GETTING TRAFFIC

Learn marketing techniques that generate traffic for your website

Top 10 ways to promote your site on the Internet

February 26, 2014 By Benjamin

Now that you’ve created your website, the next thing is to drive traffic to it. Here is a list of my top 10 ways of doing that.

1. Search Engines

If you have a blog site built on Word Press, then you’re off to a great start. If your site it not a word press blog site then you should consider creating a blog section on your site. That’s because such blogs are able to contain the keywords or search words that the engines like without looking like a deliberate attempt to Spam the search results.

2. Distributing your articles.

Content marketing is a good way of promoting your site. Make it a habit to write at least one or two articles a day and submit them to article directories. The articles should have the authors box at the bottom that tells the readers who you are and what you’re about. This of course includes your URL which they can click to your site. Some of the best directories include sites like Ezinearticles, and Goarticles among others. You can search for ‘Article Directories’ in the main search engines.

3. Pay-per-click advertising

Websites such as Google and Yahoo are great places to get started with pay-per-click. With this technique, you buy advertising from a site to display a tiny ad based on selected keywords. You then pay only for actual clicks on your ads instead of displays of your ad. When managed well, pay-per-click can drive a lot of traffic to your site. However, this method has a steep learning curve and you should not try it just yet if you’re new to Internet marketing.

4. Email marketing

If you’re selling anything on the Internet with a website then a list of email subscribers who want to hear from you is a must. Take time to build a list of subscribers who will receive valuable news and other content from you on a regular basis. It’s such people with trust in you who are most likely to buy your offers. You can offer your site visitors a free gift, or a free report for joining your mailing list. Invest in a good auto-responder like Trafficwave instead of the free ones so that your emails look Professional.

5. Syndicate content using RSS (Real Simple Syndication)

While email marketing is great, there are a number of people prefer RSS feeds instead. So you also have to make your content available to your site visitors through this medium. Whenever you publish content on your site, people who have subscribed to your RSS feed will get it on their RSS reader. A number of readers exist like Digg reader, Feedly, Aol reader and many others. You can syndicate your content using RSS sites like Feedburner.com.

6. Post in Forums, Discussion boards and Groups

Participate in forums, discussion boards and groups that are relevant to your sites content or niche. You can find them in the search engines, search for your keywords followed by forum, discussion group. Once you’ve joined and logged into your members area, create your own signature that will be added at the bottom of all your posts with a link to your site. Then take the time to look through and find where you can make a meaningful contribution to the discussions with valuable information that adds to your reputation and credibility.

7. Use your email signature

Create an email signature that will be sent out along with every email that you send. It can include your name, your sites tag line and your URL. You can also include links to your social media pages like Facebook and Twitter.

8. Advertise in relevant Ezines

Ezines are like an electronic version of the traditional magazine and usually focus on a a specific niche market. Find ezines like the Adland Digest that are relevant to your niche and advertise your site or what you have to offer. Sometimes you may find an ezine that doesn’t accept advertising, but you can offer to sponsor the ezine instead.

9. Classified Ads

You only need to search for ‘Classified ads sites’ in the search engines to find the thousands that exist on the Internet. Many are free while others are paid sites. The best site of all is still Craigslist. You can get lots of traffic from this site once you master how to advertise on Craigslist. But if you find that your product or service is not acceptable, the next best thing is Backpage. Still you may find that your site or you kind of advertising is not acceptable. There are many others that can You can try them but always track your results to see which ones are working for you and which ones are not. Other classified ad sites to get you started include

10. Social networking sites

Make informative post on social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and then link to your site. That way you don’t violate their terms and conditions and stay relevant by providing useful information to your target market. There are also sites that cater for a specific niche.

If you’d like to receive tips and ideas like this, then sign up for my free newsletter or subscribe to my RSS feed today.

Case Study: A Step-By-Step Strategy to Accelerate Your Google Rankings

June 8, 2012 By Benjamin

What’s the most important strategy of getting your blog to the number 1 spot in both Google and Yahoo and keep all the search traffic to yourself? Definitely the ideal answer is proper keyword research and building authoritative backlinks.

In this blog post you will learn how I used Google Insight tool and press release service (webwire.com) to accelerate my Google rankings to top 4 within 3 days.

