1. You need traffic and it all starts with your website.
Let me explain how your website will effect your traffic because I did understand this either when I started out. I thought I have a website so I was set, bring on the customers, I'll be rich. NOT!
Your website is a store with products or information and if your store is NOT attractive and easy to navigate when visitors, if visitors, come they won't stay. Here are some pointers you have to start out with.
Attractive, eye catching website that looks professional and tells people your serious about your topic.
Tell visitors what your website is about right at the top of the first page. Look at the picture to the right and ask yourself, what are they selling or offering. Is it clear? No. Do they sell Maple syrup? Furs? Maps? I have no idea. You want to make sure you are telling visitors what your offering can fix their problems or answer their questions. Your website title is KEY and the buy line (Small sentence under the title) should answer a visitors questions or need.
Make topics or products easy to find. You need to make either clear categories or clear topic product titles so visitors know where they are going. Give them a clear direction to go and get back. Don't get them lost 5 or more pages deep where they are asking where they saw something before, a user friendly interface for easy navigation is key.
Make visitors feel comfortable being on your site or again if you do get them you won't keep them. Put security LOGOs right up front, a Contact us link and a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) link so visitors know your serious.
Website needs to be SEO (Search Engine Optimized) so that it can be found. This means adding KEY words and relevant words on your topic so people and search engines can find you. Don't over do it with key word cramming too many key words can actually hurt your site with search engines. See detailed instructions for design SEO. Also see building a website that will make money.
2. Is the product or service you offer in demand?
This may sound very basic but this can directly affect
website traffic. Let's say you sell Pens, these come a dime a dozen at the
local Wal-Mart or Office supply shop so why would visitors what to buy from
you? They won't! Do market research before starting your website and find out
who and how many people are looking for your product or service. Now let's say
pens are unique, different then others, example: scented, Your logo on them,
pictures of your children, custom novelty where you can have visitors put anything
they want on them, then your pens may be in demand.
More specifically when I say Product Demand I mean the
amount of people looking for that product or service every month. You can check
for product demand for FREE by signing up to Google Accounts.
Once signed up, login and go to Ad words once you get in there you want to
select Opportunities then select the "Keyword Tool". At the time I
wrote this, this was the path to find the "Keyword tool" but it does
sometimes change. The main thing is you want to find the "Keyword
Tool" in your Google Account. Once there you can enter any keyword into
the "Word or phrase" box
and hit search. This will show you what the competition is and how many people
search world wide and locally for that key word in the past 30 days. VERY
Powerful tool. This is a clear indication of demand and you just learned it for
FREE.
In the "Word or phrase" box type in the
keyword "pens" and hit enter. The default is to show you what words
Google says are relevant with the key word you typed in "pens". They
are all in order from most relevant. Look to the right and you will see a
competition bar and the monthly search volumes. This is KEY when selecting key
words for your website because google can put you on their front page if your
website is more relevant then your competition using these key words.
You can also look and see what key
words your competition is using by typing the competitors URL (website address)
into the box called "Website" in the keyword tool. Even More Powerful for getting traffic to your website. See more details on the report research page.
Also make sure your asking a fair price for the product or
service don't try to undercut your competition if you do then they will undercut you
and this can go back an forth until there is no profit margin left for either
of you. Instead out do your competition with extra information and extra value. Example:
Ship for FREE, Show product/service comparisons, offer different packages, and
give FREE stuff if you can.
3. Build some quality links to your site
Page Rank...Page Rank...Page Rank! Have you heard this term before? You should have because this is the latest and greatest from Google so I have been told. LOL I say that because the way Page Rank works is the more links you build to your site the more popular your site looks and Google will rank you better in the search listing when someone searches for your key words for your website. The reason I laugh is because I launched a website, built links to it and with 24hrs was on the first page of Google with NO page rank. I'm still there on the first page and it's been almost 3 years. BUT I need to explain and you need to build links because Google stated that this is a contributing factor for ranking and traffic.
