Yahoo! Answers

Yahoo! Answers is a community-driven website launched by Yahoo! in late 2005. It allows all users to participate in a site-wide discussion forum, driven by user participation in asking and answering questions. The service itself is free of charge, and anyone can post a question and have it answered in a reasonable amount of time.

Information that is posted on Yahoo! Answers is non-exclusive and royalty-free; it can be accessed by anyone, anywhere in the world and published in a variety of formats. Any type of question can be asked and answered, and each posting is indexed appropriately.Users can simply enter questions and answers in a simple text box and use as many resources to link within their responses.

The key to generating traffic through Yahoo! Answers is to understanding how to make Yahoo! Answers work for you. It lies in creating a profitable set of answers for people to review. To build traffic, you'll need to post questions and answers, and make sure every contribution stays within the community guidelines. It's also important that you learn how to work within each niche community that you participate in. It'll be useless, for example, to post in groups and provide feedback on items that are not relevant to your business.

Your objective is to provide a valuable response to people who are asking questions that will not only encourage them to listen to you and possibly visit your site, but also give other users a chance to see what you're promoting.

For the best results, keep in mind the following key steps:

1. Read other responses and prompts carefully; look for details that you can elaborate on

2. Provide supportive arguments and references, not just your opinion. Make sure you are including references and sources as you need them

3. Quote other blogs or websites accurately and appropriately; give credit to the right party!

4. Search for balanced replies

5. Refrain from attacking people, and always provide quality, positive messages and posts

Earning a respectable position on Yahoo! Answers takes time, and you won't get anywhere by posting unrelated items and topics on a random subjects. You'll want to spend a fair amount of time narrowing down your niche, and finding relevant topics to work within. After creating some valuable responses and posting them to the site, just wait for other users to find you. When they see your active and valuable participation, they'll be more likely to review your information themselves. As a Yahoo! Answers participant, you'll start to earn respect from other community members which in turn will give you more freedom to answer questions on an ongoing basis.

All discussion forums have limits and Yahoo! Answers is no different. However, there are different ways to increase your online exposure. The idea is to help others while helping yourself; you must provide valuable information on a consistent basis in order to reap the rewards of your work.

If you are promoting a specific product, make sure you follow all rules and guidelines on how to add affiliate links. Whenever possible, position a special discount or offer to only a select group of visitors. A word-of-mouth recommendation is one of the most powerful tools for any product or service that you might be interested in promoting. If you can encourage users to participate in a forum or discussion forum that promotes your product, you will have a significant advantage over your competitors.

When you are creating a strategy that makes use of online discussion forums and social interaction participation, it can be helpful to look at the larger scope of your internet marketing strategy as well. There are essentially five levels of the sales process involved when selling or promoting your product. Whether it's a product or service, having an online presence will be critical to your long-term success and can help you create a steady stream of customers simply out of referrals. Add the component of Yahoo! Answers as a tool to generate interest, and you'll be helping drive traffic to your site and successfully close that sale!

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Okay, that's today's traffic generation idea. Stay tuned for tomorrow's.

Until then,

Terry

How To Plan Your Traffic Generation Strategy

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make when trying to drive traffic to their website is a failure to plan.

As a business owner and/or marketer your number one task and responsibility is to plan all aspects of your business. Everything from your finances to your traffic generation strategy should be planned. Experts recommend spending at least 25% of your time planning.

Here's what to consider when planning your traffic generation strategy:

1. What are your traffic goals?

2. What tools are you going to use to achieve those goals?

3. What is your budget?

4. What goals do you have for each traffic generation tool and how are you going to achieve them?

5. How are your testing and tracking results?

6. How do all your tools and traffic generation tactics work together?

7. How often will you reassess, analyze, and plan your strategy?

Your plan may not be linear, nor does it have to be.

It could be a mindmap, a flowchart, or a simple free form paragraph.

There isn't a right or wrong way to plan, what is important is that you do it. Having a plan will make sure you don't miss a step, make mistakes, or skip over a potentially lucrative and effective traffic generation strategy.

XXX

Have a great day.

Until tomorrow,

Terry

Craigslist

Whether you're a small business owner with many products or services to sell, or any entrepreneur or marketer -- if you aren’t using Craigslist, you're missing a valuable opportunity to drive hoards of traffic to your site.

For many, the CraigsList is a community website that uses Web 2.0 technology. This website, like many others of its kind, focuses on providing users with the ability to build an online community. Serving more than twenty million users each month, Craigslist.org is among the highest ranking sites on the web today.

So what does this mean to you? And how can you use Craigslist to your benefit?

Every month, more than 5 billion people hit Craigslist.com for information about products and services. Alexa.com reported in December of 2006 the site had 10 million unique viewers. That is a lot of publicity. Each day, more than 500,000 companies and individuals post job availabilities. Imagine, the biggest and best place to find a job, and even post a resume!