The use of Google Insight Tool was to generate highly profitable keyword with considerable search traffic and the purpose of using press release was to generate authoritative backlinks to my blog site.

How I nailed down the top 4 spot in Google within 3 days

The main reason why i decided to push my blog site to be on the top spot in Google and Yahoo, was to generate highly targeted long tail keyword with commercial intent.

The reason why I am advocating for long tail keyword, it’s because they can convert results into sales and hence generate more business for your service or product.

How did I use this strategy to be on top 4 spot in Google?

It’s simple and clear: I used both Google Keyword tool and Google insight Tool to generate narrower long tail keywords.

Below is a step by step procedure of what I did:

Step 1:

I went to Google Keyword tool and I started with the main keyword and I selected a narrower search term which had a global traffic of 300,000 monthly search volume. The niche I selected was ”Greek Yogurt” as below:

Step 2:

I took the narrower search term from step 1 and I put it on Google Insight tool. The results were as per below screen shot:

Some of the example of narrower keywords that I found were:

Recipes with Greek yogurt (Monthly search 22,000)

How to make Greek Yogurt (Monthly search 9,900)

Greek Yogurt nutritional facts (Monthly search 4000)

Based from the above keyword analysis I managed to settle with recipes with Greek yogurt as my main keyword.

Link building strategy that accelerated my Google rankings

As we all know quality content and authoritative backlinks will make Google deliver results to your business. One of the strategies that I used to build high authoritative links was with the help of press release service.

I took 3 good months to learn how to write a press release that will be of high interest to the media and journalist. My first objective was to make sure that my blog site has all the required information such as high quality content, resources and links.

I wrote a powerful top notch news release that I distributed via press release service (webwire.com) and after 3 days my blog site sky rocketed to top 4 in Google and it was as a result of high quality links that I received from the press release service.

Below is a screenshot of the news release that was distributed with the help of webwire.com

After 3 days I managed to get the below results:

From the above results my blog site started to get more attention from the major search engine and other referral sites. If you plan early with the right mind set, i can really assure you that will achieve the same results that I did.

From my own experience, I really don’t think you need any Degree or Masters or any special software. The real truth is that you can follow the above simple steps and then replicate my results.

Do you have any results that you have achieved based on the above case study?

About BillyBoy
BillyBoy, helps small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients, whether you are marketing in print, in person or online. Check their Guaranteed SEO Services programs that can get you more clients and grow your business. Visit their #1 Press Release Distribution Service that will increase profits for your business.

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Seven Deadly Mistakes That Can KILL Your Search Rankings

March 28, 2012 By Benjamin

Whether you’re brand-new to Internet marketing, or you’ve been selling online for a while now, search engine optimization is the one strategy you can’t AFFORD to ignore!

Earn high rankings in the search engines, and you’ll be rewarded with endless streams of quality FREE traffic heading straight to your website.

But neglect your rankings, and you’ll spend ALL of your time trying to convince even a few visitors to stop by your site (and chances are, they won’t even be interested in what you’re selling when they show up).

Fortunately, optimizing your website for the search engines is neither rocket science nor brain surgery!

Armed with just a few tried-and-tested techniques, you should have no problem getting those coveted high rankings for your site.

The challenge, though, is that the search engine industry changes more quickly than most, so something that used to be a sure-fire SEO strategy can suddenly become useless…

… and it might even get your listings demoted to the back pages!

So to make sure you don’t get penalized by the search engines — or just plain IGNORED — watch out for these seven deadly search engine optimization mistakes:

Deadly Mistake #1: Improper Use Of Your “Title” Tag

Not only does your title tag tell the search engines what your webpage is about, the title also appears in the search results for your site, as well as at the top of your visitors’ browsers while they’re on your site.

So this is DEFINITELY where you should put your best keywords!

But we routinely see site owners making pretty basic errors with their title tags, costing them good rankings, and sometimes, even their credibility.

So avoid these common title tag mistakes:

a. Not including a title tag at all

If you leave your title tag blank, your visitors will see “untitled document” in the search results, and the top of the browser.

This makes you look careless and unprofessional. Besides, who searches for untitled documents? You’re squandering an opportunity for better SEO, and you’re missing out on sales!

b. Using your URL as the title

Some site owners use the URLs of individual pages as the titles.

