Get Traffic (E)

Words that Will Bring Down Your Marketing Efforts

2008-07-30T08:12:00.000-07:00

By: karen grahams

Words have powerful feelings they can break a heart or mend a heart; they can stimulate our senses and transport us to another world. Obviously, words are very important to the world of marketing and advertising.

Choose your words carefully because the wrong word can shut off a valve that would have opened up for many new customers.Currently, people want to know the truth about everything (and they can find out the truth with one 0.2-second Google search!) and what you say in your marketing materials had better be truthful. If not, people will easily move on to your truthful competitor.

People want numbers and specifics rather than vague representations and generalizations of the truth. With so many ads in people’s daily lives, the ones that sound true are the ones they will remember. The ads with the same old, tired words that have been used in untruthful ads in the past are ignored.

Check out this list of the four top old, tired words that have been overused in everything from catalog printing to billboards, and replace them in your marketing materials.

1. CarePeople are tired of reading that a business cares about them, only to be put on hold when they call, or to receive poor customer service in the store. Any phrases used with “care” like “we care”, “caring for you” and “the company that cares” are all versions of a promise that most businesses don’t fulfill. As soon as you claim to “care,” customers will look for the first sign that you don’t care. This word has been used so many times that some customers may actually not even notice it!

2. ResultsInstead of saying “our product will get you the results you want” why not make that claim more specific? Not only will you get out of using the tired word, but your message will be stronger by being more specific. “Our product will reduce your heating costs by 25%” is much more effective than the first phrase. Then, back up your claim with testimonials or other ways to prove your claim. As soon as you mention results, whether it’s the actual word or the concept, people will want proof. Be prepared to give it.

3. SolutionsThis word has been used so much in technology marketing that it almost doesn’t have any meaning left. Many marketers have claimed to have the solution to something, like a firewall that doesn’t allow any viruses to get through, and when that solution doesn’t actually work, you’re left with skeptical customers. Many consumers believe their problems are unique to them, so having a solution for the masses won’t work.

4. AmazingWhat’s not “amazing” these days? Everything from commercials about putty that can be molded to form a chain that pulls a truck to an “ultra absorbent multi-purpose cloth” has been described as amazing. This word evokes a sense of “too good to be true,” and it usually is. Not a great word to attach your product or service to.

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Understanding The Internet Marketing Power of RSS

2007-05-02T16:50:00.000-07:00

By Gregg Gillies

What exactly is RSS? RSS goes by a few different names, mainly 'really simple syndication', 'rich site summary', or 'RDF site summary' where RDF stands for 'resource description framework.'

Okay, but what can RSS do? And what can RSS do for your online marketing efforts?

Basically RSS is a snippet of code that produces a short summary of important links and descriptions in a format known as XML. What this does is allow those implementing RSS to syndicate their content by allowing other blogs, sites and webmasters to use their summary as part of a list of summaries on their site, within a specific topic.

Are you starting to see the power of RSS within your marketing efforts? If you begin creating RSS feeds to allow your content to be syndicated it could appear on thousands of other sites across the internet that have to do with your niche, driving very targeted traffic to your site.

Surfers, bloggers and webmasters can collect these various RSS summaries with something called a feed aggregator or feed reader. With this feed aggregator or reader they can subscribe to specific RSS feeds that will then be delivered directly to their desktop when anything new is added to that feed.

For example, if you go to http://www.buildleanmuscle.com and look on the left hand side below the navigation bar, you will see where people can sign up to add the RSS feed to their feed reader or aggregator and then when anything new is added, they will be notified.

So, you can use RSS feeds in two different ways. You can syndicate your own content so that others can subscribe to your RSS feed and put it on their sites and in their feed aggregators, which is a fantastic internt marketing tool for you to spread your content and market your site over the internet.

The other way to use RSS feeds is to use them to automatically add fresh content to your site or blog without you having to produce that content.

By incorporating both strategies into your internet marketing, you can grow your online business with fresh content and traffic generation.

Gregg Gillies has been running a successful online fitness business for over four years as well as mentoring students for over two years on how to build their very own online business. Check out his free report "Learn How To Quickly And Easily Launch Your Own Profit Pulling Online Business ASAP" at http://www.internetprofitmethod.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gregg_Gillies

20 Ways To Increase Website Traffic and eBook Sales

2007-04-10T07:02:00.001-07:00

By Catherine Franz

Here's a fast, easy list for you. Use it as checklist to see what you need to do to increase traffic. Or use it as a review list if you have already been working on improving your website traffic. It will help you find ways that you might have known or forgotten.

1. People love to receive free or win free stuff, whether they really need it or want it. A free eBook is perfect to satisfy those needs over the Internet. They will visit your website to get the free valuable information.

