The Top 5 Ways To Bring Extra Clients To Your Website
Posted 26th July 2009 at 11:11 PM by The-English-Webmistress
Recently, a client of mine emailed me the following key question:
"I am depressed about our traffic... any ideas for getting more?"
It got me thinking. What can I share about traffic generation that is fairly simple to learn and that can also be implemented pretty quickly by a super-busy entrepreneur? I started scribbling down my ideas on the techniques and resources that I have proven work best, and I thought I'd share them with the online community.
So here's a mini online marketing course for all those of you who have the same question. These 5 steps are the undisputed kings of traffic generation - no argument (but please feel free to leave me a comment below if you disagree!) If you put in the time to implement these steps, you'll get the returns.
If you're looking to bring visitors to your website at a faster pace, then make Google your best friend by putting all of these strategies in place at the same time.
1. CREATE PROMOTIONAL, FUN AND INFORMATIONAL VIDEOS
It's worth remembering that nowadays over 80% of all surfers are searching for, and watching, videos online. Give the people what they want!
The added bonus is that instead of waiting up to 3 months to list your website as they sweep the 8 billion+ pages on the internet , Google and the other major search engines will reward you with speedy access to their listings, sometimes in as little as 3 days. My personal record for the search engines finding and indexing a video I'd uploaded to YouTube - that of course had lots of links helpfully pointing right back to my website - was 2 hours!
Upload your videos to many different video sites at the same time (Youtube, Google Video, Vimeo etc). Some great tools for doing this are HeySpread and TubeMogul. These video distribution sites let you upload your video once, and then they send it off to many different video sites across the internet. These services can save hours and hours of time, and are more than worth the nominal fee (Tube Mogul is free; Hey Spread's charges are as low as 5 cents per video) that they charge.
Once your video is out there, it's likely that it'll get picked up by more and more unrelated video sites, plus people may embed it into their webpages. Eventually you can end up with a cascade of visitors who have seen your video coming to check out what other goodies are on offer at your website. Just be sure you remember to overlay your website address in a corner of the video so people can follow you. To give you an idea of what I mean, take a look at this promotional video that I created for a recent, and very delighted, client.
2. CREATE A BLOG (OR MAYBE EVEN SEVERAL BLOGS!)
Again, these are constantly picked up and indexed by the search engines on a regular basis. With consistent updates, Google and the other major search engines will reward your blog and your website with higher rankings, which equals more eyeballs, which equals more visitors, which equals more phone calls, which equals more sales!
Consider setting up more than one blog, perhaps dealing with slightly different aspects of the products or services you offer, because many highly successful businesses on the internet tend to have multiple blogs, websites and so on to capture different areas of their sales market. Yes, yes, I know you're thinking "I don't have time for all that, woman!" but well, I'm just letting you know...
Once you've made a new blog entry let the world know by adding the link or RSS feed to one of the many Blog Pinging Services. This is a huge timesaver as you don't have to update each one manually.
I particularly like to use Ping-O-matic and PingMyBlog.com, but there are many others you can choose from.
If you're unsure what it means to 'ping a blog' - yes, I know, it is a peculiar phrase, isn't it? - well it's just a special signal that is sent across the internet that will notify the major blog directories that you've added a new post to your blog. It's a useful thing to do as it creates extra listings in the blog directories and the search engines which can lead to more visitors finding your website.
3. JOIN THE SOCIAL NETWORKING GANG AND GET BUSY!
Social Networking works nicely to bring in new visitors and build interest in your products and services as long as you make enough friends/contacts to market to. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Sta.rtUp.Biz (of course!), LinkedIn, Ecademy... there are hundreds of social networking sites out there.
My advice is to choose just a few that suit your business type and personal character, rather than killing yourself and losing business development time trying to network around all of them. Consistency and the avoidance of constant 'sales talk' is key! People hate it when you 'sell' to them, but love it when you chat and 'recommend' to them. You can find more information to guide you in this post in my Sta.rtUp.Biz blog: Start Social Networking Online.
4. SOCIAL BOOKMARKING SITES
Bookmarking Sites allow you to drop the URL (a website page name) of your choice into a listing that other people will browse through as they surf by. It's like being part of a community built on making personal recommendations of sites you like. If you make sure that your website pages, your blog(s) and your video pages are all bookmarked, then surfers will click and visit them, hence more visitors, more eyeballs, etc..
There are plenty of bookmarking sites to choose from, but a couple of the more popular ones are Digg and Delicious.
I'd suggest you check out AddThis.com for a comprehensive listing of all the big bookmarking sites. You can add a single URL to the AddThis service, and it will automatically send it out and add it to many different bookmarking sites all at the same time. Another great time saver!
5. WRITE SOME RELEVANT ARTICLES AND SHARE THEM ONLINE
Write a few articles - say 5 or 10 that contain several mentions of your website's keywords and also reference your personal expertise in the area - then upload them on the web. People will read them, then click on the links in your bio section or resource box at the bottom of your article (take a look at my bio section at the end of this article to see what I mean). If they've enjoyed your article then they'll come and surf by your website to see who you are and what you're about. The result? More visitors and more potential sales!