Founded in 1995 and incorporated in 1999, Craigslist offered listings in just nine US cities. Since then, Craigslist has expanded to include more than 450 cities across the globe.

The company became popular mainly by word-of-mouth as more and more people started using the site to place their classified and other assorted ads. The reason for its popularity? Ads are cheap and get a lot of exposure.

Craigslist now offers forums and message boards for its members. Among the more popular forums on the "List"is the "Erotic" forum, (for users over age 18). Craigslist allows just about anyone to post information about anything they have to offer. It is also heavily policed because of this to ensure ads are legitimate and legal.

I'm sure you can see the potential for building traffic by using Craigslist. Mostly, You do this with the free advertising available. As long as you follow a few guidelines and rules set up by the site, you can post classified ads relevant to almost 450 cities globally.

Finding Your Target Audience on Craigslist

We’ve already discussed the number of visitors using Craigslist each month but the key to taking advantage of these numbers is to target your advertising in a way aimed at reaching your target audience as opposed to a wide audience of individuals who have no specific interest in your products or services. It is much more worthwhile to reach a small audience of those with a keen interest in your products or services than to reach a much larger audience of those who are not interested. Those who have an interest in your products or services are your target audience.

The key to reaching your target audience on Craigslist is placing your advertisement in the most appropriate locations. Craigslist has a specific section for businesses to advertise their services. This section is broken down into a number of categories. Those who are in the business of computer repair would be wise to place their advertisement in the computer section as opposed to the automotive section because individuals looking for computer help will naturally migrate to the computer section. It may sometimes be appropriate to place an advertisement in more than one section. This is acceptable as long as it does not cross the line to spamming the section.

If there's not a specific section for the products or services offered by your business there are a couple of options. Business owners can place an advertisement in the section for small business advertisements where it might be found by those doing a search in this section. Alternately the business owner can contact Craigslist to suggest the addition of a new category. They might be willing to oblige if they believe this category warrants an addition.

To really take advantage of this method, you'll need to offer Craigslist users something of value for free or for a really great price... in order to get them to your site in the first place. Typically this would be a free report or ebook, or a deeply discounted video or something along those lines. This is how you build traffic via Craigslist.

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Okay folks, that's today's traffic generation idea.

Until tomorrow,

Terry

Organic Traffic

Organic traffic pertains to traffic that's ‘sent’ to the site. Gearing this traffic route is then the best way of ensuring good organic traffic. The easiest way of getting such traffic is through Search Engine Optimization. Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic a site receives.

Crawlers, which are small programs, are sent to a site by a search engine when the site is submitted for placement. These crawlers, also called spiders, scout the pages for keywords and tags attached to the site to compile a list of search-related features to generate the site on the search engine’s results page.

Crawlers usually look for keywords, so optimizing their use in the pages is a good way of making sure they are picked up. Also, the more information available for a page, the easier it is for those programs to reference the page. For example, each page should have its own page name clearly defined, and this should include the title and header, which is also known as the meta tag, which the crawlers look for. Tags should also be well used, for they allow for broader scope when the crawlers are doing their job.

A good bet would also be to include the most relevant information of the site in the first paragraph of the home page. The first 2-3 lines of this paragraph are usually included in search engine results a page, providing at first glance whether the site has what the person doing the search is looking for. In this way, the inverted pyramid structure of writing, whereby the paragraphs are written in order of most important information to least important, should be followed when writing the content of the page.

All these help the site have a better chance of ranking among the top spots on the search engine’s results page. 5 to 10% of clicks are generated through higher up placement on results pages. One thing to steer clear of here - bad links or ‘under construction’ pages on the site. This is a deterrent for crawlers, which may thus not add the site to the results, as the site is not fully functional. Regular maintenance and updates of links and pages help to keep this issue at bay.

Another good option to increase organic traffic is to submit the site to directories and other guides on the Internet. These too will make the site come up through searches in their databases.

Other tips to increase organic traffic are:

• Increase the number of related phrases that are typed in search engine boxes in the content of the site – this could allow for the site or page to be featured in results.

• Provide the geographical location of the business – this works mostly for product-based sites, as the likelihood of someone choosing to buy something in their area is enhanced. Providing location, especially if the site is international, helps target more people that could have geographical location as part of their search parameters.

• Listing products/content topic individually – the more pages on the site, the more a site is considered 'worthy' of being included in search engine results. Specific pages for specific content also show in-depth knowledge about the product/content, enhancing the reputation of the site as a good destination.

The above mentioned options are only the tip of the iceberg where increasing traffic is concerned. Other methods have been discussed on this blog, and additional options will be considered individually.