But, while a title tag like “sallysbeautyshop/cosmetics/product123.html” does contain the business name, the product category, and the product name itself, it’s not very helpful to your rankings.

Remember, your title tags are for keywords.

c. Using a friendly greeting instead of a keyword-rich title

There’s nothing wrong with a friendly greeting… in person.

But your title tag is the wrong place to say hello to your audience. And again, who searches for welcome messages?

d. Stuffing the title tag with single words

Don’t take the shotgun approach and fill your title tag with a list of words off the top of your head in the vain hope of attracting traffic.

Instead, use one or two of your TOP keyword phrases (but keep it under 70 characters so it fits on one line).

Your title tag is easy to find and easy to change in your HTML code. On most web pages, it’s right at the top, below your “head” tag, and looks like this:

<head>
<title>HTML 4.01 Tag Reference</title>
</head>

Deadly Mistake #2: Misusing Your “Keywords” Meta Tag

Once upon a time, the search engines really cared about keyword meta tags, and would determine your site’s relevance based on the content of this tag.

Well, those days are long gone, and a keyword meta tag — even one that’s well-written and contains just a couple of your best keywords — will NOT help you get a higher ranking.

BUT… a poorly written meta tag CAN get your site penalized!

So our best advice is to use the meta keyword tag for what it was intended: to help you quickly and easily identify, in one line of HTML code, what keywords you’ve optimized that page for.

Meta tags only appear in your HTML code, not anywhere on your site. They’re usually placed very close to the top of the page, near your title tag, and look like this:

Deadly Mistake #3: Keyword Spamming Or Stuffing

The more keywords you have on your site — and the more places you repeat them — the better your search rankings will be, right?

Wrong!!

That may be the way it worked in the “olden” days, when the web was in its infancy, but the practice helped websites get high rankings for topics they didn’t even cover.

So these days, Google’s algorithm (the formula it uses to figure out where to rank pages on the search results) is much more complex than that, thanks to years of dealing with people trying to fudge the results.

So don’t even bother with these outdated tricks…

Typing your keywords over and over again in very small font at the top and bottom of your page — blocks of tiny text either in the copy or the header tags don’t improve your relevance
Increasing your keyword density above about 10% — you end up with a page full of text that doesn’t make sense to anyone reading it
Using “invisible” keywords (white text on a white background). This one is SO frowned-upon that it can get you delisted from Google altogether!

The only foolproof strategy is still to find out what kind of quality, relevant information your customers are searching for, and then give it to them. In the long run, it’s by far the best strategy.

Deadly Mistake #4: Using Irrelevant Keywords To Attract More Traffic

So, you found some great keywords with low competition and great traffic numbers… but not quite on target with your website?

For instance, when Sarah Palin broke big in 2008, she was one of the most searched-for terms in the country. But if you’d put an article about her on your website, it wouldn’t have increased your sales!

If people come to your page or website in search of a keyword phrase, and find that your site has nothing to do with it, they’ll just leave again…

… so all the traffic in the world won’t help you if it’s off target.

And you can even end up diluting the theme of your website and irritating people so much that they report your website as spam to the search engines. And that’s not worth any number of extra visitors!

Deadly Mistake #5: Creating Useless Content

The Internet is swamped with low-quality articles and blog posts that are created for NO other reason than to get better rankings.

But consider this: It can take potential customers 6 – 8 visits to your website — and significant exposure to your content — before they feel comfortable enough to make a purchase from you.

If the only content you’ve posted is just a few keywords repeated without any real substance, why would anyone bother coming back to read more?

This tactic can harm your reputation and your credibility… and once those are gone, it’s almost impossible to get them back!

Deadly Mistake #6: Using “Doorway” Pages

When was the last time Google or Yahoo purchased a product from you?

We’re guessing NEVER, right? So why would you create pages on your website that are exclusively for them? But that’s exactly what people do with “doorway” pages (pages with very little text, but very high keyword density).

For example, if your page only has four words on it, and two of them are “sailboat,” that gives the page a keyword density of 50%, which is great for search results…

… but if someone actually searches on the term “sailboat” and lands on the doorway page, there’s nothing there for them! They’ll have to click further into your site (and for each unnecessary click you ask visitors to make, you lose a large percentage of them).