The more articles you write and get out there, the better. Ten or 15 articles of about 400-500 words will see some very good returns on traffic visiting your website over a number of weeks. Try spending an hour every 2 or 3 days to put together helpful information that your potential customers will find useful, and in just one month you'll have 12 or so articles to publish. A quick word of advice; do NOT use any article submission software that promises to send them out to 1,000 different sites all at once - Google will penalise you for spamming and may push your website further down its listings. Not what we want to see at all!
Here's a helpful list of the Top 50 most popular article submission websites on the net at the moment. They are listed according to the number of visitors they receive, and also according to their Google Page Rank (which indicates how important Google considers these websites to be - a higher number is better). Check it out; Top 50 Article Submission Websites - A List for Article Marketers.
It's best to try to only submit to the top-ranking article websites as they'll be cosiest with Google and the other search engines, which will reflect well on your website later.
6. BREAK THE RULES - OR CREATE SOME NEW ONES!
Yes, I know the title talks about the top five ways to bring extra clients to your website, but you know what? I'm breaking the rules a little here by adding in a very important extra point...
The internet is still very much a new frontier; it's the Wild West of modern communication. You can break and make up new rules if you wish; people are doing it all the time in the online world. If they weren't success stories like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook would never exist.
If you have a great new idea, or even better, a new spin on an old and well-tested product or service, be courageous and try it out! You never know, if you develop and test it well and put in the requisite work, you might have sown the seeds of the next internet sensation!
IN CONCLUSION...
So there you have it! Your very own mini online marketing course for entrepreneurs who are poised for great and grand success on the web.
However, note that for the very best results they have to be done ALL AT THE SAME TIME. It's certainly true that doing any one of these techniques without the others will be effective if you stick with it consistently for 6 - 12 months plus. However, doing steps 1. through to 5. at the same time regularly for a month or two, will mean you can build up traffic of hundreds of visitors a day to the website in a quarter of that time. If you're fortunate and a particular video or article becomes really popular and it goes 'viral' you could end up with thousands of visitors a day...
Follow these 5 steps consistently each day, each week, each month, and your traffic will start to build very nicely indeed. And remember, the more traffic you have visiting your website, the more eyes will see your pages, and the more sales you'll make!
If you have any questions about the strategies I've written about here, I'm happy to help out. Just email me or telephone me using the Contact Page on my website and we can have a chat.
Wishing you great business success!
"I am depressed about our traffic... any ideas for getting more?"
It got me thinking. What can I share about traffic generation that is fairly simple to learn and that can also be implemented pretty quickly by a super-busy entrepreneur? I started scribbling down my ideas on the techniques and resources that I have proven work best, and I thought I'd share them with the online community.
So here's a mini online marketing course for all those of you who have the same question. These 5 steps are the undisputed kings of traffic generation - no argument (but please feel free to leave me a comment below if you disagree!) If you put in the time to implement these steps, you'll get the returns.
If you're looking to bring visitors to your website at a faster pace, then make Google your best friend by putting all of these strategies in place at the same time.
1. CREATE PROMOTIONAL, FUN AND INFORMATIONAL VIDEOS
It's worth remembering that nowadays over 80% of all surfers are searching for, and watching, videos online. Give the people what they want!
The added bonus is that instead of waiting up to 3 months to list your website as they sweep the 8 billion+ pages on the internet , Google and the other major search engines will reward you with speedy access to their listings, sometimes in as little as 3 days. My personal record for the search engines finding and indexing a video I'd uploaded to YouTube - that of course had lots of links helpfully pointing right back to my website - was 2 hours!
Upload your videos to many different video sites at the same time (Youtube, Google Video, Vimeo etc). Some great tools for doing this are HeySpread and TubeMogul. These video distribution sites let you upload your video once, and then they send it off to many different video sites across the internet. These services can save hours and hours of time, and are more than worth the nominal fee (Tube Mogul is free; Hey Spread's charges are as low as 5 cents per video) that they charge.
Once your video is out there, it's likely that it'll get picked up by more and more unrelated video sites, plus people may embed it into their webpages. Eventually you can end up with a cascade of visitors who have seen your video coming to check out what other goodies are on offer at your website. Just be sure you remember to overlay your website address in a corner of the video so people can follow you. To give you an idea of what I mean, take a look at this promotional video that I created for a recent, and very delighted, client.
2. CREATE A BLOG (OR MAYBE EVEN SEVERAL BLOGS!)
Again, these are constantly picked up and indexed by the search engines on a regular basis. With consistent updates, Google and the other major search engines will reward your blog and your website with higher rankings, which equals more eyeballs, which equals more visitors, which equals more phone calls, which equals more sales!