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Well then, that's today's post.

Until tomorrow,

Terry

Write Articles for Ezines and Article Publishers

Write articles for ezines and article publishers

As I'm sure you know, people are more likely to listen to someone that they consider to be an expert. Why can’t that expert be you? If you know enough about a topic to build a business around it, you are an expert. All it takes is a little marketing to convince others that you are an expert.

One method of establishing yourself as an expert and gaining some exposure for yourself and your business is to write articles for ezines and article publishers. You write an article relating to your business, and then post it to one of the online publishing services. When people read your article, they see your name, and assume you know what you are talking about. The more different places you can get your name and the name of your business, the better that chances are that people will begin to remember you. Over time with multiple exposures you begin to build brand recognition.

There are two different ways online article publishers let you get your name out. Some sites, like ezinearticles.com, let you put a short 1-2 sentence “About the Author” section at the end of your article. You get the opportunity to put together a brief statement about yourself and your business, and a link back to your site.

Sites like Associated Content and Helium will have a content producer’s page that will allow you the room to write quite a bit more. You can talk about yourself, your business, and why the reader should believe what you say. You can also include multiple links that will lead the reader into your site.

When readers click on the link to come to your site they are what marketers refer to as “pre-qualified”. They chose to be there based on the information they read. They were not tricked into visiting your site, and they were not pressured to go there by spam emails. They are there by choice, and that makes them more receptive to your message, and increases the probability that they will purchase your products or services.

Beside the traffic that comes to your site directly from your article, if the article is really good it may end up on one of the social bookmark sites like Digg, Stumble Upon, or del.ico.us. If your article gets ranked in one of these sites, it can bring a lot of visitors to your site in a very short period of time. That burst of visitors might last for only a day or two, but it could also linger in the top rankings for days or weeks.

Another side benefit of writing articles is that they can provide a small amount of residual income to you. Many of these sites offer revenue sharing that will give you a small portion of the advertising that the article generates. The amount you get per article usually is not very much, but enough articles over time can add up.

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Okay boys and girls, that's today's traffic generation idea.

Until tomorrow,

Terry

Use Social Bookmark Sites

Use Social Bookmark Sites

Something that has really flourished in recent years is the popularity of social bookmark sites like Digg, Stumble Upon, and del.ico.us. These sites allow users to search, set bookmarks, organize, read, and rate anything on the internet. If something you have written is posted to one of these sites, other readers get a chance to vote on whether or not they like it. If someone thinks it is good, and worth sharing, they can vote for it. The more people vote for it, the higher up in the rankings it moves. The higher it goes, more people see it. The more people see it, the more opportunities there are for someone else to vote on it, which helps it to rank even higher.

The good part for you is, even if a reader doesn’t vote on your article, they still might go to your site to see if there is anything else there that they might like.

One important thing to note is, these social bookmark sites do not like you to vote for your own articles. In fact, if you do vote for your own, it could cause it to move lower in the rankings. You have to have something that other people find interesting enough that they feel compelled to vote for it.

These sites attract hundreds of thousands of visitors every day. If you are fortunate enough to have your message ranked toward the top on one or more of these sites for even one day, the flood of traffic to your site could be tremendous.

A really simple method for adding a bookmarking option to your site (or blog) and making it very easy for your visitors to bookmark it is to use Add This service. It's completely free and the little bit of script you have to add to each page of your site takes only a few seconds. You can see an example of the at the top right of this page.

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Well boys and girls, that's today's traffic generation idea. Have a good weekend and I'll talk to you on Monday.

Terry

Tag Pages

This traffic generation method uses what are called tag pages. If you go to Squidoo or HubPages and click on a tag you'll see what a tag page is. This is a page which has a list of all the Squidoo lenses / HubPages that use that tag. A tag is just like a keyword or search term which can be used to describe what a lens or hub is about. Here are some examples of Tag pages on both Squidoo and HubPages:

http://HubPages.com/tag/music/hot
http://HubPages.com/tag/photography/hot
http://www.squidoo.com/tags/internet+marketing
http://www.squidoo.com/tags/entertainment

Using the Tag Page Traffic Generation Trick on HubPages.

For this to work effectively you need to create Hubs in sets of about 3-5 or more. So create a hub in the normal way but instead of just adding tags from your favourite keyword tool, go to Google and do a search for all the related tag pages that are already ranked and indexed in Google. What you want are the tags. These are the tags that you are going to add to your hub for instant traffic. The tag pages are already indexed and listed in Google so they are already generating traffic for hubs that are listed there. What you want is to put your Hub listing on many of the tag pages that are already getting traffic from Google.