Doorway pages are really frowned upon by the search engines, because they clog up the index with junk. It’s just too easy to produce thousands of these pages that have a very high keyword density, but no real purpose, other than trying to build links and direct traffic to a single site.

Before you put a doorway page up, remember to ask yourself if it’s actually providing useful information to your potential customers. If so great. If not, don’t do it!

Deadly Mistake #7: Bait and Switch – “Magic” Pages, Redirects, and Cloaking

Search engines want to make sure that once they’ve indexed a page, the visitors they send there see the same thing they did. However, this isn’t always the case.

Some site builders build two versions of their sites. The one for the spiders is full of the kind of stuff the search engines like. The one that regular visitors see is full of the flashy, off-topic effects that look cool, but it isn’t the relevant, content-rich site it’s advertised as.

This is a strategy that will end up hurting your business!

Your customers end up at a website that may not contain the keywords they were searching for, and instead, get to one with animation and all the bells and whistles that may not be important to them.

More importantly, the search engines feel ripped off, too.

When customers start pointing this kind of fraud out to them, the search engines are pretty good at delisting the offending sites. Is a few weeks of increased traffic really worth the risk of getting booted off Google for good?!

Finally, don’t use spammy redirects on your site. These redirects send visitors from a page they think they’re going to (one that’s been optimized for the search engines), to another one altogether.

This deceptive method has been overused, and the search engines no longer fall for it. It can get your site penalized or delisted.

How You Can Avoid Being Penalized — Or Worse — By The Search Engines

These are just seven of the MANY search engine optimization techniques that can have a harmful effect on your site’s rankings, some of which can potentially get you into hot water with the search engines!

So why take a chance?

If you’re going to save yourself a TON of money by doing your own search engine optimization,

make sure you get ongoing advice from an SEO expert who can tell you which strategies are working right now…

… as well as show you the strategies that you should AVOID.

If you’re interested, we have our own in-house SEO experts who can give you some advice (and we have TOP rankings for our websites out of MILLIONS of competitors, so you know we’re doing something right 😉

You can ask our experts as many questions as you want about improving your search engine rankings, and you’ll get a personal, step-by-step action plan, within 24 hours.

PLUS, when you work with our experts, you’ll ALSO get access to a special members-only website that’s stuffed full of FREE tools you can use to improve your search engine rankings… enjoy a comprehensive learning center filled with videos and articles that will show you exactly how to optimize your site (even if you have NO experience)…

… and once a month, you’ll receive a newsletter updating you on the latest techniques and strategies that are working right this minute!

If you’d like to see for yourself if we can help you improve your search rankings and traffic, we have some 21-day trials that we’re currently giving away.

For three full weeks, you can get UNLIMITED help for optimizing your website from our in-house experts, without risk or commitment.

So if you’d like to try it out, we recommend that you activate your RISK-FREE trial right away.

To your success,

The Internet Marketing Center Team

Seven Deadly Website Design Mistakes

March 21, 2012 By Benjamin

By Andrew Mallory

Whenever I go surfing on the Web, I’m always afraid of what I’ll find…

… Because I come across so many sites suffering from DEADLY design sins, I want to stab out my eyes with a pen!

Think I’m being dramatic? Maybe just a bit… but these fatal errors are guaranteed to be killing the sites’ conversion rates — and I just want to grab the site owners by the shoulder and tell them, “It doesn’t have to BE this way!!!”

So today, I’d like to tell YOU about the top “seven deadly design sins” — so you can make sure you’re not committing any of them on your website. (Because any one of them could be pulling your potential sales right into the gutter!)

Here they are…

Deadly design sin #1: No eye-catching headline to grab your visitors’ attention

It takes average web surfer 10 seconds MAXIMUM to decide whether to stick around on a site or move on to another one. You have to make those 10 seconds count!

You have to capture your visitors’ attention RIGHT AWAY and convince them your site has exactly what they’re looking for. And the best way to do that is with a well-formatted, attention-grabbing headline that’s packed with intriguing benefits and compels them to read further.