2. Give away the full version of your eBook in exchange for testimonials. You can use these customer statements to improve your ads' effectiveness.

3. When you create an eBook, you change your image to "Expert." This will gain people's trust and they will buy your main product or service quicker.

4. Publish your website in eBook format. Put the eBook on a disk or CD-ROM then include it with your direct mail packages. This can increase the number of people that buy your product or service.

5. Offer your eBook as a free bonus for buying one of your main products or services. People will buy the product or service more often when you offer a free bonus.

6. Allow people to download your free eBook, if they give the e-mail addresses of 3 to 5 friends or associates that would be interested in your eBook. This will quickly build your e-mail list.

7. Create a directory of websites in eBook form. List peoples websites in the directory that will agree to advertise the eBook on their website or e-zine (electronic newsletter). This will give them an incentive to give away or advertise your eBook.

8. Allow other people to give away your free eBook. This will increase the number of people that will see your ad in the eBook. You could also include a mini catalog of all your product or services that you offer in the eBook.

9. Gain new leads by having people sign up and give you their contact information before they can download your eBook. This is a very effective way to conduct market research.

10. Make money selling advertising space in your eBook. You could charge for full-page color ads, classified ads or banners ads. You could also trade advertising space in your eBook for other forms of advertising.

11. Give away the eBook as a gift to your current customers as a way of letting them know you appreciate their business. Place an ad in the eBook for a new back end product you are offering

12. Get free advertising by submitting your eBook to freebie and freeware/shareware websites. This will increase the number of people that will download your eBook and see your ad.

13. Make money by selling the reprint rights to those that would like to sell the eBook. You could also make even more money by selling the master rights. This would allow other people to sell the reprint rights.

14. Hold a contest on your website so people can win your eBook. You will get free advertising by submitting your contest ad to free contest or sweepstakes directories. Just make sure you publicize the winner's information -- they love the acknowledgment.

15. You will gain valuable referrals from people telling others about your eBook. Word of mouth advertising can be very effective.

16. Make money cross promoting your eBook with other people's products or services. This technique doubles your marketing effort without spending more time and money on your part.

17. Increase your e-zine subscribers by giving away your eBook to people that subscribe to your e-zine. This will give people an incentive to subscribe. Allow your e-zine subscribers to also give it away to multiply your subscribers.

18. Give away the eBook to people that join your affiliate program. This will increase the number of people that subscribe. You could also create an eBook for them to use that will help them promote your product or service.

19. Give away the eBook in exchange for people leaving their contact information. This will help you follow-up with the prospects that buy your main product or service.

20. Offer a free eBook that contains a couple of sample chapters. If they like it, give them the option of ordering the full version. It would work just like a software demo or shareware.

You will want to print this list and keep it in your website improvement file if you aren't quite ready. Or add it to your planning list.

Catherine Franz, a Professional Marketing & Writing Coach, specializes in product development, Internet writing and marketing, nonfiction, training. Newsletters and articles available at: http://www.abundancecenter.com blog: http://abundance.blogs.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Catherine_Franz

How To Get Highly-Targeted Traffic To Your Website For Free

2007-03-25T16:18:00.000-07:00

by: Ian Basford

I'm sure that most of you reading this will know that writing articles and distributing them to online article directories is probably the most potent and immediate way to increase traffic to your website. In this article I will give you the benefits of this type of free website marketing.

Firstly, having written an article on your chosen subject you will be considered by many to be an expert in your chosen field. Do you think that I'm an expert on writing articles? I've written this article and you haven't, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I know more than you! Perception nearly always defines our reality, and in some ways defies it. Secondly, your article should always be related to your website topic. If you own a website devoted to trains, write an article about trains. Your readers will almost certainly visit your website to see what is on offer.

Thirdly, with each article that you write you will include a resource box. This resource box (sometimes called an author bio) contains whatever information that you want the reader to know, such as your website address or the web address of whatever affiliate product you are promoting at the moment. This is perhaps the most important part of the whole process, because your main objective should be to get traffic back to your website.

You may just like writing and informing or entertaining people and have no website to speak of. That's fine – whatever does it for you. Fourthly, every article that you have published will give you a one-way link back to your website. We all know that search engines love links, but your article will be put alongside other articles with similar content and your website will mirror the content of your own article, so the search engines will prize these links higher than a link from a website that has a totally different subject matter. Fifthly, once you have gone to the trouble of submitting your article to a zillion-and-one article directories you can sit back and relax.

Let nature take its course. You now have a zillion-and-one links pointing to your website. It gets better! Website owners are constantly on the lookout for original content for their own website or to include in their weekly ezine or newsletter. As long as your article is fairly grammatically correct, has no glaring errors and is entertaining or informative, they are entitled to use the article free-of-charge so long as they include the resource box that came with it.

