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I Advice - Building Web Site Popularity
A new client of mine bought a 54-year-old company and told me that his first objective was to give the company a long overdue face-lift including a new logo. We sat down to talk about what he wanted, and though he was relatively open to ideas, I received strict orders to avoid the yellow and orange combination used in the company's current logo. While we were on the discussion of color, I brought out a Pantone swatch book to focus our efforts. My client was curious about how designers like myself went about choosing color.While getting a design degree, I took several semesters of color theory. I learned to look at color in many different ways, how colors react to each other, the relative nature of color, the emotive quality of color, how a prism breaks light into a rainbow, and about additive and subtractive color theory. I told my client that most designers develop their own sense of color after a lot of practice. When my client left, I realized that the way I chose color was really not based on scientific theory or anything I learned in college. The truth is that I never learned anything as valuable as the rules dictated by the basic box of Crayola crayons.First of all, there really are only eight colors. Pantone comes out with newer, bigger swatch books every few years, but the reality is that there are still the eight basic colors we learned about in first grade: red, orange, yellow, green, blue,
Newsgroups
Now we get to more valuable actions. If there are any newsgroups that at ALL relate to your site, make it a habit to read and post therein (see http://groups.google.com/googlegroups/posting_faq.html if you don't have direct Newsgroup access ). ALWAYS have your web site mentioned in your signature. If you can possibly work in a mention of a specific page on your site that would be helpful to someone posting, do so. But don't just post blatant advertising; people get annoyed by that.
There may also be mailing lists related to your business. Read them, and contribute when you can. Take a look at http://www.webcom.com/impulse/list.html#Search for mail lists. If your site is technical, see OpenITx (http://www.openitx.com) for listings of technical mailing lists etc.
Try to post intelligently. While the search engines that index the articles don't care if you say stupid things, the people who really read the ne
There are other ways to ensure the word gets out about your blog. You can submit your blog to some of the many blog search engines out there, which will generate traffic to your site. Because blogs are updated so Also, some blog software packages will create and RSS feed from your blog, which you can then submit to all the RSS directories. What that means is, when someone searches on a traditional search engine, a blog search engine or through subscriptions to an RSS directory, your site will pop up, giving you three times the exposure. Exposure leads to traffic, and traffic leads to customers, which is what you want!Because a blog allows for visitors to the site to respond to the content (visitors are encouraged to leave comments on each of the posts), it fosters a closer relationship with your audience. A blog almost always seems more personal than a website, and people will respond to that – hopefully by buying whatever it is you are selling!Which brings us to the most important point: Blogs can make you money. First, blogging allows you to carve out a niche for yourself and for your business that is uniquely yours. Because a blog is essentially a collection of your own thoughts, no two of them will ever been exactly the same. That will help you create a strong brand identity.Further, it’s important to note that bloggers read other blogs – often in excess of twenty different ones –
What you want is links to your site. Links equal traffic. Links come from two places: other pages, and search engines. The more links from other pages, the more the search engines like you. The more the search engines like you, the more people will click through (choose the link the search engine presented). Some of those people have their own sites, and if they like your site, they may add links pointing to you. That, of course, generates more search engine attention- it's a closed loop that feeds on itself and continues to grow. The art of getting more links is known as Site Promotion.
You don't believe it? You think you have to pay money to get noticed? I started my http://aplawrence.com site in 1997 and never paid a dime to anyone.
Well, actually recently I did, just to see whether there was any point in it. I did two things: one, I bought 15,000 "hits" from one of those redirection services that take over abandoned domains and redirect any traffic to you. The 15,000 extra hits increased my visitors for one month, but did not increase my income one dime, and the increase disappeared the following months, which means none of the 15,000 became regular visitors. Secondly, I paid an web site promotion and optimization expert $100.00 for a half hour evaluation and advice session. The advice he had was good and accurate, but again, nothing you could not learn on-line for free by yourself.
Current site stats are 170,000 to 200,000 unique visitors per month, and this was done entirely by self-promotion as described here. Even more importantly, if you search for "SCO Unix" or similar searches at Google and other search engines, you'll often find my pages listed near the top- which is the place you want to be.
("Unique visitors" means individual visitors. That is, you might visit my site two times this month and look at 5 pages each time. That counts as 10 page views, but only one unique visitor. It's not a completely accurate figure; the actual number could be more or less (there might be more than one person behind one ip address, for example), but it's still a statistic that people use to measure popularity.)
