-common ‘Tell a friend’ link can double your traffic? Suppose you read something that you like, and you feel that a close friend or relative might benefit from the knowledge, what do you do? Tell a friend! There are other ways to spread the word. Be sure to add a link to your website in all your printed material. Send out regular ezines and newsletters.
• Blog it: Blogs are the easiest way to lend a human touch to your website. Blogs give you permission to speak about yourself, your values and your hopes. This allows visitors to get to know you personally. Blogs encourage new ideas and discussion threads, which will give you ideas for new paying products.
• Offer a discount: use an auction site to auction off a limited number of memberships at a reduced cost. This is a great way to pull in those people who are sitting on the wall. Even if customers don’t buy right away, your website’s name will register and stick.
• Exchange links: Search engines love websites that network. Solicit and offer links. This will boost your traffic almost immediately. Make sure that your website has a link resources page, which makes it easy for others to set up their links with you.

Following these techniques will help you build a flood of traffic. Once your traffic picks up, it is only a matter of time before your paid membership site starts grossing money.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Linkbaiting is not a new concept. In fact, people have been using it for years to generate one-way links to their websites. Only the term is new, if at all. So, if you’re thinking of driving massive amounts of traffic towards you, better get your linkbaiting arsenal well oiled. Here’s what you can do:

Create great content: By great content, I don’t mean content you get from Private Label Articles. Take a look at some of the top websites for competitive terms on Google, and notice their content on all the pages, not just the index page. Some of the pages simply make your jaw drop. When you are writing to Linkbait, your content is not just some words to fill up a page. The average reader must get something valuable out of your content. Doesn’t matter if they don’t buy or opt-in to your list. Create expert quality content that is interesting, easy and informative.

Rake up a Controversy: Nothing sells better than controversy. Say it with vigor and stir up some heat. Put up controversial video, audio or interviews. You’ll be surprised by the amount of people who come to visit you by way of hate mail, fan mail, curiosity and just to have some fun. And don’t go by what some people say about controversies damaging your credibility. Look at Howard Stern, he’s making a living out of it!

Do a case study: If you can’t kick up some heat, do the next best thing: do a case study of a controversial product or a new product. Conduct some research in your niche and find out what you can effectively ’study’ to rake up enough embers.

Hold a competition: Nothing catches eyeballs faster than a good-sized competition with something juicy at the winner’s post. That is why many websites have end-of-the-year competitions or hold competitions just after a launch. If your competition is popular, you’ll easily be featured on search engines because people are talking about you and linking to you. The competition you hold does not really have to be about your niche or product. Even a fun competition that touches a raw nerve will do the trick, like a prediction poll on the winner of the next American Idol.

These are some of the ways you can bait people to click on your links. However, let’s be realistic here. Each one of your linkbaiting attempts need not hit pay dirt. The trick is to keep trying.

A number of websites help you spread the word about your kickass linkbait piece, so people will find you easily. Seek out sites that are created for your niche and start posting.

Of course, the best thing about Web 2.0 tools is that you really don’t have to do all the hard work. Figure out what you need to do and automation will take care of the rest.

Easier said than done. Zeroing in on the right resources requires a lot of research. You may have to make mistakes and start all over again, which is painful and time consuming, to say the least.

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Like web optimization, you have to be careful with the methods you use to generate traffic to your site. You surely wouldn’t want people to ignore or dismiss you as spam or just another advertiser. Here are some traffic-generating tips that will get you lots of traffic without letting you get blacklisted.

• Writing articles on your AdSense keywords is probably one of the best ways to generate traffic for your site. Make sure the content is clear, informative and to the point. At the end of the article, encourage readers to visit your site. There they can learn more about your product or access more articles. Remember to add your name and website’s details at the end of your articles.
• Submit these articles to ezines and article directories. Encourage people to use your articles and share them with others. The more your articles get spread around, the more traffic they generate.
• Start a blog. Blogs attract a lot of visitors, often more than ordinary websites. You don’t have to post every single day- just a couple of times a week is enough. In fact, you can use your articles as posts itself. Remember to provide a link to your site on your blog.
• Swap links with other websites. This can greatly increase your traffic. If you exchange links with a site that generates a lot of traffic, you automatically get that traffic coming your way as well.
• Join networking sites, forums and groups that are related to your niche market. Interact with others and take a pro-active part in the community. Try and get involved in projects that are mutually beneficial- for example, you could showcase a person and their product on your blog. They could do the same for you in return.
• Give people an incentive to visit your site. Getting access to useful information is a good lure. But let’s face it, people love getting things for free. That doesn’t mean you have to hand out free samples every time- offering items like discount coupons or eBooks attracts lots of traffic as well and that often translates into AdSense clicks.

Remember that a good portion of the traffic you generate needs to translate into clicks and sales. In order to do that, you need to constantly think of new tactics to attract customers and encourage them to click on the ads. You also have to keep your website in optimum order. This is probably the most time-consuming part of keeping your online business going.

Popularity: 30% [?]