Here’s an example of a well-formatted, benefit-laden headline…

Discover the secret to eating as much as you want, whenever you want
— And stilllose all the weight you need —
While buzzing with the non-stop energy of a 9-year-old kid!

(Please note the benefits of “eating as much as you want,” “losing all the weight you need,” and “non-stop energy” are either bolded or underlined so they pop out at the reader.)

… and here’s an example of something that’s NOT:

Welcome to my diet site! I sell over 50 different weight loss products, from pills, to nutritional supplements, to popular weight loss books. Feel free to browse through my selection and find the product that’s right for you.

… See the difference?

Above and beyond the lack of formatting, there are no benefits listed in the second example at all. It talks about what the site sells, but not about what these products will DO for the people who buy them.

Plus, by telling visitors they have to browse the site to find what they’re looking for, you’re putting all the hard work on THEM. Your copy should lead visitors straight to the solution they’re looking for — not make them have to hunt for it

Deadly design sin #2: Distracting banners and links!

On your site, don’t put up banners or links that send people to someone else’s site! (And that includes Google Adwords ads.)

You want to keep people on your site — not drive them somewhere else!

Everything on your site should directly relate to its ultimate PURPOSE — whether it’s to get more opt-ins for your email list or to sell your product! Anything on your site that doesn’t serve this main purpose should be immediately deleted.

Of course, if the purpose of your site is purely to promote affiliate products or sell advertising space, then obviously you’ll want to include banners or links… but otherwise, you shouldn’t have them on your homepage at all.

If you try to promote affiliate products on a page that’s also meant to sell a specific product, you’ll end up doing a lousy job of both.

Deadly design sin #3: Too many dizzying colors or fonts

Nothing screams “amateur!” louder than a dizzying mishmash of different fonts and colors.

To make your site look professional, use a basic color scheme with just 2-3 colors maximum and a couple of fonts only. Look at any well-designed site and you’ll see that they’re pretty conservative about the colors and fonts they use.

(Remember, you want to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to read the words on your page!)

Deadly design sin #4: Patterned backgrounds

Make sure your background stays in the background!

If you add textures or use dark backgrounds on your site, people won’t easily be able to read your copy. And if you aren’t making it easy for them to read your copy, you aren’t making it easy for them to buy your product!

Tests have shown over and over and over again that the highest conversion rates are seen on sites that have BLACK text on a plain white background, with colors limited to the margins.

It might seem “boring” from a design perspective… but better sales are pretty darned exciting from an income perspective!

Deadly design sin #5: Too many distracting graphics, animations, or video clips

Many website owners make the mistake of thinking that having LOTS of images, fancy graphics, animated gifs, or video clips will make their site more interesting. Wrong.

Unless those visual elements help persuade people to buy your product — by showing visitors what your product looks like, or demonstrating how it works, for example — then they’re useless decorations that will distract your visitors and prevent them from following through on the action you want them to take.

Deadly design sin #6: Slow-loading pages and graphics

How long does it take for your homepage to load? If your answer is longer than, say, 3 seconds, you’ve got trouble on your hands!

Remember the 10-second rule… if your homepage doesn’t load quickly, your visitors will lose patience and click away. Web surfers are extremely impatient people. If they can’t begin reading or viewing your page right away, they’re going to leave and go to another, more user-friendly site.

If you absolutely MUST use large graphics on your homepage, provide a small icon that links to the larger graphic and warn people they may have to wait as it loads.

And last but not least…

Deadly design sin #7: Huge blocks of text that are nearly impossible to read

Here’s a question for you… Which of the following text samples do you find easier to read?

Sample #1:

Are you sick of trying diet after diet and painfully denying yourself all your favorite foods but never seeing any lasting results? Or joining the latest supposedly “healthy” eating craze, only to discover a few months down the road that most health experts say that following that eating plan is actually BAD for you? I know exactly how you feel. For decades I was a “yo-yo” dieter. I would try out the latest celebrity diet trend and lose maybe 5 – 15 pounds, but then gain it all back as soon as I started eating “normally” again. In fact, usually I’d end up gaining even more weight, which is why I got on the scales one day and discovered to my horror that I now weighed over 200 pounds, not exactly a healthy weight for someone who’s only 5′ 2″! In my desperation to get back to a “normal” weight, I tried every single diet plan I could. I ate nothing but pre-packaged calorie-reduced diet meals. I took pills. I drank diet shakes for breakfast and lunch, and forced myself to ignore my growling stomach all day long. And yet time and time again, I broke under the strain of self-denial and ended up “cheating.” I can’t tell you how many nights I’d cave to my cravings and end up gorging on bags of chips, tubs of ice cream, and entire pans of brownies. And then I’d wake up the next day, absolutely sick with self-hatred. Well, I’m happy to tell you that those days are now over for good! Because FINALLY I discovered a healthy approach to food that allows me to eat my fill and walk away from the table feeling satisfied, and stay at my “ideal” weight of 125 lbs, which I’ve been able to maintain for over two years and counting!

