Free Website Traffic Through Niche Specific Sites
There are many niche specific websites that can be used to generate free website traffic. Some examples are DIGG, PlugIM, MarkTD etc. You can generate more and more traffic to your website using with the help of these sites. Though DIGG initially had niche related content catering to technophiles and geeks, it has grown with many more categories being added later. The thing is, you could be restricted to creating content related to the categories on the site, therefore make sure you comment on or post to categories that are connected with the links, you provide so that you can benefit from them..
DIGG is basically a community driven site where, as a member you would be expected to post content that you think would benefit the community. Depending on how interesting and valuable your content is, you could get to the home page of DIGG and through this, get huge amounts of traffic on your site. This social book marking site is a great resource to get quality traffic and popularity as well.
Some Tips For Posting Content On DIGG
People on DIGG look to share new information with each other, therefore, a catchy title with lively descriptions would work well. There are a certain amount of votes or digs you are expected to get within 24 hours, based on which you would be promoted to the front page which in turn will divert free to your site.
The first thing to remember is that your comments on DIGG must be relevant because if it is not, your post might never appear. So be as much on topic as possible since this could start up a long thread of discussion that will keep that coming. Preferably, if you intend commenting, it is better to go for a first post comment. Do not add a fresh comment to an already existing comment since it makes more sense to reply to that first comment.
Like DIGG, there are now hundreds of niche-specific sites that you can consider using to generate more crowd on your website. Since it is almost a matter of chance to get to the home page of DIGG, several Internet marketers are starting their own DIGG-like websites or social book marking sites to generate more crowd to their sites.
If you start your own niche website, you too can benefit from the millions of writers and bloggers who will be interested in posting to that niche.
This article is an effort for helping small and home based business drive for targeted traffic to their websites. Check out more traffic secrets at http://TrafficTransformer.com and you can also check out the Internet Marketing Blog http://markflavin.com for free internet marketing tips.
Promotional Products: Buttons, Book Bags, and Safety Tools, Oh My!
Some people call them “tchotchkes.” Others, “swag” (or “schweg”). However you say it, promotional products are an important – and surprisingly underused – part of contemporary marketing.
Promotional products – those little giveaway key chains, buttons, caps, and other items embossed with product names or company logos – may look small, but they’re a big business. In 2006 the industry pulled in $18.6 billion – more than Internet, cable, or Yellow Pages advertising. It’s growing faster than both radio and TV advertising – and no wonder.
Promo products, because of their usefulness, have a potential staying power greater than that of any TV commercial or billboard. Savvy businesses know that promotional products represent a great way to increase name recognition, foster customer and employee goodwill, and conduct marketing research. Whether you’re an office manager looking for a way to say “Thanks” to your team, or a small business owner who needs an inexpensive and fun way to get the word out, promotional products offer many creative options.
History
The promo product industry is nearly as old as modern advertising itself. Experts trace its beginnings to 1789 – that momentous year of Constitution and revolution – when George Washington’s supporters put together the first-ever political campaign buttons to celebrate the first President’s inauguration. Ever since, promo products and presidential politics have been intertwined.
Andrew Jackson’s 1824 presidential campaign was the first to consciously use giveaway items as a form of advertising. Since then we’ve seen everything from the Eisenhower potholder to the McKinley lunchpail (his campaign slogan was “A Full Dinner Bucket”), from the FDR shot glass to the (unofficial!) Mitt Romney thong, from the Jimmy Carter peanut-shaped radio to Nixon sunglasses.
It was left to a nineteenth-century Ohio newspaperman, Jasper Freemont Meek, to discover the ways this technique could help small businesses as well as presidential hopefuls. One day, the story goes, Meek witnessed a tired little girl accidentally spill her schoolbooks in the dirt.
The lightbulb went on. Meek approached a local shoemaker, Mr. Cantwell, with his big idea – why not give away bookbags (imprinted with “Buy Cantwell Shoes”) to every child who visited Cantwell’s store? The bookbags would increase community goodwill toward Cantwell’s business, while ensure that Cantwell’s name went everywhere the town’s schoolchildren went.
The bags were a success – for Cantwell, for the schoolchildren who now had free bookbags, and most importantly, for Meek, who printed them. The idea caught on, and soon Meek was making promotional marbles, buggy whips, card cases, fans, calendars, cloth caps, and aprons.
