Showing posts with label Traffic Building. Show all posts

Simple Ways To Improve Your Bounce Rate

Improving bounce rate can dramatically improve the overall performance of a site.

From building a stronger community to boosting CTR, bounce can be the difference between the success or failure of your campaign.

So what can we do to improve our sites bounce rate? Well, there are hundreds, if not infinite amount of ways to improve bounce rates, the only limit is our time and imagination. But, to save a bit of time and effort here are 10 tried and tested ways of improving your bounce rate.

Add a Search Box

If users cant find what they are looking for on the page they're on they will often turn towards the search box to hunt down the info they need.

Adding a search box to your site is a must. Having a search box basically allows your audience to tailor your site to suit there needs and head directly to what they want.

Display Related Posts.

I've touched on this in a previous post. Displaying related content on our pages is a great way to encourage people to click around. One of the easiest ways of doing this is to add a related posts widget/plugin to the end of your posts. For more on improving bounce with related posts click here.

Split Writing Into Smaller Parts

Reading through line after line of text with no paragraphs, heading or basic formatting is just plain boring and many people wont have the patients to see it through to the end, so they leave (hey! don't leave lol).

Try to create small chunks of info that makes your visitors want to read the next chunk and so on. Getting people interested in your writing will definitely keep them on site.

Page Load Time

Unless the user is a big fan, they are not going to stick around to wait for a slow ass site to load. If our sites are taking longer than 10 seconds to load, we need to take steps to reduce the loading time.

Cut out unnecessary images, heavy scripts and generally cut objects from your page that is not
needed. Do you really need that Gangnam Style GIF jiggling in the sidebar?

Page Design

The design or the look of a site plays a big part on the bounce rate. If visitors don't like what they see when they land on a page they will not stick around to look through the other pages, regardless of how good the content is. Take a look at some of the top sites out there. What can we take from their design to improve our own sites?

Display popular posts

Showing popular posts is similar to showing related post. But instead of of information related to a post, you are showing what other visitors find interesting. For some it may indicate that its worth reading. The fact that a page is 'popular', is enough to make some people want to read it.

Just like related posts, there are plenty of widgets and plugins to help you out.

Open external links in a new window

External links are a bit of a touchy subject. On one hand you want to offer your visitors relevant and useful information which at times means sending them to outside content, and in the other you want your visitors to stay on your site. Right?

Opening external links in a new window allows us to take advantage of both sides. Our visitors can view outside content but at the same time stay on our pages.

I hope you find this useful. If you have any questions just leave a comment. Thanks for reading

11 Easy to use SEO Tips for Simple Optimisation

If you are looking for quick and easy to use SEO tips that you can implement right away with not too much effort, your in the right place.

These tips are not listed in order of importance, they are all definitely things to think about whilst creating pages.

These easy SEO practises are sometimes overlooked by even the best marketers and SEO gurus, but they can be very beneficial in the short and the long term and potentially make you more money online. You don't have to use all of the tips listed here but at least think about a few of them when creating your next project.

Beginning of Title

You should try to position your strongest keywords at the start of the title. Sometimes search engines can give the first few words of a title more emphasis, the order you place your keywords can make a real difference.

Length of Title

Try to keep page titles short but descriptive, around 65 Characters is a good length. If your titles are to long they will be truncated by search engines, so its best to keep them short if possible.

Don't think about Page Rank too much.

It takes time to build decent page rank, so concentrate on creating as much quality content as possible, let your site age and soon your page rank will grow. Even sites with low pr can out rank pages with high pr.

Backlinks, quality not quantity.

Its always better to obtain good quality backlinks to your site over a long period of time than obtain a whole bunch of low quality links in a short space of time. The speed at which you get backlinks can affect rankings, so take it easy. Bad backlinks can have a long term affect on your sites rankings.

Keyword Stuffing

We need keywords in our pages, but don't over do it. Stuffing excessive amounts of keywords in your pages will have a negative effect. you want to make your content look natural, search engines love it.