Sample #2:

Are you sick of trying diet after diet — and painfully denying yourself all your favorite foods — but never seeing any lasting results?

Or joining the latest supposedly “healthy” eating craze, only to discover a few months down the road that most health experts say that following that eating plan is actually BAD for you?

I know exactly how you feel…

… For decades I was a “yo-yo” dieter. I would try out the latest celebrity diet trend and lose maybe 5 – 15 pounds, but then gain it all back as soon as I started eating “normally” again.

In fact, usually I’d end up gaining even more weigh — which is why I got on the scales one day and discovered to my horror that I now weighed over 200 pounds.

Not exactly a healthy weight for someone who’s only 5′ 2″!

In my desperation to get back to a “normal” weight, I tried every single diet plan I could. I ate nothing but pre-packaged calorie-reduced diet meals… I took pills… I drank diet shakes for breakfast and lunch, and forced myself to ignore my growling stomach all day long.

And yet time and time again, I broke under the strain of self-denial and ended up “cheating.” I can’t tell you how many nights I’d cave to my cravings and end up gorging on bags of chips, tubs of ice cream, and entire pans of brownies.

And then I’d wake up the next day, absolutely sick with self-hatred.

Well, I’m happy to tell you that those days are now over for good! Because FINALLY I discovered a healthy approach to food that allows me to eat my fill and walk away from the table feeling satisfied, and stay at my “ideal” weight of 125 lbs — which I’ve been able to maintain for over two years and counting!

… As you can see, Sample #2 is MUCH easier to read. Its “choppy” paragraph allows visitors to skim read the text and immediately grasp its meaning. In contrast, Sample #1 forces you to read every single word — and even then, it’s hard to keep your place in the text!

When writing for the Web, you should limit your paragraphs to six lines maximum. And make sure you vary your paragraph lengths so they don’t all look the same! A “choppy” paragraph structure makes online text MUCH easier to read.

And if you want your visitors to read all the way to your “order” button, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to do so!

… So there’s my list of the “seven deadly design sins” that all serious website owners absolutely MUST avoid if they want their sites to do a good job of converting casual visitors into eager customers. If you’re committing one of these fatal errors, make sure you start working on getting it changed today!

[Ed. note: Andrew Mallory is one of our top Internet Entrepreneur Club experts.]

How to Increase Online Sales

July 30, 2011 By Benjamin Leave a Comment

Your business website is essentially your storefront, and most significant marketing piece all rolled into one. After you’ve driven traffic to your site, you need as many of them to buy from you otherwise much of that effort would be wasted. Here is what you can do get more online sales from your traffic. But I must emphasize that you test everything to see what works and what doesn’t work for your website.

Offer one product or service on your home page.

Offering fewer products in one place with more content describing those products always translates into higher sales. Offer one product or one set of related products. You can focus on one key set of benefits and answer any questions your customer may be having about your product. You don’t have to stop selling your other products, you can always offer them to your customers on other web pages or by using follow up offers.

Reposition your opt-in offer to boost opt-ins

Did you know that WHERE your opt-in offer appears on your site can have a huge impact on how many subscribers you attract? Test placing your opt-in offer in a prominent position on your homepage like the top-left of the page. At the very least, the area of screen first visible to a visitor before they scroll down the page. You should also test placing your opt-in offer on EVERY page of your web site so it’s always in front of your visitors, and try using a “hover ad” (see below).