Many people tell you that you need to submit new pages as you add them. I've found that not to be true for my sites: Google's Spiders usually pick up new pages here within a few days. That may be because I constantly add new material and the Spiders know to return more often than they would otherwise. Also, Google has recently added its Sitemap protocol which lets you tell Google when you have updated content.
To get links and visitors, there are a number of things to do. Most of these apply no matter what the purpose of your web site is, though some work better for some types of sites.
Suggest a link
Go to Google and search for "suggest". You'll get about about 85,900,000 matches (yes, I'm serious) , most of which are search engines or other web sites that will let you suggest a link to you from them. Fill out as many of these as you can. Ignore any suggestion (like Yahoo will give) that asks you to part with money in exchange for quicker placement (unless, of course, you are able to just throw around money freely- in that case, have you visited my Contributions page?).
Next, search for "site promotion". These are less valuable, but some of them are free promotional thingies that will submit your site to some other sites. What they do is a small number for free, and then try to get you to buy a larger submission. Don't. Just take the free stuff. Most of it is useless, but it will at least get a few search engines to visit.
Nowadays you'll also find blogs and web sites that offer tips on web site promotion. Some of them are just thinly veiled fronts trying to sell you expensive courses or books. Pay no attention: everything they would charge you for is available on line for free. It may take a little more effort to find it all, so if you are in a big hurry, some of the courses or books could be useful, but don't spend a lot of money - it's not worth it.
Newsgroups
Now we get to more valuable actions. If there are any newsgroups that at ALL relate to your site, make it a habit to read and post therein (see http://groups.google.com/googlegroups/posting_faq.html if you don't have direct Newsgroup access ). ALWAYS have your web site mentioned in your signature. If you can possibly work in a mention of a specific page on your site that would be helpful to someone posting, do so. But don't just post blatant advertising; people get annoyed by that.
There may also be mailing lists related to your business. Read them, and contribute when you can. Take a look at http://www.webcom.com/impulse/list.html#Search for mail lists. If your site is technical, see OpenITx (http://www.openitx.com) for listings of technical mailing lists etc.
Try to post intelligently. While the search engines that index the articles don't care if you say stupid things, the people who really read the new
The store sign blares, “Divorce Today…$199,” another trumpets, “Rolex Watches – Cheap,” and the next one shouts, “4 tires, $120.” Discounting is everywhere, advertising a common message – low price and cheap service.Discounters wreak havoc on the rest of us who charge for a premium service. With so many businesses advertising low price, it makes customers ultra price sensitive. In your case, the customer is a real estate agent, and more of them are becoming price sensitive to fees charged by you.What’s Your Fee? The agent asks, “How much do you charge the client?” The loan officer replies, “I charge a point on the front and one on the back.” The Agent appearing stunned says, “That seems unfair, why are you charging so much?” The perturbed loan officer utters, “That’s what I’ve always charged.” The agent leaves, never to return again.Hopefully this has never happened to you. Instead, you should expect the opposite when you understand how to get agents to support your fees. Rather than agents questioning how much you charge, they’re explaining to the client why your service commands a premium. Marketing is your opportunity to shape their perception of your service, before appealing to them about a relationship. It should educate an Agent, ahead of you meeting them, about the quality of your service, which is in
You don't believe it? You think you have to pay money to get noticed? I started my http://aplawrence.com site in 1997 and never paid a dime to anyone.
Well, actually recently I did, just to see whether there was any point in it. I did two things: one, I bought 15,000 "hits" from one of those redirection services that take over abandoned domains and redirect any traffic to you. The 15,000 extra hits increased my visitors for one month, but did not increase my income one dime, and the increase disappeared the following months, which means none of the 15,000 became regular visitors. Secondly, I paid an web site promotion and optimization expert $100.00 for a half hour evaluation and advice session. The advice he had was good and accurate, but again, nothing you could not learn on-line for free by yourself.
Current site stats are 170,000 to 200,000 unique visitors per month, and this was done entirely by self-promotion as described here. Even more importantly, if you search for "SCO Unix" or similar searches at Google and other search engines, you'll often find my pages listed near the top- which is the place you want to be.
("Unique visitors" means individual visitors. That is, you might visit my site two times this month and look at 5 pages each time. That counts as 10 page views, but only one unique visitor. It's not a completely accurate figure; the actual number could be more or less (there might be more than one person behind one ip address, for example), but it's still a statistic that people use to measure popularity.)