Since then, nearly every imaginable product has been used to advertise new businesses. Some of the most durable industry standbys include commemorative plates, magnets, calendars, keychains, pens, radios, office equipment, umbrellas, and, recently, Bobbleheads. The Internet and print-on-demand technologies have only increased the options available to small businesses. Some of the odder possibilities for today’s business: wetwipes, underwear, sleep masks, fishing knives, and church collection baskets.
Businesses love promotional products because, unlike those expensive TV and radio ads, these little items have the potential to become part of consumers’ lives. A successful promo product goes home with somebody. It gets used. And every time that promo pen comes out of the desk drawer, another potential customer is reached.
But for all their popularity, promotional products represent, in some ways, an untapped resource. Too many businesses settle for the same old products – those pads of paper nobody uses, those key chains nobody needs. Others, trying too hard for novelty, end up with bizarre, white-elephant giveaways that sit on the shelf. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a creative and practical alternative to the same old thing?
Safecutters offers your business a full line of useful promotional products that will set you apart. This fast-growing, innovative company has made big strides in the office-supplies industry with its unique line of safety box cutters, utility knives, and safety knives. Every office needs a good box cutter, and no home should be without a package opener.
And with the rising cost of health care, no office manager, mail room, or shipping and receiving supervisor can afford to ignore the issue of knife safety. Whether you’re looking for a way to useful, unusual promo item for potential customers, or a way to promote employee safety and loyalty, Safecutters has just what you need.
Safecutters, Inc. distributes the Klever Kutter and Klever Koncept, two of the safest utility knives available. Klever Kutter virtually eliminates the risk of workplace injuries, while protecting packaged products. For more information about Klever Kutter visit http://www.safecutters.com
The Short Guide to Affiliate Website Building Success
There are many ways you can temporarily get an edge on your affiliate competition. At least one internet marketing “guru” invents a new trend every day to help you do this (his/her goal is to sell products). The problem is that these strategies usually don’t work, and even if they do, they’re only temporary. Eventually, these strategies will hurt your business.
If you’re serious about starting a business on the internet, the easiest way to this do is to market affiliate programs. You don’t have to be an expert on anything, you don’t have to handle customer service, and you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get started.
Although there’s a lot information about marketing affiliate programs, there are some simple tweaks you can do that will jumpstart your business, and anyone can do them.
Your first step should be to build a website. There is plenty of free software available to help you build a website without knowing HTML, and you don’t have to be a genius to learn how to FTP. (This is uploading your site to the internet.)
Most affiliates never succeed in a program because they’ll market the program for only 30 days, use only the sales materials the merchant provided, and then they wonder why they aren’t rich.
If you want to succeed in any business, affiliate or not, you have to be different. Presell the merchant’s products; you can only do that if you have a website.
It doesn’t have to be anything fancy either. You can take care of two business tasks at one time by simply building a lead capture page and promoting your list. Include several emails in your series discussing the merchant’s program. Explain why it works. Give your reader real information about your topic and not just an endorsement of the merchant’s product.
If you’re a customer of the program, even better because then you know things about the product most affiliates won’t.
You can also use your website as a way of showcasing different merchant programs.
Although you need to avoid using javascript as much as possible because it isn’t search engine friendly, many merchant programs, especially on the larger sites like Commission Junction and Linkshare, have additional resources on their own sites you can use. This includes datafeeds and RSS, both search engine friendly types of code you can easily use to add self updating content to your website. This code keeps your website fresh, and the search engines will visit more often.
You’ll also find store generators you can use to generate pages for your site, and many of these only require you to add your affiliate ID, some keywords for the types of products you want to offer, and then you just copy and paste the code onto your site. Many of these store generators are now search engine friendly, making your site super search engine food, as well as unique.
You can find store generators by typing in the merchant name and adding the search term “store generator”. You can also visit the merchant’s site first to find out what tools are offered.
Finally, once you’ve developed a little technical expertise, and you understand the basics of site building and script installation, you can try your hand at some of the more basic scripts for site building. You can create anything from a full fledged Amazon store, to your own niche friendly Net Shop.