Add impact to your promotion with “hover ads”

Pop-ups were a very useful online marketing tool for years but a percentage of Internet users disliked them, and so pop-up blocking software was created. Hover Ads BEHAVE like pop-ups, but that are NOT pop-ups — so they don’t get blocked. They’re effective because they put important information, such as your opt-in offer or a special time-limited promotion, right in front of your targeted visitors.

Feature different benefits in your headline

Your headline has a HUGE impact on your sales. A successful headline should highlight a problem your target audience faces and stress the main benefit of your product or service in solving this problem. For example,“Box4Blox — The Amazing Toy Storage Box For Lego.” This headline tells you what the product is, but not what it does for you. It doesn’t give a visitor any good reason to continue reading the rest of the page. Contrast this with “Finally! Discover the Secret That’s Got More Than 50,000 LEGO-Crazy Kids Worldwide Actually *LOVING* Clean-Up Time!” This headline presents a major benefit of the product and a solution to a problem — in this case, how to get kids to clean up after themselves, and actually enjoy it

Establish a problem and how to solve it

In the first couple of paragraphs that appear on your homepage, you need to go into more detail about the problem you introduced in your headline. Once the problem is established, you can then begin introducing your product or service as the solution to this problem. By emphasizing exactly how your product or service will solve your reader’s problem, you are guaranteed to see a boost in sales!

Add credibility in your copy

It’s vital that your salescopy establishes your credibility: It’s through this process that your visitors come to trust you and feel comfortable enough to buy from you. There are several ways you can do this. You can add customer testimonials to your page. You can also enhance your credibility by adding a section to your copy that outlines your credentials, experience, and any background information that makes you qualified to solve your target audience’s problem.

Focus on your readers… not yourself

The most successful salescopy focuses on the reader. Too often, business owners neglect this simple golden rule. Look carefully at your salescopy. Is it filled with references to “I,” “me,” and “we”? Try searching for “I,” “me,” and “our” in your salescopy and replace them with “you” and “your.”

Convince readers that they need to buy now

It’s very important that your salescopy instills a sense of urgency in your visitors, compelling them to buy NOW. The best place to do this is towards the end of your salesletter, near the call to action (when you ask for the sale). Here are a few of the most effective ways to create a sense of urgency. Try testing each one against your current copy:

Offer a limited-time price discount offer where visitors must buy before a certain date in order to qualify for the discount
Offer additional bonuses for free if they buy within a certain time frame
Offer only a limited quantity of your products or services
Offer a limited quantity bonus

Remove references to “buying” from the first fold

People usually go online looking for free information. If you start your sales pitch too early in your copy, you may end up losing them before you’ve had the chance to hook them. You first need to get them interested in what you have to say by relating to a problem they’re facing and how you can solve it. Once you’ve accomplished that, you can start to sell to them. Try removing references to “buying,” “cost,” and “sale” from the first fold. Don’t mention anything to do with making a purchase or spending money until after your reader is interested in your product and trusts you enough to buy from you!

Boost your products desirability by adding images

Images of your products make them “real” to your visitors and are a powerful sales tool. In fact, our testing shows that you can increase sales by more than 10% just by adding product images. But sometimes revealing what the product is too early in the sales process can kill the sale — you may need to highlight the product benefits and value before you reveal exactly what it is.

Try placing images near the top of the page against placing them near where you’re asking for the sale. You should also test adding images to your order page, and test the response to using no images at all. This way, you’ll learn exactly where to place product images for maximum impact.

Grab the attention of “scanners” by changing the formatting and appearance of your copy

Very few visitors to your web site will read every word of your salescopy from start to finish. Most will “scan” your copy as they scroll down the page, reading only certain words and phrases that jump out at them or catch their eye. You need to test highlighting your key benefits to find the right combination that will grab the attention of people who scan rather than read online.

Using bold, italics, and highlighting (sparingly) to emphasize the most important benefits of your offer
Keep changing the length of your paragraphs so the page doesn’t just look like a block of uniformly formatted text
Add sub-headlines that emphasize your key messages and compel your visitors to read the paragraphs that follow
Leave the right-hand side of your text ragged (as that’s easier to read than “justified” text that uses the whole width of the page)
Center important — but short — chunks of text or sub-headlines to further draw them out of the main body of text
Use bullet lists (like this one!) to emphasize key points

Fine-tune your follow-up process to maximize sales and attract more repeat business

Following up with your customers and subscribers using autoresponders (automated e-mails) is crucial to generating more sales as it often takes several contacts before someone buys from your site.

