7.29.2021

Best tips to drive traffic to any website - part 4

Best tips to drive traffic to any website - part 4

In this post, we are going to talk more about using articles as a tool for driving traffic.

As I’m sure you know by now, traffic is very important for any website to be successful and it’s especially vital if you want to earn money from the site. As we have discussed before, you can drive traffic to websites using a variety of methods including free and paid.

Some may say that article marketing is dead, but in my opinion among all of the different ways of driving traffic to a website, writing and submitting articles remains one of the most powerful tools you can use to get more visitors not to mention it helps turn you into an expert in your industry, which can only lead to good things!

Why is writing and submitting articles so great for driving traffic?

One of the main reasons is because they produce long-term results. A good article will continue to drive traffic to a website for a very long time after it’s published. They are always working for you by being available for anyone to read with a convenient link for them to visit to find out more.

Unlike other methods that offer quick results, articles have a lasting effect that keeps on giving sometimes for years. While they may not bring in hordes of traffic, all at once, they will often bring a small amount on a regular basis and this type of targeted traffic shouldn’t be ignored. They also provide permanent one-way links to your website, which is great for search engine rankings.

They are a very affordable way of driving traffic to any site you choose. You can write your own articles or you can hire a ghostwriter to write them for you, which usually isn’t very expensive.

You can then publish your articles to various places like your blog, social networks and article directories. There are also tools that you can use to automatically submit your articles to multiple directories at one time which when done correctly can increase the number of links pointing back to your site substantially.

As I mentioned earlier they also help build online credibility by turning you into an expert in your niche. Once you become recognized as you an expert people will listen to what you have to say because they trust you. Then they will feel confident when it comes to purchasing the products and services you recommend.

Articles are great search engines bait and the more you publish the more your site will be indexed and the better your rankings will be in the directory results. If your article happens to set listed in the top ten results on one of the major search engines like Google or Bing, you have the potential to get massive amounts of free traffic.

By including specifically targeted keywords in your articles you can get even better results, because the search engines will show your listing to people who are looking for information related to your niche and type those keywords, your articles and website show up on, therefore making it easy for you to get a lot of traffic on your website.

Lastly, they have a very viral effect. People who read and like them are likely to share them on social sites, with friends and even put a link to them on their own websites, which makes them extremely powerful for driving traffic anywhere you want to go.

Although it’s important to generate high volumes of traffic to a website in order to see result, it’s even more important for that traffic be targeted so that the people who visit your website are more likely to purchase the products and services you offer.

Since getting visitor’s to any website can take time and money, you don't want to waste your energies getting every person you can to the site. It’s much better to focus your efforts on reaching the people who are really interested in what you have to offer.

Now let’s go over a few ways you can accomplish this.

First, get to know your target customers and make sure that all your traffic campaigns are targeted. Once you know who you’re targeting it will be much easier to reach them.

This means understanding their wants and needs. It also means using the right method of contact as well as the right keywords and emotional triggers in your content and advertising materials. For instance, if you’re using Google Adwords, your ads must be designed to appeal to targeted consumers. If you’re writing articles, they must contain the carefully chosen keywords and phrases that your customers search for online.

Make sure your website is listed in the top search engines and directories that are related to your niche. For example, if your website is about selling products or services that relate to staying healthy, get your site listed under the health category. This way when people who are looking for this type of information there will be a better chance that they will find your website.

Publicize your website in relevant forums and online groups. Remember, the more you know about your potential customers, the better you will know where to find them. This means you can go to the relevant forums or online groups where they hang out so they can get to know you and you can subtly point them where you want them to go by sharing a link in your signature, which will conveniently show up whenever you post.

Make sure to be helpful, post relevant content and always keep in mind that the people in these forums are targeted consumers who are much more likely to buy from you once they get to know you.

Always be on the lookout for other websites that your target customers visit and inquire about advertising your site on theirs. Often time you can work out a trade where you promote their site in exchange for them promoting yours. This usually works best if the site you want to advertise on isn’t a direct competitor.

By combining several of these targeting techniques, you can generate plenty of targeted traffic to any website you want.

Next, I will be talking about a few more benefits of targeted traffic.