Many people tell you that you need to submit new pages as you add them. I've found that not to be true for my sites: Google's Spiders usually pick up new pages here within a few days. That may be because I constantly add new material and the Spiders know to return more often than they would otherwise. Also, Google has recently added its Sitemap protocol which lets you tell Google when you have updated content.
To get links and visitors, there are a number of things to do. Most of these apply no matter what the purpose of your web site is, though some work better for some types of sites.
Suggest a link
Go to Google and search for "suggest". You'll get about about 85,900,000 matches (yes, I'm serious) , most of which are search engines or other web sites that will let you suggest a link to you from them. Fill out as many of these as you can. Ignore any suggestion (like Yahoo will give) that asks you to part with money in exchange for quicker placement (unless, of course, you are able to just throw around money freely- in that case, have you visited my Contributions page?).
Next, search for "site promotion". These are less valuable, but some of them are free promotional thingies that will submit your site to some other sites. What they do is a small number for free, and then try to get you to buy a larger submission. Don't. Just take the free stuff. Most of it is useless, but it will at least get a few search engines to visit.
Nowadays you'll also find blogs and web sites that offer tips on web site promotion. Some of them are just thinly veiled fronts trying to sell you expensive courses or books. Pay no attention: everything they would charge you for is available on line for free. It may take a little more effort to find it all, so if you are in a big hurry, some of the courses or books could be useful, but don't spend a lot of money - it's not worth it.
Newsgroups
Now we get to more valuable actions. If there are any newsgroups that at ALL relate to your site, make it a habit to read and post therein (see http://groups.google.com/googlegroups/posting_faq.html if you don't have direct Newsgroup access ). ALWAYS have your web site mentioned in your signature. If you can possibly work in a mention of a specific page on your site that would be helpful to someone posting, do so. But don't just post blatant advertising; people get annoyed by that.
There may also be mailing lists related to your business. Read them, and contribute when you can. Take a look at http://www.webcom.com/impulse/list.html#Search for mail lists. If your site is technical, see OpenITx (http://www.openitx.com) for listings of technical mailing lists etc.
Try to post intelligently. While the search engines that index the articles don't care if you say stupid things, the people who really read the ne
Before we discuss the topic at hand, I would like to assume a few things on your part. You must be thinking of making some sort of income with the help of your list and you would be using all the steps that have already been discussed including email campaign. It is also presumed that you must have some sort of affiliate product that you are selling and promoting and as a result you must be earning some money already.What we are going to discuss here is going to help you earn additional income with the help of additional products and looking for other means of income. The first method is one of the best ways of generating additional income. If you can develop some additional product, you are bound to generate income. So, the moment someone buys a product from your site, he should be led into the list of other products you have to offer. So, if you don’t have additional products, start making an effort in this direction. It is also essential that you find products that suit your niche.If you are thinking as to where you would get these products, well the internet is full of such sites. One of the best known sites is Clickbank. But yes, selling is all about trust. When you pick a product, use it yourself and check it. Until and unless you are satisfied with the product, don’t put it on your selling list. Reputation has to be carefully managed
("Unique visitors" means individual visitors. That is, you might visit my site two times this month and look at 5 pages each time. That counts as 10 page views, but only one unique visitor. It's not a completely accurate figure; the actual number could be more or less (there might be more than one person behind one ip address, for example), but it's still a statistic that people use to measure popularity.)
Many people tell you that you need to submit new pages as you add them. I've found that not to be true for my sites: Google's Spiders usually pick up new pages here within a few days. That may be because I constantly add new material and the Spiders know to return more often than they would otherwise. Also, Google has recently added its Sitemap protocol which lets you tell Google when you have updated content.
To get links and visitors, there are a number of things to do. Most of these apply no matter what the purpose of your web site is, though some work better for some types of sites.
Suggest a link
Go to Google and search for "suggest". You'll get about about 85,900,000 matches (yes, I'm serious) , most of which are search engines or other web sites that will let you suggest a link to you from them. Fill out as many of these as you can. Ignore any suggestion (like Yahoo will give) that asks you to part with money in exchange for quicker placement (unless, of course, you are able to just throw around money freely- in that case, have you visited my Contributions page?).
Next, search for "site promotion". These are less valuable, but some of them are free promotional thingies that will submit your site to some other sites. What they do is a small number for free, and then try to get you to buy a larger submission. Don't. Just take the free stuff. Most of it is useless, but it will at least get a few search engines to visit.