In your follow-up e-mails to new subscribers who haven’t bought from you yet, you can restate your offer and ask for the sale again. Try sending an immediate follow-up after new subscribers sign up, giving them a reason to return to your site the same day they sign up. You can test this against sending a follow-up three days after subscribers first visit your site to see which method works best.

Following up with existing customers is just as important. In fact, tests show that 30% of customers will buy again if they’re given the chance. It helps you develop profitable long-term relationships with them and allows you to offer “backend” products relating to their original purchase. You can test sending a backend offer immediately after they make a purchase against sending one three days afterwards to see which approach generates more repeat business.

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Are Your Keywords Attracting The Right Audience?

June 7, 2011 By Benjamin Leave a Comment

By Kate Morrison, The Internet Marketing Center

By now you probably know that including keywords on your site is a MUST if you want to attract visitors.

After all, over 90% of people looking for something online start by typing keywords into a search engine like Google. And if the words they type match the ones on your web pages, YOUR site will show up in the results for those terms.

There’s no question that including keywords on your site will get you visitors…

… but using the right words in the right places will get you SALES!

Follow these three steps to turn your site into a keyword workhorse that brings you the people who want what YOU have!

Step 1: Get specific

The highest-converting keywords accurately describe what you sell — and they won’t necessarily be the ones that bring you the most traffic!

Let’s say you sell farm tractors. You include the general keyword “farming” on your homepage because farmers use tractors.

But people searching for “farming” could be looking for an endless number of things that have nothing to do with farm tractors! They could be searching for farm equipment, farm loans, or even information on fish farming!

For obvious reasons, “farm tractor” is a much better general term for your homepage… then you can get even more specific on your other pages.

For example, include the words that specifically describe the different types of tractors you sell (e.g., “back-hoe loaders,” “compact farm tractors” or even “John Deere compact farm tractors”).

Step 2: Put it in context

OK. So you’ve narrowed down your keywords so they describe exactly what you’re selling… Now it’s time to make sure you’ve put the right words on the right pages.

Forget your homepage for a minute. Make sure visitors who are searching for something specific go to a page where they find what they’re looking for… with no distractions. Create “landing pages” that focus on one set of related keywords.

You see, the search engines don’t just look for repeated keywords on a page when trying to decide what it’s all about. They also look at the context of the words around them!

In other words, does each keyword appear on a page with relevant content?

You don’t want to feature the keyword “John Deere compact farm tractor” on a page that sells only bulldozers.

The search engines can also understand synonyms (other ways of saying the same thing). So don’t forget to include variations of your keyword as well.

For example, “small tractors for plowing” on a page optimized for the keyword “compact farm tractor” is totally acceptable — and will help catch people using those other search terms.

And most importantly, your visitors will be able to see at a glance that they’ve come to the right place to buy their next compact farm tractor.

Step 3: Be strategic

Now that you you’ve chosen the right words for the right pages, make sure you put them where the search engines expect to find them.

The search engines will look at a number of places first when trying to decide what your page is all about.

Title tag — This is the title of your site that usually appears in the actual search engine results. Search engine spiders often look at the title tag first to understand what your site is about. That makes the title tag one of the best ways to appeal to both potential visitors and search engines at the same time.

Headline and subhead — By including your main keywords in your headline and subheads, and wrapping them in <h> tags, you’ll be tipping off the search engines that the site’s content reflects what’s in the heads and subheads , which is an SEO plus. At the same time, by displaying your best keywords in the headline and subhead, your visitors will see that they have come to the right place the second they land on your page… and be more likely to stick around.

Salescopy — Because the search engines “crawl” your site looking for information about how to categorize your site, and also check to see how relevant your copy is, you want to make sure you include your keywords in the sites copy. But don’t get carried away! Search engines can tell when you’re cramming your site full of words JUST to get better rankings, and will penalize you for it, and you want to be sure your site actually makes sense to your visitors.

Once you’ve put these three steps into action, you should start to see a serious boost in your conversions across the board… including those all-important sales!

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GETTING TRAFFIC

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