Use multiple video hosting sites

Videos that pop up in Google search results aren't just from Youtube.
Make sure you upload your videos to various video hosting sites to maximise your chances. Vimeo is a good alternative choice.

Search Engine Friendly Site Navigation

Using Flash for navigation on your website can be bad news if you aren’t aware of how to make Flash objects accessible and web-crawler-friendly. Search engines have a really tough time crawling a website that uses Flash.

Unique Meta Data

Giving your pages unique meta descriptions will prevent duplicate data in search engines.
Every page should have its own set of meta data; it is just one of the things that helps search engines get a better grasp of how the structure of the website is constructed.

Image alt tags

This is something I need to think more about myself but image alt tags allow you give your images a description. Why do this? One reason to use image alt tags it so that if your images don't load for any reason the alt tag or description will be displayed instead. Your pictures will also do better in image searches.

Anchor text

If you can try to use keywords as anchor text for your links, and try to keep the text around links as descriptive and relevant as possible.

Number of links

Try to keep the number of links on any one page low as possible. I know this can be very difficult sometimes but over 100 is too many.

16 Great Places to Submit Your Articles

Today's post is 16 Great Article directories to submit your articles to. Submitting articles is very popular for all kinds of reasons, one being that some of these article directories attract vast numbers of readers every day. As well as lots of eyes on your work, the chance of getting a nice juicy high PR backlink is irresistible.

Why Use Article Directories?

Submitting articles to article directories can benefit you whether you are a writer, an SEO or even a company. Well written articles submitted to the right directories can drive a flood of traffic back to a publishers site with little or no cost.

For writers, article submission is key to getting more eyes on their work. You can spend more time writing and less time trying to drive traffic to your blog.
For seo, its a great way of obtaining high pr, anchored backlinks making link building easier.
For affiliate marketers, reach thousands of potential customers and send them back to your sales pages using your high pr anchored links.

There are various reasons why you should submit your articles to Article submission sites, but there are hundreds out there.

What ones should I go with?

Here is a list of 16 brilliant places to submit your articles to. They all have differences, so please check'em out to see which ones suit your needs best...

Ezinearticles

Technorati

HubPages

Squidoo

Zimbio

Examiner

ArticlesBase

Ontoplist

GoArticles

Gather

Triond

Snipsly

iSnare

Helium

ArticleAlley

ArticleCity

Tips:

Make sure the articles you submit are UNIQUE. Search engines DO NOT like duplicate content, although sometimes you can get away with it.
If you are going to submit articles from your your site, make sure your sites article page is indexed BEFORE you submit it. This way your site will be marked as the ORIGINAL source.
Instead of submitting whole articles submit a detailed introduction and give reasons why you should read the whole article at your site, and leave a link..

How to submit a Full XML Sitemap for Blogger

Getting your site indexed with Google is key to the success of every site. Googles index is the most famous and well used search index on the Internet, so it makes sense to focus on them as a primary source of traffic.

Most sites will eventually be indexed if they are live long enough, but who knows how long it could take for Google to crawl your site and index you?

The great thing is Google and most major search engines offer us a way to 'guide' them to and around our sites so they can index us quickly and efficiently. These little gems are called Sitemaps.

How to Submit a Full XML Sitemap for blogger.

Submitting a Sitemap of your blogger blog to Google and other search engines is a fairly simple process. Nearly every blog nowadays have an RSS/Atom feed and most blogging platforms provide this by default, like Blogger. Your Sitemap is basically your RSS/Atom feed displayed as an XML Document.

The default URL for blogger Feeds look something like this...

http://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default or http://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full

You can submit this Feed as your Sitemap to help google find your pages, but there is a big problem with using the default feed.

It only displays 25 of your latest blog posts. What if you have 500 posts? You want all of them indexed right? Instead of submitting the above Feed you want to submit a Full Sitemap.
A full feed URL looks like this...

http://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500

The part in red means it will display posts from post 1, and the part in green means it will display a max of 500 post. So, you can see with this sitemap you will be able to submit up to 500 pages of your site.