Nowadays you'll also find blogs and web sites that offer tips on web site promotion. Some of them are just thinly veiled fronts trying to sell you expensive courses or books. Pay no attention: everything they would charge you for is available on line for free. It may take a little more effort to find it all, so if you are in a big hurry, some of the courses or books could be useful, but don't spend a lot of money - it's not worth it.
Newsgroups
Now we get to more valuable actions. If there are any newsgroups that at ALL relate to your site, make it a habit to read and post therein (see http://groups.google.com/googlegroups/posting_faq.html if you don't have direct Newsgroup access ). ALWAYS have your web site mentioned in your signature. If you can possibly work in a mention of a specific page on your site that would be helpful to someone posting, do so. But don't just post blatant advertising; people get annoyed by that.
There may also be mailing lists related to your business. Read them, and contribute when you can. Take a look at http://www.webcom.com/impulse/list.html#Search for mail lists. If your site is technical, see OpenITx (http://www.openitx.com) for listings of technical mailing lists etc.
Try to post intelligently. While the search engines that index the articles don't care if you say stupid things, the people who really read the ne
According to the AFP Fundraising Survey, more than 50% of all non-profit organizations use the internet to solicit gifts. But the true power of moving your fundraising campaign online is the ability to integrate communication, administrative, and reporting responsibilities under a single campaign management tool.Using a comprehensive online giving platform allows you to simplify the collection of donations and increase donor satisfaction. By soliciting - and processing - payments online, you provide your donors and supporters the opportunity to respond at their convenience, while also reducing the time and costs associated with phone solicitations, fundraising events, and mail campaigns.Electronic fundraising tools help you serve donors more effectively, and increase the likelihood of fundraising success. Online fundraising tools allow you to fully utilize the power of the internet to:Increase Fundraising Success: Integrated communication tools allow fundraisers to reach out to more people for support, resulting in a larger audience for your message. Online giving also increases convenience by allowing your participants to donate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.Increased Fulfillment Rates and Reduce the Cost of Collections: Because donations are made via credit card, funds are immediately deposited in your account. This results in less time spen
Suggest a link
Go to Google and search for "suggest". You'll get about about 85,900,000 matches (yes, I'm serious) , most of which are search engines or other web sites that will let you suggest a link to you from them. Fill out as many of these as you can. Ignore any suggestion (like Yahoo will give) that asks you to part with money in exchange for quicker placement (unless, of course, you are able to just throw around money freely- in that case, have you visited my Contributions page?).
Next, search for "site promotion". These are less valuable, but some of them are free promotional thingies that will submit your site to some other sites. What they do is a small number for free, and then try to get you to buy a larger submission. Don't. Just take the free stuff. Most of it is useless, but it will at least get a few search engines to visit.
Nowadays you'll also find blogs and web sites that offer tips on web site promotion. Some of them are just thinly veiled fronts trying to sell you expensive courses or books. Pay no attention: everything they would charge you for is available on line for free. It may take a little more effort to find it all, so if you are in a big hurry, some of the courses or books could be useful, but don't spend a lot of money - it's not worth it.
Newsgroups
Now we get to more valuable actions. If there are any newsgroups that at ALL relate to your site, make it a habit to read and post therein (see http://groups.google.com/googlegroups/posting_faq.html if you don't have direct Newsgroup access ). ALWAYS have your web site mentioned in your signature. If you can possibly work in a mention of a specific page on your site that would be helpful to someone posting, do so. But don't just post blatant advertising; people get annoyed by that.
There may also be mailing lists related to your business. Read them, and contribute when you can. Take a look at http://www.webcom.com/impulse/list.html#Search for mail lists. If your site is technical, see OpenITx (http://www.openitx.com) for listings of technical mailing lists etc.
Try to post intelligently. While the search engines that index the articles don't care if you say stupid things, the people who really read the ne
"Day Job Killer" is the macho-sounding name given by Affiliate Project X creator Chris McNeeney to his latest product. Like AFfiliate Project X, or "APX," Day Job Killer is the result of an experiment Chris conducted with 12 individuals handpicked by him to teach how to make money online as an affiliate marketer. As Chris said regarding the APX 12, these individuals were personally "drip fed" and "force fed" the successful marketing techniques employed by him. As in APX, Day Job Killer, or "DJK," promises to reveal these "secret" ways to succeed as an internet marketer.DJK is the result of Chris McNeeney's months-long 'personal crusade against the industry," presumably the internet marketing industry. Calling himself the "industry party-crasher," Chris has expressed interest in teaching basic but effective ways for the "little guy" to make money at affiliate marketing online.In his mailing materials of early 2007 concerning his newest methods at that time - to be taught to the Chosen 12 or "dirty dozen," as he calls them - Chris stated, "These methods are responsible for $9,000 a day I had recently." This income, he further states, is not from his mailing list but only from pay-per-click or "PPC" advertising.The test cases that became Day Job Killer revolved around "some very unorthodox, new techniques to generat
Newsgroups
Now we get to more valuable actions. If there are any newsgroups that at ALL relate to your site, make it a habit to read and post therein (see http://groups.google.com/googlegroups/posting_faq.html if you don't have direct Newsgroup access ). ALWAYS have your web site mentioned in your signature. If you can possibly work in a mention of a specific page on your site that would be helpful to someone posting, do so. But don't just post blatant advertising; people get annoyed by that.
