social media, web 2.0 traffic, internet marketing

William Potts asked:


Social media implies that you facilitate a two-way discussion, rather than a one-way bombardment of marketing messages. In short, this means that you stay engaged and in a discussion with visitors.

Social Media sites come and go like the wind. It seems like every 5 seconds some entrepreneur is just around the corner with another Digg or del.icio.us knockoff.

Hoping that whatever maneuver they can bring to the table will make them this week’s hot topic or at least clever enough to catch the eye of whomever might have some money and want to absorb some wicked bit of code or an entire social media community.

Social media (or new media) involves a LOT of things, a lot of tech, and could need a lot of resources (not necessarily money). When you say you do social media, and you want to launch a network of some sort, does that mean the entire process is done in-house?

Social media marketing can bring traffic and links to any website. Too often, marketers overlook the value of social media and tend to stick with traditional methods, while the younger generation of webpreneurs has employed social sites as an every-day strategy.

Social media is gowing at a such a rate that domains, websites and blogsites will increase in value due to the increased demand for webspace. The social aspect is driving the net into new territory and expands exponentially because of its viral nature.

Social media – as understood in a Web 2.0 context and has enabled us to play more effectively than was practical previously, on a global field.

Social Media has released us, freed us: and we won’t go back. Social media has been a great resource for both ideas and traffic for my blog. If you work and get noticed in social media and it gets passed around that’s a great way to promote your work.

Social media seek’s (in theory and in word, at least) a different kind of influence: peer review and approval. The medium and the form of discourse that it supports are wide open.

Social Media is a Branding Exercise – while social media sites can send you a lot of traffic very very quickly they can also be excellent places to do branding. Every time a reader or potential reader comes across you on a social media site the more you reinforce your brand.

Social media marketing is actually becoming necessary but it has to be done right. It is about the weight of numbers and it will bring some honesty, ethics and accountability back to doing business.

Social Media is conversational media in all its interactive forms including text, video and spoken words – whether face to face, over the Internet, over the airwaves or via mobile technologies such as iPods and cell phones.

A Social Media Club is intended to be a place where amateurs and professionals can come together to learn from one another, to understand each other and to work together on the things that make meaning in their lives – their personal passions, their professional endeavours and their noble pursuits.

Social Media, doesn’t even really exist as a subset of media. Everything is social now, we just expect it. Social media companies will race to provide metrics that show impressive results, but that’s not necessarily a good thing, especially given the ways measurement may shape investment and in turn shape the evolution of social mediums.

Social media campaign’s go far beyond the traditional agency model of media planning and buying. So do advertisers they actually get into the game and get their campaign’s out there.

Social media is changing the way online businesses advertise because control of the message is shifting to the consumer.

Social Media Optimization (SMO) is a new term that was recently coined by Rohit Bhargava and has since been taking on life of its own. SMO tactics can drive huge amounts of people to a website and can also determine whether a startup, website or idea will make it or not.

Social media will be the optimal place to market especially with a recession. Social networks are a rich source of HIGHLY niche audiences and therefore are highly target-able.



Patrick

Michael Tasker asked:


s the lifeblood of every website but not every type of traffic directed to a website will be beneficial to the owner. A carefully created stragey for generating targeted traffic will enable the website owner to build a stable foundation for their business. The wrong traffic could kill a business.

Listed below are 4 website strategies that you should always avoid is you want to build a steady flow of targeted traffic that could subscribe not just to your list but emerge as a paying customer.

1. Buying Traffic. This is where a website owner pays for links to their website. The trouble is these links could be placed on another website that does not compliment the product or service offered. The end result will be visitors to your website (it will generate some traffic) but the quality of that traffic will be poor. Just remember that poor quality website traffic, unlike targeted traffic, is unlikely to subscribe or even more importantly buy your product. Spending more on links may just be wasting money as the concept is rather flawed in the first place.

2. Traffic Exchanges. These websites request that you sign up and start to look at other member websites whereby you will be rewarded for doing so by reciprocal visits to your website. Just remember, it will take you an enormous amount of time looking at other websites to build you reward points. This encourages surfing just for the sake of building points. Do you want visitors to your website coming for the sole reason to build their points? This is not the quality traffic that you are looking for. Some traffic exchanges cost money to buy into a higher membership level promising better quality traffic. You are unlikely to see an acceptable return on your investment using this method.

3. Banner Ads. There was a high volume of websites with flashing banners and graphics a few years back but they are fewer in number now. They have probably had their day. You placed banners or graphics that were clickable on a high traffic website and they took the viewer back to your website. Unfortunatley, too often these graphics or banners were just not relevant to the product and many websites were just plastered with them. It not just confused the viewer but could annoy them as well.