To find tags for your Hub pages on Google enter the following in the search box:

site:HubPages.com KEYWORD "Hot Hubs"

You'll get Instant Traffic in Two Ways:

1. You'll get instant traffic from the Tag Pages that are already listed and indexed by Google.

2. You'll get free instant traffic from other HubPages with which you share tags.

This is a HubPage feature that very few people know about but that has the potential of generating a lot of traffic for you. If you share a tag with another HubPage Hub which is already ranked well in the search engines and getting traffic, your Hub will be featured in the related Hubs Section

Using the Tag Page Traffic Generation Trick on Squidoo

This strategy works in a similar way on Squidoo too. But you'll be getting better success with HubPages simply because they allow you to add more tags than Squidoo does. But you can overcome this by creating more lenses so that you can have more tags. I think the maximum number you can add on Squidoo is about 20 tags. So if you create 10 lenses, you can have links from 200 tag pages!

Create lenses in the normal way. Then do some searches on Google or any search engine that you're interested in for Tag Pages. You can also copy tags from any well ranked Squidoo lenses that you discover in the search engines.

All you have to do now is add all the tags from existing Tag Pages to your Squidoo lens. If the Tags are more than 20, create more lenses and add those tags. This is why it's a good idea to create lenses in groups of 3-5 or more so that you can use all the tags available.

Most of your traffic will come from Tag Pages and from related lenses links on other Squidoo Lenses.

To see examples of Tag Pages on Squidoo go to:

http://www.squidoo.com/tags/affiliate-marketing
http://www.squidoo.com/tags/love
http://www.squidoo.com/tags/treatment

Overview

So how do you get instant traffic for your Lens or Hub.

1. Create your Lens or Hub

2. Search Google or other search engine for tags using:

site:www.squidoo.com "Squidoo : Tags" KEYWORD for Squidoo or site:HubPages.com KEYWORD "Hot Hubs" for HubPages where KEYWORD is your main keyword or phrase for your lens or hub

3. Make a list of all the tags from the tag pages listed in Google

4. Add the tags to your lens

General Tips:

- Write interesting titles for your HubPages and Squidoo Lenses so that you can maximise the clicks.

- Always create Hubs and Lens in sets. This will increase the number of tags you can add to your pages and therefore increase the amount of traffic you can get.

- If you're promoting a niche product that has no existing lenses of hubs, look for related tags and add those in addition to your own from keyword research tools.

XXX

Okay folks, that's today's traffic generation idea. Try it out and see how it works for you.

Until tomorrow,

Terry

Safelists

Perhaps the best free advertising medium that was ever created for the internet was the SAFELIST. Safelists work very well mainly because of the ability to send housands of free emails at the click of a button.

You could simply sign up today and within 5 minutes be able to send an ad to 100,000+ members. That is the ultimate form of online advertising! However, no one can possibly read email from 100,000 other people! So Safelist users end up deleting most of their mail with "junk" email accounts -- like free Hotmail or Yahoo Web-based.

Matter of fact, many of us delete or empty our mail boxes without reading the emails as soon as the boxes are full. Most safelist users never see “your” ads that are sent. No wonder most of you never make any money; because most safelist subscribers are not reading your ads.

As a result of this, many marketers argue that sending ads to safelists are a waste of time. This is no secret, we all have heard the argument that…

1) Nobody read safelist emails because the same people who post safelist ads and expect you to read their ads are the same ones that are busy deleting ads that are sent to them.

2) Most people post to safelists to try to “sell” their product. They are not trying to buy “your” product.

3)Your ad gets stale over a period of time because the same people are reading the ads.

Many marketers are of the opinion that safelists will go the way of the Free For All (FFA) sites. FFAs, at one time were an excellent free tool to get your ads out in front your market. However, over a period of time FFAs have become practically useless because no one will see your ad. No one visits FFA sites anymore.

There is a lot of talk that safelists are becoming just as obsolete as the FFA. I agree that safelists are not as effective as they once were. With all the problems with safelists, obsolescence will never be an issue because safelists may be the least expensive form of online advertising.

However, safelists are not useless if used PROPERLY.

“MOST OF US ARE SIMPLY USING SAFELISTS THE WRONG WAY”.

One mistake most people make is trying to sell directly with safelist ads. This is a big mistake.

It would be a mistake to try to sell products with your safelist ads because the response would be very low. You may get a few sales here and there, but that’s about it. Let’s learn this lesson now, "Don’t try to “sell” products from your safelist ads". I know this is hard not to do. I know you are asking? "Then what good are safelists if I can't advertise my goods?

The uses, limitations and 'rules' for using safelists are pretty much the same as traffic exchanges. Your goal shouldn't be to try to sell anything, it should be to build your list. To do this you need to:

• Create a really great headline that'll get your email opened in the first place
• Offer a valuable freebie that will require the recipient to opt-in, thus adding one more prospect to your list
• Provide invaluable information on how to improve their finances, business, health, etc.