Visit the link below to find out exactly how to add your Sitemaps to Google.
http://support.google.com/sites/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=100283

What if I have more than 500 pages?

Simply submit a second Sitemap with a slight difference. Change the start point (the red part) to 501 like this...

http://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=501&max-results=500

With the two site maps you will be able to submit page 1 to 500 and page 501 to 1000.
If you want to add more pages just change the start value e.g 1001, 1501, 2001 etc.

Hope this helps

Twitter: How to get More Free Followers

In the age of social networking and electronic relationships, Twitter has become known as the major hub of social media outlets. Whether you are searching for a way to connect with friends and family, looking to promote your business, creating professional contacts, or simply interested in the instant news updates and trending topics, Twitter is the perfect center of contact.

With so many corporations and individuals involved within the Twitter community, many people are left wondering exactly how to get more Twitter followers for free so that they can broaden their horizons. Although it can be difficult to navigate, especially to newcomers that aren't familiar with the symbols and jargon, getting more Twitter followers is the best way to spread the news about your upcoming events, promotions, or other affairs you wish to share.

Do I really need twitter?

Twitter is used to connect with your customers/followers, build your status within your particular niche, get people interested in contacting you via your blog, website, etc., and as a researching and marketing tool. The information collected via your Twitter account is priceless if you are looking to branch out personally or professionally. This is why getting more Twitter followers is such an important step for your online contact success; exposure in the best of ways. Think of it as a virtual cold: a follower sees something of interest you posted and re-posts the message; his followers do the same, passing your words along until a whole section of Twitter is infected with your presence. It's basically free advertising.

How Can I Get More Twitter Followers?

There are innumerable websites devoted to helping Twitter account holders expand their group of followers, at a nominal fee of course. But why would you pay for a service you can provide on your own with a small amount of time devoted to the cause? There are a few, simple steps that will allow you to get more Twitter followers for free. Use the following tips to increase your popularity and make it easier for followers to find you.

1. Spread the word:

Link your Twitter account to your other social media and social networking accounts; no one will follow you if they don't know you tweet.

2. Vamp up your profile/biography:

Upload an appropriate picture of yourself and list your interests and areas of expertise; it is easier to follow someone you can have a mental picture of and also shares the same interests.

3. Make your tweets count:

Post information relevant to the reason you have the account; no one wants to read about personal dilemmas on a business account.

4. Utilise hash-tags:

Using this technique on your keywords will allow your posts to become searchable, make it easier for you to follow new people with similar interests, and allow your tweets to be found in the trending now area.

5. Search F.O.F.s:

Shifting through F.O.F.s (friends of friends) is an awesome way to make quick connections without much effort.

6. Engage and Charm:

Utilizing such tools as @s or #FF to get people attention is an easy way to start a conversation; remember to offer compliments or say something encouraging. It's much like a first date where you want to show your best side so that you can snag a second date, or in this case, a follower.

Free Niche Keyword research with Wordtracker Gtrends

A lot of you have probably seen all the hype from marketers telling you to buy the latest next thing in keyword research, guaranteed #1 spot. You probably also heard of niche market research programs like market samurai. The real and blatent truth is you can do good niche keyword research without the use of an over hyped program and of course, for FREE.
There are many ways to do market research, but this post focuses on Niche Keyword Research using Gtrends at wordtracker.com.

The video below by Mark Flavin takes you through the process of using this awesome free keyword research tool to find the right niche market for you.

Gtrends: https://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/gtrends/

Niche Marketing, What are the benefits?

There can be great benefits to niche marketing, by creating a targeted niche marketing plan not only will your targeted keywords ranked but also the 50 or so that Google will rank for relevance and authority in your niche. This can help you drive quality traffic for a long, long time. What is Involved in A Marketing Niche Strategy? To reach the top of niche markets you need strategy. This can involve meeting the requirements of on and off page SEO, helping you to gain good rankings on search engines and high quality relevant content that attracts a target audience.