Best tips to drive traffic to any website - part3

Best tips to drive traffic to any website - part3

In the previous post, we talked about several ways to drive more traffic to any website you want. Now, we are going to talk about creating a solid plan for driving more traffic to any website.

Creating a marketing plan that outlines the steps you’ll need to take to drive traffic to any website is crucial. It will help you establish your goals and set up a cost-effective advertising budget. It will also help you determine a solid timeline and decide what tools you’ll need to get the job done.

Today we are going to go over a few simple strategies that you can use to develop a marketing plan specifically designed to generate traffic.

The first thing you should do is establish objectives and define your target URL’s. Once you know, exactly where you want to send the traffic, you’ll be able to determine the best way to generate it, whether it’s SEO, article writing, PPC or other methods like print advertising, social media or video marketing.

Next, you should establish your goals in terms of revenue. How much do you want to earn from your traffic campaign. This will help determine the volume of traffic you’ll need to reach your goals. Your objectives and goals will guide you in deciding the level of promotion you need to do to send traffic to your desired website.

Establish your advertising budget is a very important step. There are many ways of driving traffic to your website; some are free, some affordable while others can be quite expensive. You need to know what your budget is, so you can decide what methods will work best in your situation.

Bu sure to include allowances for necessary tools you’ll need. For instance, in order to capture leads and follow-up with your prospects, it is necessary for your website to have an email marketing system.

This captures your site visitor’s email addresses so you can contact them whenever you have something of value to share. It will also send out prewritten broadcasts automatically so you can set up a series of follow-up messages and let them go to work for you. Of course, these emails will have a link to the website where you want to send the traffic.

You also need to think about your short and long-term traffic strategies. It’s important to include multiple methods for generating traffic in your plan. As I mentioned previously, one of the quickest ways to generate traffic to any website is pay per click (PPC) advertising. This is because it can bring almost immediate results. It can be a great way to get a quick boost, but unless you keep investing on a regular basis it won’t last for long, so you need to have other methods for driving long-term traffic in places like blogging, SEO strategies, article marketing or forum participation because they are less costly and have more lasting effect.

Before you start implementing any strategy for generating website traffic, it’s essential to do your research and have a good understanding of how the method works this way you can create a solid plan of action to follow.

Make sure you look for the next post soon. We will be talking about more about using articles as a tool for driving traffic.

4.27.2019

Searching for Jack of all Trades

Using "Jack of all trades" for a shirt titled "Wizard of all trades" is complicated enough with the inclusion of "Jill of all trades" without more. So, naturally, I placed my t-shirt design on two separate venues, which should dilute all the links I manage to obtain. I did it anyway.

4.23.2019

Optimizing Zazzle product pages - an example - part four

Optimizing Zazzle product pages - an example - part four

Here is the solution to my trademark infringement problem. I cannot use the phrase "Jack of all trades" because that is a registered trademark for the name of an online t-shirt business. So, I changed the design to "Wizard of all trades" with the same illustration. This should not present any unwanted legal problems down the road. I can still use "Jack of all trades" as a key word phrase for SEO purposes.

The link above, for example, is a link to the following shirt design on Zazzle.


https://www.zazzle.com/z/l6qag?rf=238769370457645507

I'd very much like for Google, Bing and Yahoo, or other search engines, to link "Jack of all trades" to my t-shirt design on Zazzle.

Now, back to optimization.

"Jack of all trades" cannot be used for a main product title, and unfortunately it does not appear that anyone is searching for "Wizard of all trades." There is nothing I can do about that. According to Neil Patel's key word site Ubersuggest, the phrase "Jack of all trades" has about 22,000 searches per month. "Jill of all trades" has only 880 searches a month, but there is very little competition for it. My t-shirt design "Wizard of all trades" is uni-sexual, so I'm aiming to rank for both Jack and Jill.

Another valuable key word tool is Google Correlate.

Google Correlate is part of Google Trends. According to Google, “Correlate finds search patterns which correspond with real‐world trends.” It is just a numbers game, but it can produce useful key word insights. It also produces random junk, so the results must be examined with a gimlet eye.

Two interesting key word points emerge from plugging "Jack of all trades" into the Correlate engine.