Many safelists are free. And the paid or PRO safelists are very inexpensive compared to Paid advertising. To increase your success you could hundreds and possibly thousands of safelists (free!). Just remember, though, that you'll have to agree to receive emails from all the members of all the safelists you join. So get yourself a free email account like Gmail.

You also need to automate your safelist posting efforts. It would take you all day to post ads to hundreds of safelists. So you would have to find a program such as the SUBBER that will automatically post ads to hundreds or
thousands of safelists.

You can get a list of the top 20 safelists from Traffichoopla, a service tests and evaluates and ranks the top safelists. Join this program FREE.

You can get this free report, the Safelist Marketers Survival Guide and get a list of free safelists as well as a list Auto Safelist submiters.

It may seem like a lot of work for little results, but safelists are free (mostly) and if you automate the submissions it's not really all that time consuming and the traffic you will get will be targeted.

XXX

Okay, that's today's traffic generation idea. Come back tomorrow for another one.

See you then,

Terry

Write Press Releases

Like many websites, newspapers need content. A lot of newspapers, especially smaller local newspapers, have a hard time coming up with enough fresh content to fill all of the space they have. With limited budgets, they do not have the staff needed to come up with fresh material every day. This creates a great opportunity for you.

While papers are not just going to give you free advertising, they will allow you to write an article about something that your businesses is doing, especially if it involves a service or a community event. The newspapers understand that they are allowing you to advertise in exchange for the free content, but it can not be blatant advertising.

All you have to do is write the article, making sure you mention your businesses name, and list your web address so they can get more information. You just have to make sure the piece is well written, and that your business is doing something worth telling people about.

Not only does this get the name of your business out to the community, but it also helps enhance your reputation. Even without knowing you, people will make a judgment on whether they like you, and can trust you. By building a positive reputation as someone who is active in the community, it makes it easier for them to like you, and by extension, your business.

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There you go... today's traffic generation idea. Y'all come back tomorrow for another one :-)

Terry

Traffic Exchanges

It's well known that many people who are involved in online business and Internet Marketing view traffic exchanges as simply not a serious traffic generation tool. Given the number of free website visitors that a traffic ]exchange has the potential to drive, this attitude might seem a little strange.

After all, if a promotional or advertising plan clearly works, and costs nothing, then you might think that it would be pretty high on the list of the tools and resources that everyone should be using. Sowhat's the problem you may be wondering... For one thing, many, if not most, traffic exchanges doen't survive very long. They come and go like boy bands. I believe this is due to poor planning and management, not because the traffic generation method itself is flawed.

Another argument against traffic exchanges is that what little traffic you do get from them isn't targeted -and thus useless. Not so! Marketers just aren't doing they're research. If you understand who uses traffic exchanges and then take advantage of that information... then you'll receive tons of targeted traffic.

Most new online marketers, netpreneurs and online money-making opportunity seekers start their marketing efforts with traffic exchanges. So, if you're product or service caters to any of these marketers (or closely related markets) then you've got thousands of potential customers looking at your site (or splash page) every day.

As I mentioned above, if traffic exchanges are used properly, they can be an extremely valuable source of high quality traffic for any website. The key to success, however, is knowing how to do it correctly and, again, my experience indicates that this is where most marketers fail.

Traffic exchanges work now just as effectively as they did in the early days, and anyone not using them as part of their marketing mix is definitely missing out.

There are essentially two different types of traffic exchanges, manual and auto-surf programs. I probably don't have to tell you that auto-surf traffic exchanges are a waste of your time, but I will. Auto-surf traffic exchanges are a waste of your time and effort. No one is going to see your site or splash page. Every member is only using an auto-surf exchange to earn credits so they can show their own site. But, again, no one is viewing the sites.

There aren't any click requirements so each page (site) just automatically appears for a few seconds then disappears to be replaced by the next one.

Manual traffic exchanges will open a page in the exchange site's window in your browser for a fixed period of time. At the end of that period of time, you have to manually return to the open browser window and click on an icon, button, number or whatever. Otherwise the current window (page) will stay open.

The only traffic exchanges that are worth bothering with are manual ones, because you know for a fact that, no matter how fleeting it might be, people have to see your ad. It might only be for a second or two, but at least they will see it. This means is that your ad must work in the second or two that you have available.

Avoid being one of the statistics. By understanding what to do and not to do with traffic exchanges you'll avoid one of the biggest reasons that the vast majority of traffic exchange users condemn themselves and their businesses to failure before they even start.

The primary objective of using traffic exchange programs should never be to attempt to sell anything.

You're simply wasting your time. People who are exchange surfers are just not buyers!

Your primary objective of using the exchanges should be to build your business, and let the sales come along later.