4. Safe Lists. These are lists that you sign up to and agree to receive emails from other website owners. In effect it cut out spam. You have to pay for the service and in return are promised that you will receive a torrent of targeted traffic to your website. Often, the torrent turns out to be a trickle and those that do pay your website a visit are mostly likely not who you are trying to target. This can be costly for you and should be avoided.

For every one poor website traffic strategy there are lots of genuine ones that are proven to work, don’t cost you anything and are easy to implement. Website traffic strategies andsearch engine optimisation go together as the higher up the search engines your website is the more traffic it is likely to generate. If website owners are paying big money to use Google’s Adsense, then this proves that a high search engine placing will bring traffic to your website. But there are other methods available that are free to gain high search engine placings that anyone can use.

By using the proven methods for website traffic generation a website owner will always have a better chance of targeted website traffic flowing to their website rather than use these outlined methods that will cost you time and money but result in very little if any traffic, and mostly unlikely any targeted website traffic that a website based business requires to thrive.



Davon

Michael Tasker asked:


Without website traffic your online business will never succeed, yet it can be found for free with article writing as part of your website promotion strategy.

There is a wide variety of strategies you can adapt to drive traffic to your website, from advertising to affiliate marketing. However, most of these techniques require some form of payment. However, there are ways to promote your website and increase your web traffic without spending anything. Writing articles is one of the best web site promotion strategies you can use, and they can be very effective. How, you may ask, can writing articles help improve your web traffic?

Here are the top six ways in which it can help explode your website traffic.

1.Larger potential audience

When you write good articles, it is a disservice to you and your website not to share them with other people. You can post your articles in your website or you can submit them to other sites such as e-zines and online publishers. By submitting your articles to these sites, you give exposure not only to your ideas but also to your website and thus increasing website traffic. Simply include a link back to your site or include your information in the resource box. With this, you get exposure and free advertising as well. Submit your articles to popular e-zines and take advantage of their popularity. Other sites who find your article relevant may also link back to you. And therefore, you increase your link popularity which in the internet world is one of the most important strategies for more website traffic and a high webpage ranking. Remember that most people are looking for information online and by filling this need with your quality article, you may reap the benefit of more exposure and thus higher web traffic.

2.Free Advertising

By submitting your articles to other websites presents an opportunity to advertise your website without paying fees and increase your website traffic. Although you should avoid marketing language in your articles and make it informative and useful to your readers, you can always include your site’s link in the resource box. In addition, by making your article relevant and helpful to your readers, you are making a good impression for your website, which could ultimately lead to a visit to your website and hopefully a purchase. Good quality content in an article is far better and more effective than a few lines of ad space. You have a very special opportunity to presell your product or service to your prospective customer.

3.Gain High Search Engine Ranking

Another easy and free method of gaining website traffic is to create a new web page for your article in your website. Make sure you optimize your newly written article to make it search engine friendly. Use top-ranked keywords and Meta tags that can give your website a high search engine ranking. As soon as you upload your new webpage to your server, search engines will spider through it and you can gain an increase in search engine ranking. Remember that search engine optimized content is a very effective strategy to gain a high ranking in search results.Relevance and quality is still the most important things to consider when writing articles and it will be doubly useful to your site if you make these articles search-engine optimized.

4.Increase Link Popularity

Instead of looking for other sites who would want to establish reciprocal links with your website, you can simply submit an article to other sites. It is essential to include a link to your website in your resource box. When these websites pick up and publishes your article, you automatically get a link partner. Try to get as many link partners as you can. Link popularity is one of the factors used by search engines in determining search engine rankings.Higher search engine rankings will most definately lead to higher website traffic for you. Make your article especially useful and appealing, so that more websites will be encouraged to publish it.

5.Establish a Good Impression and Reputation

By writing excellent, original and relevant articles, you not only give your site exposure and increase traffic, you are also creating a good impression on your prospects. Encourage more people to visit your site and do business with you by establishing an impressive reputation through your articles. Be seen as an expert in the field and your will ultimately gain more customers eager to do business with you.

6.Enhance your credibility through references and testimonies

Certainly, your articles are going to receive feedbacks and testimonies when you publish them in e-zines and free article sites. Record these positive feedbacks and comments and use them as promotional material in your website or in any of your advertising efforts. Your credibility will be greatly enhanced by these feedbacks, as it will create a good impression on your prospects as well as your existing customers. The two facets of credibilty and trust could be the two most crucial things you need to not only attract new customers but also to keep your existing customers buying from you. Original, relevant, useful and pertinent articles are important tools you should utilize to improve and explode the amount of traffic that visits your website and ultimately becomes your customers.