A lot of people search for fragments of the original, namely, "of all trades" and "jack of". Each are candidates for use in key word SEO optimization.

So far, my list of best key words is this:

  1. Jack of all trades
  2. Jill of all trades
  3. Master of all trades
  4. of all trades
  5. Jack of
 This is enough to get started planting links back to my Zazzle product page, and embedding each as tags on the Zazzle product page itself.

So, for example, "Master of all trades" is a phrase tag on the product page for my t-shirt design, and "Master of all trades" is a direct link to that page, even though the name of the product is "Wizard of all trades."

As I said, my research shows that several hundred folk are searching for "Master of all trades" each month, but nobody is looking for "Wizard of all trades."

(to be continued)









Optimizing Zazzle product pages - an example - part three

Optimizing Zazzle product pages - an example - part three

The example I am working from here . . . a "Jack of all Trades" t-shirt design on Zazzle.com is a real example of a real t-shirt design I am working to optimize and promote, so my presentation is not a seamless experience of smooth progress. There are snags and set backs that only become apparent to me at the most awkward times.

I forgot to check  with the US Patent and Trademark Office to see if there were any intellectual property rights that my design and product might infringe, and unfortunately, there is a big problem.

Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)

A Canadian company, Vision/Eleven Apparel Management Inc., owns Trademark (# 4077726) on "Jack of all Trades" for "Men's, women's and children's clothing, namely, t-shirts, tank tops" etc.

My t-shirt design clearly infringes this Trademark, and I must change it to avoid a lot of unnecessary trouble and wasted effort.

I should have done this first, but I didn't.

There is no legal problem with the illustration based on a standard playing card Jack. The problem is with the name "Jack of all trades", which I have no right to use on a t-shirt.

I think I will change it to "Master of all Trades"

Nope. That trademark is owned by a guy in Texas, Michael Wein.

  1. Fix-it Wizard is available.
  2. Carpentry Guru is available.
  3. Maintenance Whiz is available.
  4. Master Repair might be a problem.
I'll have to think about this and how to proceed.


4.22.2019

Best tips to drive traffic to any website - part2

Best tips to drive traffic to any website - part2

In the previous part, we talked about some of the more basic ways to generate free website traffic. In this section, we are going to go over several more ways that you can drive traffic to any website you want.

For any online business to succeed, it is important to have traffic to their website. Without traffic, there won’t be any visitors, customers or sales, which ultimately leads to failure. That is why it is so important to learn how to drive traffic where you want it to go.

As we previously discussed, you can drive traffic to any website even if you’re on a tight budget and today we are going to discuss some essential ways to accomplish this without spending a fortune in advertising.

One of the best ways to get more traffic is to provide fresh, unique and useful content on the website where you want more traffic. This is often referred to as content marketing. What makes this so effective is that the majority of people go online looking for information about the products and services they are thinking about purchasing.

Providing them with high quality, unique content on your website is like bait to lure them in and when it’s “really valuable” it keeps them interested. The nice thing about this method is that it works whether you are promoting your own website, your client's site or sending traffic to affiliate offers.

Bottom line, content is the best way to attract real visitors and get them to spend more time on your website. It will inspire them to share, bookmark, and return often. With every visit, they get one-step closer to becoming a paying customer. It also helps boost your credibility because when you provide lots of useful information on your site, it makes you look like an expert in your niche, which builds trust and trust converts people into customers better than anything else does.

Optimize your website for search engines. In order for your site to be found on the search engines when people are looking for information, make sure that you use keywords and phrases in your headlines and throughout the rest of the content. This means that your site will show up and rank well when people search for those keywords and this will drive more traffic to your website.

Participate in targeted forums and social networks. This is also a very effective way. Join in on the conversations, answer questions and post useful information that is closely related to your industry. Just be sure not to post blatant adverting because most of the time this will get your posts deleted. Again, make sure to include a link to your website whenever appropriate.

Use viral marketing to drive traffic to your website. Write free ebooks or short reports with a link to your website as we briefly discussed in the last part. Have a link to your website on your blog and on any press release that you write. These will all drive traffic to your website for a long time to come.