Because you only have a few seconds to get your message across or your site views by other exchange surfers I highly recommend that you create a splash page. (You'll need your own website, however, to be able to do this).

There are tons of resources that'll teach you how to create an effective splash page, and there are sites where you can create a splash page online for free.

In order to generate traffic and build your business using traffic exchanges, your splash page should do one of the following:

• offer to teach the viewer something
• offer the surfer a free gift to help them earn more money, become more successful, or something like that
• offer them information on getting more traffic

The majority of webpages that you'll see on any traffic exchange will be ones trying to get you to join this MLM program or that network marketing scheme, quite a few will be trying to sell something. The probability is that these types of surfers will in all liklihood never make any sales.

People just don't buy things while surfing a traffic exchange, plain and simple.

What you should be exploiting traffic exchanges for is to build awareness of your site, service or product and most importantly, to build your mailing list. By offering one of the things mentioned above, you'll be able to add hundreds or even thousands of potential customers to your list... and that's where the money is, as they say.

So there you have it. Traffic exchanges are indeed a viable means of generating traffic to your site, offer, product or service... As long as you understand the restrictions and limitations, and as long as what you offer appeals to the types of individuals surfing the exchanges, then they can be an incredibly useful means of free traffic generations.

Additional Resources

These are the traffic exchanges that I personally use, track and have success with. There are literally hundreds of them out there, so I can't comment on them all. I just know what's worked for me and so feel confident in recommending the ones below. Feel free to check out others. You won't know which work until you try them.

Surfing traffic exchanges can get pretty boring! So I try to join ones that offer bonuses, games and other little extras that help keep my mind engaged. All of the exchanges listed below offer bonuses, most offer contests and games, and some offer cash prizes. But ALL of them deliver traffic to your site.

Traffic Swarm

Traffic Swarm isn't a traffic exchange per se. It's more of an ad exchange where you must click on text ads. They've been around for years and I've always had success with them.

Royal Hits

Traffic Splash

TE Club (Traffic Exchange Club)

Deep Space Traffic

High Hits

Traffic Wonderland

Horror Movie Hits

Traffic Showdown

Easy Hits 4U

Surf VO

Traffic Dodgems

Surf To Earn Traffic Exchange

Scarecrow Hits

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That's today's traffic generation idea. Hope you found it helpful.

Until tomorrow,

Terry

RSS Feeds

Another way to build returning traffic to your site is to provide an RSS feed. In its current form, RSS stand for “Really Simple Syndication”. RSS allows someone to place a link on their homepage, website, or RSS reader that sends an update every time you update the information on your site.

This is especially popular with news sites and blogs. If you are posting to your blog every week day, your readers will get an update 5 times a week. That means 5 times a week they will be reminded of your name and your website. This can really work to your advantage because they are getting that reminder because they asked to be reminded, not because you are forcing yourself on them.

Every day they have a chance to read your message, and have the opportunity to visit the main part of your site. The more traffic that comes to your site on a regular basis, the more sales and advertising revenue you can generate.

Another way to use RSS feeds is to bring news or information about your niche that will add value to your site. By putting fresh, up to date information on your websites main page, you give visitors a reason to come back to your site on a continuing basis. If they are interested in your topic, the will return to your site to get updates.

Both uses of RSS are designed to keep your customers coming back. The more often they come back and get new, useful, or entertaining material, the more likely they are of spreading the word to their friends and family, and that is the first step of going viral.

XXX

Okeedokee. That's today's traffic generation idea.

See you tomorrow,

Terry

Offline Promotion

Believe it or not, there are still people out there that do not get all of there information online. They use the internet for business or email, and occasionally will shop online, but if you want to reach them you will have to do it offline.

There are a lot of ways to make people aware of you offline. Some are better than others, depending on your business, but they all share a common purpose with the online techniques; get your business's name in front of as many people as you can, as often as you can. Sales people use the term, “It’s a numbers game.” If more people get exposed to your message, more people will go to your site. More people at your site will mean more sales.

From pens to calendars to neckties, company names, logos, and websites appear everywhere. Some companies have built a strong enough brand that people will pay to wear their logo. Coke and M&M’s are just two of many corporate brands that people proudly display.

There is a small sporting goods store I know of that prints and gives away hundreds of shirts every year. Anyone even remotely involved in local sports has at least one shirt form this store. At any casual event in town at least one person will show up with a shirt bearing that stores name and logo. I have seen pictures from as far away as the Dominican Republic wearing one of those shirts. Anyone new in town or from any of the surrounding towns quickly learns where to go for their sporting goods.

A quick search online will give you a wide range of companies to chose from that specialize on providing promotional materials. There is a wide range of quality, price, and products to choose from, so depending on your budget, you should be able to find something that matches with what you want to accomplish.