On Page SEO can Include:

Niche Targeted Keyword in the title, first sentence as well as the tags. The body of your article should contain approximately 1.4-1.5 % of your niche-targeted keyword. So for every 100 words you will need to have around 4-5 of them.
The most important on page strategy you can implement is by writing in "campaigns", what I mean by this is writing and publishing 4-5 blog posts along with 2 articles that are all related keywords of your niche market.

Niche marketing this way will give you the benefit of the search engines attention and shows that you are both an authority on this niche and have relevant content linking back to the keyword you are ranking for.

Other on page SEO considerations:

Word press plug ins suchas Digg-Digg, all in one SEO and XML site maps are also essential for ease of syndication and site optimization.They also make it quick and easy for visitors and peers to share your connect online

Off page SEO can include:

A content syndication plan, and peer support network by which you can share and syndicate each others content. Utilizing this niche marketing strategy is vital as it all goes towards your back links count when being ranked.

Using a niche marketing strategy, you can go into any sub niche selling any product or service and use it to rank in the top pages of the organic search listings. Be consistent with your campaigns as this lifts your page rank, which in turn also goes towards your ranking. The benefits of niche marketing are well worth the effort when you end up with a free lead generation formula that will go on working for years to come.

How do backlinks effect Search Rankings and traffic?

Search engines often use the number of backlinks that a website has as one of the most important factors for determining that websites search engine ranking, popularity and importance. Google's description of their PageRank system, for instance, notes that Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B.

Knowledge of this form of search engine rankings has fueled a portion of the SEO industry commonly termed linkspam, where a company attempts to place as many inbound links as possible to their site regardless of the context of the originating site.

Websites often employ various search engine optimization techniques to increase the number of backlinks pointing to their website.

Some methods are free for use by everyone whereas some methods like linkbaiting requires quite a bit of planning and marketing to work. Some websites stumble upon "linkbaiting" naturally; the sites that are the first with a tidbit of 'breaking news' about a celebrity are good examples of that. When "linkbait" happens, many websites will link to the 'baiting' website because there is information there that is of extreme interest to a large number of people.

There are several factors that determine the value of a backlink.

Backlinks from authoritative sites on a given topic are highly valuable. If both sites have content geared toward the keyword topic, the backlink is considered relevant and believed to have strong influence on the search engine rankings of the webpage granted the backlink. A backlink represents a favorable 'editorial vote' for the receiving webpage from another granting webpage.

Another important factor is the anchor text of the backlink. Anchor text is the descriptive labeling of the hyperlink as it appears on a webpage. Search engine bots (i.e., spiders, crawlers, etc.) examine the anchor text to evaluate how relevant it is to the content on a webpage. Anchor text and webpage content congruency are highly weighted in search engine results page (SERP) rankings of a webpage with respect to any given keyword query by a search engine user.

Increasingly, inbound links are being weighed against link popularity and originating context.

This transition is reducing the notion of one link, one vote in SEO, a trend proponents hope will help curb linkspam as a whole.

It should be noted that although many people will say building too many links too quickly will get you penalized, it actually will not. If it were possible to be penalized for building too many incoming links, people would target their competition for penalties by building "too many" links.

Drive Targeted Traffic to Your Affiliate Marketing Site: 10 Proven Ways

When you're involved in affiliate marketing, easily one of the most major concerns you'll have to face is driving traffic to your site. And not just any traffic - you'll need targeted traffic. Here are the top 10 proven ways you can drive quality traffic to your affiliate marketing site and increase your income-generating potential:

E-mail campaigns
Used carefully, e-mail campaigns can easily drive targeted traffic to your affiliate marketing site. This can be done by providing highly relevant and valuable information on the body of the message and then offering a link that will bring the recipients into your site.