You can search for these scripts by simply typing the store you want into the the search engines, and then add the word “scripts”. For example, if you want an Amazon script, type in “free Amazon store script”. You’ll find plenty of results, and some don’t even require a database to run.
Regardless of what type of site you choose to build, whether it’s a simple list page, or a full fledged content site, make sure you build a list so you can recycle your traffic. Automation is a key ingredient in a successful business because it allows you to focus on the tasks that will make you money.
Find a few good affiliate programs you like, that pay well, do your keyword research and find an untapped market, and you’ll be well on your way to succeeding as an affiliate.
Jinger Jarrett will give you her affiliate site building software, as well as her lead capture page software, free. Get it at http://www.killermarketingarsenal.com/monthlyezine. Visit her bookstore at http://www.lulu.com/jingerjarrett. Free 30 business course: http://www.smallbusinesshowto.com
5 Ways to Create Content to Drive Traffic to Your Site
There are many ways to promote your business online. The difference between online marketing and offline marketing though is profound.
Although advertising can be very effective offline, it isn’t nearly so effective online. The reason why is that most people surf the internet looking for information. They aren’t usually interested in advertising unless the product or service in question can solve their problems.
There are five strategies that you can implement in your business that will not only create a content strategy for you but will also create a very effective marketing strategy. This strategy will only require a few hours of your time each week.
1. Articles
For those who have read my work, you know that articles not only brand you as an expert but are also a way to create quality content for your site, and search engines love content.
If you don’t like writing, or don’t write, you can find quality articles to post on your site. The larger your site, the more likely you will be found in the search engines.
Here are a few article directories you can use:
http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://www.isnare.com
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.articlemarketer.com
2. Blogs/RSS
Blogging is another way to create content for your website, and by using RSS, you can easily distribute your content.
Most don’t understand what RSS really is, or how it can most effectively be used to drive traffic to their sites.
Basically, RSS is a form of code that’s very search engine friendly. With RSS feeds, which you can add to your website or blog, you can create content that updates itself. Because of this self updating, the search engines will spider your site more often, raising your rankings.
Once you’ve built your blog and added several entries, you need to “ping” it to get it listed. Here are two tools you can use:
http://www.pingoat.com
http://www.pingomatic.com
3. Press Releases
Press releases are news about your business. Press releases are also an excellent way to get high rankings for your site because you can create content rich press releases and submit them to press release directories. Many of these directories are high traffic.
Here are several sites that accept press releases:
http://www.press-world.com
http://www.free-press-release.com
http://www.prbase.com
http://www.click2newsites.com/
http://www.prweb.com
4. Search Engine Optimization
Optimizing your site for the search engines means creating keyword rich content, exchanging links with other sites, submitting your site to directories, which create backlinks pointing to your site.
You can use tools like Web CEO, http://www.webceo.com, to help you optimize your pages.
Although submitting the search engines is often unecessary, since most search engines will spider through to your site from another site, you still need at least one link pointing back to your site so that your site gets spidered.
Submit your site to Alexa, http://www.alexa.com. Not only will this make sure that your site gets spidered, you’ll be able to compare your site to other sites, as well as get statistics on traffic to your site.
5. Free Ebooks and Reports
By writing and giving away free ebooks and reports, you give visitors an incentive to visit your website.
You can also submit your ebooks and reports to ebook directories for free.
http://www.ebookdirectory.com
http://www.ebookpalace.com
http://www.ebookjungle.com/
http://www.ebooksnbytes.com/
If you make your ebook brandable, which means others can place their links inside your ebook, your ebook becomes viral. You give others an incentive to share your ebook and spread it across the internet.
Once you implement these content strategies on your site, add streams of revenue to your site like Adsense and Virtual Portals. These sites will allow you to monetize your site.
http://www.google.com/ads/
http://www.virtual-portals.com
Although adveritising, like pay per clicks, can be effective in promoting your website, it can quickly become expensive. By focusing on creating quality content for website, and then promoting that content, you can continue to drive traffic to your website for years to come.
Jinger Jarrett is the author of “Affiliate Cash”. “Affiliate Cash” will solve your most common problems with building content rich websites and creating quality content that drives loads of traffic to your site. Download your free copy now: http://www.101articles.com/newstuff.php