Consider setting up more than one blog, perhaps dealing with slightly different aspects of the products or services you offer, because many highly successful businesses on the internet tend to have multiple blogs, websites and so on to capture different areas of their sales market. Yes, yes, I know you're thinking "I don't have time for all that, woman!" but well, I'm just letting you know...
Once you've made a new blog entry let the world know by adding the link or RSS feed to one of the many Blog Pinging Services. This is a huge timesaver as you don't have to update each one manually.
I particularly like to use Ping-O-matic and PingMyBlog.com, but there are many others you can choose from.
If you're unsure what it means to 'ping a blog' - yes, I know, it is a peculiar phrase, isn't it? - well it's just a special signal that is sent across the internet that will notify the major blog directories that you've added a new post to your blog. It's a useful thing to do as it creates extra listings in the blog directories and the search engines which can lead to more visitors finding your website.
3. JOIN THE SOCIAL NETWORKING GANG AND GET BUSY!
Social Networking works nicely to bring in new visitors and build interest in your products and services as long as you make enough friends/contacts to market to. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Sta.rtUp.Biz (of course!), LinkedIn, Ecademy... there are hundreds of social networking sites out there.
My advice is to choose just a few that suit your business type and personal character, rather than killing yourself and losing business development time trying to network around all of them. Consistency and the avoidance of constant 'sales talk' is key! People hate it when you 'sell' to them, but love it when you chat and 'recommend' to them. You can find more information to guide you in this post in my Sta.rtUp.Biz blog: Start Social Networking Online.
4. SOCIAL BOOKMARKING SITES
Bookmarking Sites allow you to drop the URL (a website page name) of your choice into a listing that other people will browse through as they surf by. It's like being part of a community built on making personal recommendations of sites you like. If you make sure that your website pages, your blog(s) and your video pages are all bookmarked, then surfers will click and visit them, hence more visitors, more eyeballs, etc..
There are plenty of bookmarking sites to choose from, but a couple of the more popular ones are Digg and Delicious.
I'd suggest you check out AddThis.com for a comprehensive listing of all the big bookmarking sites. You can add a single URL to the AddThis service, and it will automatically send it out and add it to many different bookmarking sites all at the same time. Another great time saver!
5. WRITE SOME RELEVANT ARTICLES AND SHARE THEM ONLINE
Write a few articles - say 5 or 10 that contain several mentions of your website's keywords and also reference your personal expertise in the area - then upload them on the web. People will read them, then click on the links in your bio section or resource box at the bottom of your article (take a look at my bio section at the end of this article to see what I mean). If they've enjoyed your article then they'll come and surf by your website to see who you are and what you're about. The result? More visitors and more potential sales!
The more articles you write and get out there, the better. Ten or 15 articles of about 400-500 words will see some very good returns on traffic visiting your website over a number of weeks. Try spending an hour every 2 or 3 days to put together helpful information that your potential customers will find useful, and in just one month you'll have 12 or so articles to publish. A quick word of advice; do NOT use any article submission software that promises to send them out to 1,000 different sites all at once - Google will penalise you for spamming and may push your website further down its listings. Not what we want to see at all!
Here's a helpful list of the Top 50 most popular article submission websites on the net at the moment. They are listed according to the number of visitors they receive, and also according to their Google Page Rank (which indicates how important Google considers these websites to be - a higher number is better). Check it out; Top 50 Article Submission Websites - A List for Article Marketers.
It's best to try to only submit to the top-ranking article websites as they'll be cosiest with Google and the other search engines, which will reflect well on your website later.
6. BREAK THE RULES - OR CREATE SOME NEW ONES!
Yes, I know the title talks about the top five ways to bring extra clients to your website, but you know what? I'm breaking the rules a little here by adding in a very important extra point...
The internet is still very much a new frontier; it's the Wild West of modern communication. You can break and make up new rules if you wish; people are doing it all the time in the online world. If they weren't success stories like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook would never exist.
If you have a great new idea, or even better, a new spin on an old and well-tested product or service, be courageous and try it out! You never know, if you develop and test it well and put in the requisite work, you might have sown the seeds of the next internet sensation!
IN CONCLUSION...
So there you have it! Your very own mini online marketing course for entrepreneurs who are poised for great and grand success on the web.
However, note that for the very best results they have to be done ALL AT THE SAME TIME. It's certainly true that doing any one of these techniques without the others will be effective if you stick with it consistently for 6 - 12 months plus. However, doing steps 1. through to 5. at the same time regularly for a month or two, will mean you can build up traffic of hundreds of visitors a day to the website in a quarter of that time. If you're fortunate and a particular video or article becomes really popular and it goes 'viral' you could end up with thousands of visitors a day...
Follow these 5 steps consistently each day, each week, each month, and your traffic will start to build very nicely indeed. And remember, the more traffic you have visiting your website, the more eyes will see your pages, and the more sales you'll make!
If you have any questions about the strategies I've written about here, I'm happy to help out. Just email me or telephone me using the Contact Page on my website and we can have a chat.
Wishing you great business success!
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