You can do this two ways: one is by providing the full content in the e-mail message and then offering a link inviting the recipient to view more similar write-ups on your site. Another is by giving only a portion of the content and offering the rest on the affiliate site. A linked e-mail signature should also be included.

Articles
Informative and how-to articles, especially well-written ones, are proven traffic baits for affiliate marketing sites. Include links to similar or additional information within the content body that can only be read from your site and provide additional links on your signature.

Newsletters and e-zines
People love information, particularly those about subjects they are curious about or are involved in - which explains why targeted methods to drive traffic to affiliate marketing sites work best.

Offer e-newsletter and e-zine subscriptions, making sure that links bring recipients to your site. Use a separate landing page to handle the subscription process for your visitors' convenience.

Blogs
Other than your affiliate marketing site, use a blog to get in touch with prospective customers and members. Blogs are considerably more personal and lighter in tone than most affiliate business sites and they can be a great source of information, news, advice and tips from you to your prospects. Include a link from your blog to your affiliate marketing site.

Social bookmarking sites
These sites are a rich source of targeted traffic that you can drive to your affiliate marketing site. Your market demographics are also easier to define so sending out invitations to potential leads and members is a lot easier.

Discussion forums and boards
By leaving useful and thought-provoking comments on discussion boards and forums, you encourage other members to react and send you a reply. You'll be able to build a networking relationship from here. Make sure to sign with a link back to your affiliate marketing site.

Guest blogging
You could drive another blog's captured traffic to your affiliate site by becoming a guest blogger. If you can write well and can offer unique and useful content, the site's readership will find you interesting enough to follow you to your own site.

Allow bookmarks on your web pages
If you have content, you can drive traffic to your affiliate marketing site by allowing your readers to bookmark certain pages. This will help promote those pages and your website to other people who might be interested in the same subjects.

Host a contest
Locate your target market and then promote a contest through ads or e-mails. All details must be found on your affiliate marketing website so you can drive traffic there. Registration must also be performed on one of your landing pages. Just make sure to offer prizes that visitors who will be coming in will find useful.

Freebies!
There's nothing like a nice gift to drive targeted traffic to your affiliate marketing site. It's easy to implement and can be relatively cheap. Furthermore, you offer these visitors an incentive to sign up for whatever campaign it is you're promoting.

By: Gary Pettit

12 Traits of an Effective Marketing Campaign using Social Media

1. It must not be Spammy!

This is a sure fire way to make your campaign fall flat on its face. The social graph is a social tool not a marketing tool. So to market on social sites effectively write with caution and be aware of your words sounding like spam.

2. It must provide Value!

When selling we should all be aware that good business is simply the exchange of value between two parties. Your social campaign needs to provide a level of value to attract attention.

3. It must Spread Like Wildfire!

A great social campaign will be so compelling that its readers will want their friends/followers/connections etc to know about it, then those friends should want their friend to know about it etc. Research the most successful viral campaigns and see what they did to achieve that success, then model it.

4. Brand It!

It is essential to clothe your campaign in your branding and identity i.e. taglines, slogans, your unique selling points company colour scheme, links anything that defines your business.

5. It Must be Well Maintained

Make sure people know there are human beings behind the campaign who will respond to tweets, reply to messages and updates and generally give the campaign a little personality.

6. Build Trust

Following on from number 5 if people can see there are genuine people there responding and interacting positively the it gives your campaign more gravitas. This is what is great about social network marketing. Giving good service and interacting with your audience acts as a advertisement for you. People can actually witness the dialogue of you giving a good service.

7. Stand out!

I know this is more difficult than it sounds but you have somehow got to do something different to get noticed in the sheer ocean of campaigns out there.

8. Use Good Copy

In most instances with Social Media we have limited space to write so what be write must compel the reader to click through or at least remember what they just read.