Drive traffic to your website using PPC (Pay per Click) advertising. This method will require a monetary investment. However, if you have an advertising budget, you can generate a lot of traffic very quickly by running a PPC campaign on Google Adwords, Facebook or other similar program. Just make sure you know what you’re doing before you invest or you could end up losing more than you make.

Video marketing is a very popular way to drive traffic to any website. You can create a video about your product or service that you offer on your website and post that on YouTube. Add your website link on that video, and this will make sure that people who view your video will also visit your website.

By following even a couple of these tips, there is no reason why you can’t drive a lot of traffic to any website you choose, which in turn will help boost credibility and increase profits.

Make sure you look for the next post soon. We will be talking about creating a solid plan for driving more traffic.

---oOo ---

Optimizing Zazzle product pages - an example - part two

Optimizing Zazzle product pages - an example - part two

I usually start with an online Thesaurus for help with key words. I use Merriam-Webster's online Thesaurus.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/jack%20of%20all%20trades

Here is what the product looks like. It is a man's t-shirt with a large red Jack from a deck of cards, with an assortment of hand tools and saw blades incorporated into the illustration, with the word phrase "Jack of all trades."



Starting with "Jack of all trades"plugged into the Thesaurus, we get the following synonym suggestions:

ace, adept, artist, authority, cognoscente, connoisseur, crackerjack, expert, geek, guru, hotshot, maestro, master, maven ,  past master, proficient, scholar, virtuoso, whiz, wizard . . . to list just a few of them.

Given the handyman maintenance theme of the illustration, I shall explore a select few alternate key words

  1. Master Repair
  2. Maintenance Whiz
  3. Carpentry Guru
  4. Fix-it Wizard
The idea is for the right type of person be able to find this t-shirt while looking for something else online.

(to be continued)



Optimizing Zazzle product pages - part one

Optimizing Zazzle product pages - an example - part one

Zazzle.com is a print on demand (POD) web based business where independent artists designers can have their art designs available for sale on a wide variety of paper products, wearing apparel, drink ware and other novelties. Each designer may create online "stores" hosted by Zazzle, and these stores feature the merchandise with the artist's designs. The individual product pages for each specific item are the bottom-line aspect of every store, where the sale happens.

The store operator has three places to input key words and phrases on each product page.

1. The title of the product,

2. Ten key word tags, and

3. A brief product description.


The title of each product is the most important part, both from a human user's point of view and from a robot SEO point of view. The title is the most prominently placed, above the fold, and it is repeated in product image links and HTML generated by Zazzle for embedding in web pages.

The ten key word tags are next most important for SEO.  The tags are not visible to a human site visitors, but they are visible to robots by being embedded in "ProductDescription-attribute" tags.

The written description appears well below the fold, and it is useful, but less so that the others. The main advantage of the description is the space allowed makes full English sentences possible.

A typical Zazzle product page link, as provided by Zazzle, looks like this:

https://www.zazzle.com/z/l6f28?rf=238769370457645507

This link consists of two parts: A page URL and an affiliate ID. The link URL is to the product page on my Zazzle store, Bodacious Bodega, for a man's t-shirt with an original "Jack of all trades" illustration. Since every registered Zazzle user is automatically assigned an affiliate ID, any Zazzle user can link to any product or page in my store and earn 15% commission for sales arising from use of the link. It is simply a matter of them substituting their own affiliate ID number in the link string above.

The embedded HTML provided by Zazzle (slightly modified by me) looks like this:


The first link example given above is just numbers with no special human significance. The embedded HTML, however, not only uses "Jack of all trades shirt" which is the product name, and "Bodacious Bodega," the store name, it also uses a different internal page link that includes the product name:

https://www.zazzle.com/jack_of_all_trades_shirt-235197214292583050?rf=238769370457645507

For SEO, this second link is a much better option.

(to be continued)

Best tips to drive traffic to any website - part1

Best tips to drive traffic to any website - part1

In this post, you will learn valuable information, tips and techniques that you can use to drive more traffic to any website you want. Including your own, your clients or to affiliate offers.