There may also be mailing lists related to your business. Read them, and contribute when you can. Take a look at http://www.webcom.com/impulse/list.html#Search for mail lists. If your site is technical, see OpenITx (http://www.openitx.com) for listings of technical mailing lists etc.
Try to post intelligently. While the search engines that index the articles don't care if you say stupid things, the people who really read the newsgroups do. If you are helpful, polite, and all the rest (brave, loyal, trustworthy and true), folks will visit your site as a result of your posting. If they find something they like, they'll tell other people- maybe they'll even put a link to you on their own site.
Put your web address on EVERYTHING
Mention your web site on EVERYTHING you do: mail, invoices, pens, coffee cups, business cards- anything you do should mention your web site. I have a rubber stamp and I even stamp bills I'm paying- it never hurts.
I'm fortunate in having a short enough site to get a PCUNIX license plate (that redirects to aplawrence.com) - that's probably not an option for you, unfortunately, but if you have signage on vehicles, make sure it mentions the site.
ALWAYS USE "http://yoursite.com", not just "yoursite.com" in email or newsgroup postings- that makes it CERTAIN that it will be a clickable link for the person reading it- otherwise it may not be.
The site itself
WRITE as much as you possibly can and post the articles on your site. The articles don't have to be great, but the more informative they are the better. If you are an accountant, you can write about accounting and business issues. Your artist mother-in-law can write about brush techniques, color sense- whatever- just write, write, write. The more you write, the more traffic you get. Cross-reference everything as much as possible- with links to your other pages. Your own links make search engines happy, too. Not quite as happy as links from other sites, but still happier than no links at all.
Think about what the people you want to attract to your site are interested in and write about those things. If you are a head-hunter, anything HR related is valuable: legal issues, salary surveys, hiring tips etc. If you sell dog food, pet health and grroming, training techniques, reviews of related books, notice of upcoming shows and so on. Whatever your field is, there are dozens and dozens of things you can and should write about.
LEARN about using meta-tags to help search engines properly index your site. Metatags have been abused so much that many search engines ignore them now, but it can't hurt. Make sure that whatever your article is about gets repeated whenever appropriate in the text. For example, this article is about "web site promotion", so you'll see that I use that and similar phrases throughout this article. Take a look at the meta tags I used here (do "view source"). The more the search engine thinks that the article is about site promotion, the more weight it will get when it is indexed. An excellent place to learn about how search engines work and site promotion in general is Search Engine Watch ( http://www.searchenginewatch.com ).
DON"T do stupid things like repeating "web site promotion" a zillion times in a teeny font or with a background color the same as the text. Search engines are much smarter than they used to be: such tactics will not help and may even be held against you.
Consider allowing other people to use what you have written. If you look at the bottom of any article I've written (including this one), you'll notice that I give free permission to copy it for any purpose- as long as you give credit for where it came from. Quite a few web sites do the same thing, which means that you can "steal" from other people to flesh out your own site and make it more attractive to search engines. It is of course better to have your own material, but when you are getting started, you can have a much more comprehensive site. PLEASE pay attention to copyright notices: for example, not ALL the material on my site allows free copying- other sites may have similar restrictions on certain material.
The advantage to me and the other people you borrow from should be obvious: more links back to us, more publicity, more site promotion and popularity.
Do book reviews- and provide links to Amazon or Barnes and Noble so you even get a little income from people who buy as a result of reading your reviews- I get about $50.00 a month from that- not much, but it pays for buying more books to review (actually I've done so many now a number of publishers just send them along free) and every review brings more people to my site.
I keep rough track of sites linking to mine. You can check that on Google using their "site:" tag. You want the number of sites to keep growing.
These are the ways I built my traffic. You can get some relative idea of site ranking by visiting http://www.a
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