9. Measure It!

How will you even know if your campaign is a success if you don't measure results. There are your usual tools that you can use i.e. Google Analytics that can be installed on your Facebook Fanpage. You should also track your URL clicks if you are shortening them for tweeting, posting and updating purposes.

10. Build Relationships

This is really what using Social Media is all about. Interact with people and participate in the community and your relationships with your target audience will flourish

11. Be Organized
Before you start an campaign you must first know your outcome. What do you actually want to achieve from this campaign? Do you want more larger followings/ more friends and connections? Do you want to drive traffic to a site? Do you want to generate awareness and a "buzz" about something, do you want to find out what your target audience want or what they think about a topic? Fail to Prepare...Prepare to Fail!

12. Listen To Feedback
The best campaigns have ears! They listen and respond to feedback. It is important to be flexible so listen to what people are saying, take it on board, don't take criticism personally and be prepared to change your approach.

Social Media Marketing, Why should you use it?

Many of today's successful businesses have been around for years, long before the Internet was a viable option in marketing a product.

Although billboards, TV commercials, radio and print advertisements have been successful in the past, they will not have the impact they once did in today's market.

Many people no longer check the newspaper for movie times, they reference online venues. Many people no longer hand-write letters, they electronically draft emails. Many shy away from garage sells when they can utilise Craigslist, eBay, Gumtree or one of the many other sites available. While some may resist the facts, the world relies on technology more and more every day.

This is not something to dread or dwell upon it is something to take advantage of!

For anyone born after 1980, it is easy to notice the growing popularity of social networks and it does not take a genius to identify the direction in which our world's social media market's popularity will continue to move. People from the age of 20 to 29 use social media more than any other age group, with 41% spending 11+ hours a week on social media sites. Age 30 to 39 is the next most frequent user base of social media, with 37% of them spending 11+ hours a week on social media sites as well.

Understandably, most people have heard of Facebook.

It has become the largest social networking website to date. Facebook has over 500 million users, half of which log-on at least once per day. Among the US Internet populace, 72% are members of Facebook, with ages 18-24 seeing the most rapid growth. That is 36% of this country's Internet users visiting a single website each day!

It would be exceptionally hard to find another channel with that kind of impact. Twitter, LinkedIn, and blogs are just a few of the other popular social networks available today, all providing remarkable accessibility to a large group of people.

Social media is the fastest growing marketing tool, and any business not capitalizing on its numerous capabilities could be at a disadvantage to its competitors.

Waiting around and not taking advantage of this vastly growing marketing tool is an opportunity that companies are missing. Business is ever evolving and so must marketing campaigns in order to keep pace with the competition. So then why wouldn't someone immediately get involved with social marketing? It cannot be money, as most of these networks are free. It cannot be experience, because anyone can outsource their social marketing for dirt cheap.

Most people just do not know. They do not know what it is, nor understand its capabilities. But most importantly, they are unaware of the positive economic growth it will potentially have on their company.

Social media marketing is the attempt to broadcast various forms of media over social networking technologies, plain and simple.

A few perks of social media include increased exposure, increased lead generation, gaining of new partnerships, increased traffic, and marketing cost reductions. On average, 88% of marketers using social media have reported increased exposure for their business. Almost half of these individuals who employed marketing tactics through social media for 12 months or less reported new partnerships gained.

Users who spent 6 hours or less per week saw their lead generation increase, and 58% of small business owners using social media marketing were more likely to see marketing cost reductions.

The Internet is providing this world with new products, capabilities, and tools that have never before been possible.

Social media marketing provides the ability to potentially influence hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people for a fraction of the cost of outdated marketing methods.

It is the responsibility of today's businessmen to focus on the future of every market and the direction it is heading. Social media is a wise investment for almost any company and will be more beneficial the earlier it becomes integrated within a company's strategic initiative.
Social media networking is only going to grow, and my best advice at this point is to establish your brand as soon as possible through Social Media Marketing.

STAY UP TO DATE!

Get new posts sent direct to your inbox...

Subscribe in a reader