Do you see the wonderful potential of this fairly basic marketing vehicle? Submitting your article to as many article directories as you can find is a fairly laborious task, but once the initial work has been done, you can sit back and relax for a while before starting work on your next article. This article is free to re-publish.

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/site_promotion/article_1431.shtml

7 Top Ways To Get More Traffic Now

2007-03-25T16:06:00.000-07:00

by: Laurie Raphael

To succeed as marketer, you must direct meaningful traffic to your website. No matter how well designed or interesting your site is, it is a waste of time if no one sees it. In the initial stages of your business, getting traffic is not easy with the steep competition of thousands of web sites all trying to get their message out there. There is hope, though, according to successful marketers.

The following seven methods, applied consistently, can mean a great increase in the quality and quantity of traffic to a site:

1.) Utilize Search Engines Use search engines to your advantage. You need to have your web site appear near the top of the results, ahead of other websites offering similar content to gain the maximum benefit from a search engine. How is this accomplished? See 2.

2.) Popularity Linking Your site must already be attracting a considerable amount of traffic to achieve high search engine results. One method for accomplishing this is by connecting to other relevant sites via links. These "popularity links" help drive traffic, and if targeted to the correct search queries they can boost your search engine ranking. Link popularity always starts with finding web sites that are similar but do not compete with your own. You would contact the website owner and request a link to your site. You would, at the same time, offer a reciprocal link which would advertise their website on one of your pages.

3.) Writing Articles Writing your own rich content articles on topics targeted to your audience helps promote your web site by increasing the number of popularity links coming to your site (see 2) as well as attracting interested readers. Your articles can be placed on other sites, in ezines, or even in newsletters. Always be sure to ad a source box with a link going back to your site.

4.) Joint Venture Marketing Joint venture marketing, a marketing relationship in which two individuals cooperate to help promote each other, is also an effective way to promote a product or service. Joint venture agreements can also include swapping ads and exchanging links. Both parties benefit as they reach a wider customer base fairly quickly.

5.) Joining Affiliate Programs By joining an affiliate program as a merchant, you can get others to market your site. You will need your own product to start your own program, but this can be accomplished through the use of private label content or product development ventures. Even a small-scale affiliate program can help direct significant traffic to your site.

6.) Creating A List Of Subscribers A subscriber list is a valuable asset for any marketer. Using an autoresponder or a personalized newsletter to promote your site will help you to build a repeat visitor base, providing direct marketing opportunities for now and in the future.

7.) Understand Your Market Different niches need to be promoted in different ways. Use the techniques described up until this point to reach people who will be interested. You need to figure out who your target market is and how will you treat them once they get to your site? This will affect everything on your site including your ad copy and even the colors you use. Use as many strategies as possible to generate targeted traffic.

Relying on search engines is obviously important but there are numerous other ways to generate traffic. Combining these methods will maximize the traffic you get.

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/marketing/article_3568.shtml

HOW DO I GET TRAFFIC TO MY SITE?

2007-03-10T06:31:00.000-08:00

Many people think that having a good website is all you need to get tons of visitors. Wrong answer. Getting traffic to your site takes hard work and diligence and is not accomplished overnight. Think about it this way - how are people supposed to know where to find your site if you don't tell them? You must advertise. Here are some proven ways to advertise your site without spending [much] money:

1. Submit your site to as many search engines as you can. Here are some of the popular ones you can start with:

Google
AOL
Kanoodle
Teoma
AltaVista
Euroseek
Lycos
What-U-Seek
Yahoo
Exactseek
Moteurderecherche
DMOZ
Alexa
Excite
National Directory
AllTheWeb
Inktomi
SearchIt

2. Use a favicon.ico -

3. If you have a Christian Website, be sure to submit it to all the Christian Directories. We have a list of about 50 of the most popular
Christian Directories here.

4.Have Dynamic content on your site - Message Board, Links Directory, Guest Book, Online Search, Picture Gallery, Quote of the day, News items, Site Search, Links Engine ... It all makes for a more enjoyable experience for your visitors ... and happy visitors come back.

4.Make sure you don't have broken links on your site! There is nothing more annoying when one clicks a link and it does not work. There are hundreds of places you can go on the internet that will check your link validity. Use them.

5. Make sure your META TAGS are done right. Learn how to do this here.

6. Submit your site to as many privately run Link Directories/Search Engines as you can find. These will not generally boost your traffic in any major way but will help to maintain steady stream of qualified visitors.

7. Use Banners with care. See below.

8. Subscribe to the Usenet groups and advertise there. A good place to start is Google Groups

- Be sure to submit your site in appropriate groups!

- Be sure to signup with a backup email or you will get onto every spammers database!

- Be sure you don't SPAM -- only submit a write up of your site once to any given group.

by: http://webnet77.com/webstuff/tips.html#fav