There are two types of links called reciprocal links and direct one way links.
Reciprocal link: is where my website sells pens and I notice one day that your website sells pencils. I contact you and ask you to link to my website and I will link to your website in what called a "link exchange". These are not very good ones to have and it recommended that you don't do it. Why? If your swapping links then there is VERY strict rules you have to follow or search engines will not like your website. Example: you have to link exchange with websites that complement your like the example I gave with the pens and pencils. You DO NOT want to link exchange your pen website with John's water sprinkler website because they are not related. Pens and Pencils are to some extent but even this could be a stretch. So I suggest you avoid it.
Direct Links: This is a bit different, this is where visitors that find your website link to your site without asking (This is a good thing) the more people who link to you without you linking back the better. This is done by visitors doing one of the following: bookmarking your site, coping your content and linking it back to your site or people sharing your website by emailing it to friends so they too can bookmark your site too. The more popular your website the more links you may have coming into your site as a one way links and these types of links are the best one to have.
Stay away from link farms or software that builds links to your site too fast as these will hurt your website with search engines and you WILL NOT get traffic.
4. Create and submit a sitemap
Do you know I spent $14,000 on marketing training and never once did my teachers mention a sitemap. WOW! This is one of the MOST Crucial things you have to do. Without a sitemap Google won't know your website is out there until a google bot finds your website which could be months later. When you submit a site map your telling Google "Hey my site is over here come see what I have". They come usually within the hour and your site is indexed and ready to bring visitors.
As mentioned before you need to create a Google Account. Inside the account you need to navigate to the "Webmaster Tools". Once in there you need to add your website. Follow the instructions until you have verified your website and Google knows it's real and you are the owner. The you are ready to submit your website site map to Goolge.
Now it's time to create a sitemap and this can be done for FREE. Although some companies offer you sitemap creation software which can be useful you can create one on your own for FREE just use any search engine to look for "Free Sitemap creator". This the one I use it's called XML-Sitemaps.com. Just enter your URL (website address http://www.yourwebsitename.com) and let it create one for you. The key here is you want and XML sitemap because this is a very easy language for Google to understand. Make sure you name the file "sitemap"XML-Sitemaps.cpm will do this for you.
Once the sitemap is created you need to upload it into the root folder of your website host. Sound confusing? Where ever your website is hosted you need to get upload the sitemap.xml file you created into the root folder of your website. This can be done by FTP or some host offer you free website builders that your website has been created by and all you have to do is go into the file manager and select upload file. Now that the sitemap.xml file you created is loaded you need to go into google accounts and submit your sitemap. See more details on how to create an XML Sitemap and submit it.
5. Follow and monitor your website statistics
You need to see where your traffic is coming from and who they are to be able to get more traffic. What this means is getting Google Analytics setup in your website as it tracks this information for you for FREE. LOL I paid 1600 for a website builder because it had this feature inside of it but you don't have to. I can track entry pages and exit pages, know where visitors are coming from, country, state, province, city, the time of day etc.
To get Google Analytics you just sign up for a Google Account first, then go in and add a site profile, follow the instructions which will tell you to add a their code before the body text in your HTML. They show you a picture so you know what to look for. It's really quite easy.
Now that you're tracking visitor information start using it. You can do this for example by seeing what keywords people are using to find your site and start linking more of those keywords to your site by adding articles to Article directories with those keywords linking back to you is just one easy way. Another easy example is starting a blog and posting fresh (NOT Copied) information about your product or service with keyword links back to your site. You can also go into forums or other peoples blogs and add a useful comment that can help someone and you are allowed to enter a your URL (website address http://www.yourwebsitename.com) and soon traffic will start to come in.
Beginner Basics
1. You need traffic and it all starts with your website.
2. Is the product or service you offer in demand?
3. Build some quality links to your site
4. Create and submit a sitemap
5. Follow and monitor your website statistics
.jpg "Free Traffic System - Increase Targeted Website Traffic with Free
Unlimited One Way Links")