If you're the handy and creative type, perhaps you can come up with something that you can create yourself... hand-embroidered hankies, miniature birdhouses, metal keychains, and then just have your website address printed or stamped into them.

In addition to promotional items, you can also sponsor local events, provide prizes for contests for local charities, radio stations or cultural events, or hold your own contest... for your companies new logo design for example.

XXX

That's today's traffic generation idea. If you think about it, I'm sure you can come up with lots of ways to bring offline prospects online with different types of promotion.

Until tomorrow,

Terry

Pay Per Click Advertising

One of the easiest methods to employ in your plan to drive traffic to your site is pay per click advertising. This particular advertising model has been around since the late 1990’s and has been a means of generating hits for many different businesses with an online presence.

Pay per click advertising is an excellent way to get the word about your company to a wide audience. The process involves spotting an ad on various web sites that will forward an interested party back to your web site. Part of the attraction of pay per click advertising is that the ad owner only pays when someone clicks on the ad and actually follows through to the web site.

When it comes to PPC advertising, never forget the importance of keywords. Essentially, keywords are words and phrases that are considered to be common modes of searching the Internet to find desired content.

As an advertiser, your job is to come up with keywords that you believe are likely to take you to web sites that are relevant to the type of business site you currently operate. The rationale is that persons who visit those sites would most likely be interested in the content of your site. If you manage to find the right web sites for your ads, then the chances of generating clicks to your site are much greater.

While the keyword mode of pay per click advertising is very common, there is also a second method. Known as content match PPC, the principle is still the same. The main difference is that rather than basing the search on keywords, the results are based on the content of the site. As an example, if you run a site that is dedicated to gardening supplies, then it would be a natural for you to want to place ads on sites dedicated to gardening. Content matching can be used right along with keywords to create a well rounded pay per click component in your overall publicity campaign.

Finding online resources to help you with the process of placing pay per click ads is relatively easy. One of the most popular approaches is to make use of the Google Adwords program. You can get started by identifying a list of relevant keywords. You can also get help in designing the appearance of your ad, using online tools.

Adwords also includes a number of online tools, so you can keep track of how many hits get to your web site through those hits. This allows you to stay on top of how much pay per click is advertising is costing you each month. By comparing the sales that result from the hits with the cost of your pay per click campaign, you can determine if the program is making money for you.

Another target for your pay per click campaign is online comparison shopping engines. These types of engines often are willing to provide feeds through the placement of ads on their searches. Just as with the ads on informational web sites, persons can click through to your web site and see what you have to offer. Some of these sites provide you with the ability to see the number of hits, while others do not.

Payment for placing the ad on the shopping comparison site may be in the form of a fixed monthly amount or based on a fixed rate per click. Keep in mind that there is no such thing as exclusionary pay per click arrangement. This means you can sign up with as many keyword and shopping ad services as you like. In fact, you may do very well to try out several different services, to see which ones seem to provide you with the best matches and coverage.

If funds for advertising are limited, go with a well known service, and then add more services as your revenue stream builds to the point you can afford to do so. Remember that your goal is to build a solid foundation for your web site, so it may take some time before you begin to see results.

Disregard stories about overnight success. Chances are you will go about six months to a year before you see significant traffic that results in sales.

Pay per click advertising is often an affordable way to launch your advertising campaign. The cost per click is often a fraction of a cent, so it certainly will not cost a great deal, unless you happen to get a huge number of visitors clicking through to your site.

The law of averages would dictate that of that huge number, enough sales would result to make your investment in the pay per click program well worth your time and the expense.

XXX

Well that's it for today's traffic generation idea. Stay tuned for another one tomorrow.

Until tomorrow,

Terry

URL Submission

Anyone with a website knows they need to get their site listed with the major search engines. In order to do this, you need to submit your site's URL. If you want your website to stand a chance of being found in the search engines then you need to get it indexed! The search engine that I have found to index the fastest is MSN. To add your URL to MSN.com, simply enter your URL, it should come up with “We couldn't find any results containing http://www.myurl234.com (or whatever your url is)… then click on “send the address to us” and submit your URL there.

If your URL already comes up then it's indexed! MSN.com usually takes less then 24 hours to index your website.

To submit your URL to Google, go to:  http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl  Fill in and submit the form on that page. Remember to always check to see if your website is already indexed. If so, then there's no need to submit it! You may come across some websites that offer to automatically submit your websites to the search engines for free. I recommend you keep away from these types of automated submitters. If the search engines catch on that you’re using an auto submitter then they could black list your website then it will never be indexed!

You can submit your webiste to Yahoo by going to: http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html. Yahoo requires that you register before you can submit a site. Registration's free and only takes a few minutes.