We are going to go over some of the more basic, but essential tips for generating free website traffic because who doesn’t want more free traffic. :)

Driving traffic doesn’t have to be complicated or cost a fortune. In fact, there are several simple ways that you can start driving traffic that won’t cost you a dime. Implementing a few of these proven techniques can definitely help you get more visitors to your website and most of them won’t take you very long either.

Content is King! I’m sure you may have heard that phrase more than once before and when it comes to getting traffic it’s true. In fact, it is what makes the web go round and it’s one of the best ways to boost the flow of traffic to any website.

That is why the first tip I am going to share with you is to write articles closely related to the topic of the website you want to send traffic to and publish them everywhere. Let people know that they have permission to share them with others so that they publish them on their own websites as long as they include a link back to yours.

To make the most out of this technique you should submit them to other sites that publish content from guest authors and article directories like Ezinearticles.com. You can also set up a microblog on platforms like Reddit, Tumblr, Hubpages, Mix (previously called StumbleUpon) or Medium.

Whenever you publish, make sure that you include your URL in the author’s resource or bio box of your articles, so that when your article gets published people who like the information you’ve provided will be inclined to visit your website.

This same technique works well for short reports and ebooks. Create something of value to give away and most people will be glad to share it, carrying a link to back to your site with it everywhere it goes. 

Include your URL in your business correspondence. When it comes to getting traffic, you can’t be shy. Anyone you communicate with can be a potential customer. People are curious by nature so why not take advantage of it by giving them the opportunity to find out what you have to offer.

This also works well for all of your online correspondence as well. Be sure to include your URL in any emails, social profiles, forum signatures and any blog comments you make. This way, when people read what you have written they will be exposed to your URL.

Arrange a joint venture with other website and list owners. Make a deal with them to advertise your website in exchange for a commission or some other form of reciprocation. This won’t cost you anything and it can be one of the fastest ways to generate traffic and increase profits.

If you don’t have a blog, set one up and add content to it on a regular basis. There is a very good reason why so many people use blogging platforms like WordPress to publish content and that is because it is very beneficial for getting good search engine rankings.  Every time you add new content to your blog, it will ping the search engine robots to come to index your site, which leads to better listings and ultimately more traffic.

To help increase the visibility of your blog even more you should submit it directly to search engine and blog directories. While this will happen naturally over time, you will speed up the process if you take the time to submit your URL to at least the major directories like Google, Bing and Yahoo.

If you want to take this process a step further, you can create an RSS feeds for your site and submit the feed URLs to the major RSS feed directories as well. This will generate traffic to your website. If you are using WordPress it will automatically publish an RSS feed for your content and comments. Then all you have to do is submit it.

These techniques are time-tested, proven ways to generate a steady flow of traffic to any website without spending a fortune. Best of all they are easy to implement and they can have a long-lasting effect on the amount of traffic your website receives.

Make sure you look for the next post (part2) soon. We will be talking about several more ways that you can drive more traffic to any website you want.

12.14.2018

Headspace or shelfspace

Headspace or shelfspace. You don't know what you want until you see it.

Headspace is the vague, but useful, measure of an individual's subjective capacity to consciously experience the combined inner and outer environment at any one time. Headspace is not static. Headspace is a dynamic process of shifting attention between the two primary vectors; noticing and remembering.

Headspace measurement is notoriously imprecise and unreliable. Noticing can degenerate into imagining and remembering can be distorted by fantasy or false associations. Since headspace is limited, Since headspace is limited like shelfspace, it must be selective.

The limited nature of headspace explains the behavior of absent-minded professors. Einstein had so completely engaged his thinking about theoretical physics that he forgot to wear pants. He was so focused on his headspace process, he also failed to notice every item of overt evidence regarding his lack of trousers in public.

Limited and unreliable headspace is the reason for shopping lists. Others rely upon shelf displays as a memory aid. With a list you know what you need if it is on the list. With shelfspace you know what you need when you see it. If it is not on the list or not on the shelf, it falls through the cracks.

A related concept is that you often don't know what you have until it's gone. President Barack Obama is a good example of this. Consider Obama's face as it appears on a coffeemug. If you had merely heard or thought his name, would the fact he is the Nation's first and only black President come into your mind, or do you need the visual representation as a reminder, see acollection here.

The forty-forth President of the United States. Gone but not forgotten.