There are many other search engines you can submit your site to. Just do a search in Google for search engines and then follow the links. The more search engines you submit your URL to, the more free, and targeted traffic you'll get.

Okay, well that's today's traffic generation idea. I'll have another one for you tomorrow.

Until then,

Terry

Create A Brandable Ebook

Have you noticed the number of sites that offer free e-books to subscribers? Give your email address, click the link and you have instant access to an ebook full of useful information. The reason so many sites use this method of advertising is because it works, and here is how you can make it work for you.

Write a short ebook on a topic that relates to your business. In that book you include a little information about your business, and at a couple of key places include a link that will drive traffic from the book to your website. Now post it on your website and let anyone interested download a free copy.

However, it does not stop there. Encourage anyone who likes your ebook to offer it as a free gift on their website as well. If the information is useful, and the book is well written, the number of websites that are offering your book will begin to grow, Soon 50 or 100, or even 1,000 other sites will be helping you spread the word about your business. A successful campaign with timely information could keep driving traffic to your site for months or years to come.

Be careful not to overdo the information about yourself, or include too many links back to your site. The more about yourself you include, the less likely others will be willing to give your book away for you.

Another advantage of having your ebook before thousands of people’s eyes is it establishes your credibility. People give more credence to a published “expert” than they do to someone who has not written a book, even if the book is very short. You begin to build name recognition, and when people see your name associated with something in the future, they will be more likely to check it out.

Internet marketer David Meerman Scott used this successfully when he released an ebook titled The New Rules of PR. He posted a link to the book on his blog, and sent link by email to friends and colleagues. Within 3 days his ebook had been downloaded over 1,000 times. At that point it caught the attention of a couple of internet marketing gurus who talked about it on their own blogs. In the 3 days following those blogs Scott’s ebook had been downloaded over 15,000 times.

To date, the ebook has been downloaded over 60,000 times, and it has resulted in a continuing flow of traffic, and several speaking arrangements. He is now considered an expert in the field of internet marketing, largely because of his ebook.

Do a search for ebook compilers to find a program to create your ebook, or find a program that will allow you to save a document as a PDF. Whichever program you decide to use, make sure it allows you to include active, clickable links. If the person reading the ebook has to copy and paste the link into a browser, many of them will not. Make it as easy as possible for them to get to your site.

Also, make sure the program you use will not let anyone change the information in your ebook. There are less than honest people who will remove references to you and the links to your site, and include their own information into your ebook. Many programs will allow you to safeguard your information, so take advantage of them.

That's today's traffic generation idea. Stay tuned for the next one.

Until tomorrow,

Terry

Webrings

Depending on the conetent of your site, you can utilize webrings to get more links and more traffic to your website.

A webring is a collection of websites from around the internet that join together by a code in a basic ring fashion. The NavBar code (sometimes called SSNB) is a small piece of JavaScript (or HTML) that allows the surfer to click on a link to travel to the next, previous, or a random site.

Through these links the surfer eventually can browse through the whole ring ending up right back where they. Hence its name. This in effect will add many links pointing to your website, which will result in a higher search engine ranking and more traffic. And not just random traffic. Targeted traffic.

Visitors using specific webrings are interested in the same subject matter, so if your site is part of the ring that serves that specific market, you know you're getting visitors who are already looking for what you're offering. And did I mention, webrings are free to join.

Another way to use webrings is to create your own. In addition to the advantages already mentioned, by controlling your own webring, you can ensure that your competition is NOT part of the ring. You can get a free webring script from a number of places. Just do a search for free webring scripts and I'm sure you'll get hundreds of results.

Implementing it doesn't take any real technical skill. All you have to do is copy the html (script) into your webpage html and there you have it. Instant webring.

That's it for today's traffic generation idea. Hope you found it helpful. Visit tomorrow for the next idea.

Until tomorrow,

Terry

Blog Commenting

Commenting on blogs, especially industry-specific ones, allow for broader scope of networking and exposure. Blogs have literally exploded in recent times, and as such, should not be dismissed.

Blog commenting helps to increase visibility, and the great feature with blogs is that the one posting the comment can always link back to his site, since, on top of signatures in the comment, signing-in for commenting allows one to provide the link back to any site.

Blogs also help to increase the exposure of your site, especially for content sites. These comments can be seen as preludes to the indepth content offered on the site.

Commenting can also further help to brand your site and your own way of responding can be a unique experience people look for. In a way, by reading your comment, readers may be intrigued to know more and thus head over to your site. This can work well with product promotion.

It is a good idea to remain brief and concise on comments, and to comment on blogs and topics that relate to and are pertinent to your own sector of operations.

Also, links should not be added in the comment itself but kept to the signing-in name section, where your name can link to your site.

That's today's traffic generation idea. Come back tomorrow for another one :-)

Until tomorrow,

Terry