Annette

Billy Baker asked:


website is up and running, don’t think you can just sit back and get traffic to your website without lifting a finger. It is not that easy; well, it can be if you know what to do. Think of your website as organic, something that continually evolves and grows into the future. So how are you going to get website traffic? I will give some tips here in principle.

I will later introduce you to traffic knowledge that will have you operating at the top end with other traffic masters. Let’s take it one step at a time.

You have done everything right. Now you need to let people know you exist. Maybe you are wondering if you should buy website traffic or, maybe, if there are things you can learn to get more website traffic more quickly and easily.

Some ways to improve your website traffic include content and article marketing, in-bound linking, Web 2 strategies, free website directories and search engine optimization. If you do nothing, you will likely get very little traffic.

1. Content and Article Marketing

To get traffic you need top quality content on your website. If you don’t, any visitors you do get will click away from your website immediately and move to the next one in the list.

Article marketing can be used quite affectively to drive traffic to your site. Write good quality articles relevant to your website’s content and submit them to online directories.

This will help get you noticed and listed in the most popular search engine directories. Remember to stick with quality. Check places known for their stringent approach toward quality such as ezinearticles.com to get an idea of what you should be doing.

2. Creating Links

Start a link campaign. The best way is to get in-bound links commonly known as back-links from similar or complementary website owners. Another way to create links is to make informed comments on blogs and forums that allow you a link to your website address. This is effective and many will click your link simply out of curiosity, especially if you have interesting things to say in your field. But remember, it is not the quantity of external links that is important; it is the quality of them. Keep away from reciprocal linking, it is most often not worth the effort.

3. Web 2.0 Strategies

Web 2 strategies, often known as social marketing, have become a huge online marketing tool. YouTube, Flickr, Reddit, Propeller, MySpace, Facebook, Stumbleupon and Digg are all examples of social marketing tools that have come to the forefront in recent times. There are many ways to use these communities to promote yourself and improve website traffic in an ethical manner.

4. Free Website Directories

Promote your website to online newsgroups and free directories. These can be invaluable for getting your name out there quickly. Take care with directories and make sure you’re not submitting to a link farm. Search engines despise link farms. Make sure the directory offers significant traffic. Google themselves promote Yahoo directory and niche directories as good places to list your site. Yahoo charges a hefty fee but you have to decide how much credence you place in your site.

5. Search Engine Optimization

Make sure your website is optimized so search engines list you. Once you are listed your web address will come up when people type in your keywords. To optimize your website use keywords in your content, the same keywords in you meta keyword tag, a sensible and relevant meta description, headlines and page titles. Don’t cheat! You need to learn a little more about On-page and Off-page optimization. You can Google these terms and find out more in detail later.

No longer do we live in an age where we can expect people to come to us. It is essential to know your target market and tactfully encourage folks to visit. Usually with quality. Remember, that in the end, real people will decide the future of your site so don’t be in a rush.



Ashley

John Dow asked:


The basics of boosting website traffic revolve around getting more website links. This is the most misunderstood area for most new and even some experienced webmasters. Links are the lifeblood of any website for gaining authority or higher search engine index rankings and directly receiving traffic by people who click on the links.

The hot tip when going for effective website links and boosting traffic is to create links that have both search engine love and induce the viewer to click to find out more information. The most used paid means of this type of linking is Google’s Adwords Program.

The problem with Adwords, beside the expense, is the huge amount of competition and complexity of executing a profitable campaign. Many a smart webmaster loses his shirt trying to learn the ropes on Adwords campaigns. It can drive a sane man (or woman) crazy. It certainly can be done but the learning curve is brutal and expensive.

Three better solutions exist for boosting website traffic that are all free, and much easier to master. Two of these methods are similar and can be used together to make them even more effective. The third is the perfect solution if properly executed. Did I mention they were free too?

The first two involve writing and publishing articles. If you’ve been on the Internet more than a few days I’m sure you’ve heard or read about article marketing. But to do it well, you need to make sure you follow the three basic steps listed below.

Do Your Research – Make sure that the articles you write are of interested to your target group. Don’t just pull a subject out of the air, check to see what people are searching for, what the competition is, and make sure it provides value to the reader.

Double Team – Publish articles to a respected article directory like EzineArticles.com or Isnare.com. Then write an article to post on your website with the same subject matter but different content. Refer the reader of the published version to your website version. Use a good lead in, like very specific information, check list, or anything to attract the reader.

Content Rules – Any article you write must have some value to the reader. Headlines get their attention, the article provides value, and don’t forget the action item at the end to produce the results you want. Those three items must be present to make article marketing effective.

The third best boosting website traffic method is making comments or providing answers on other websites with similar subject matter to your website. Many overlook the value of keeping the subject matter related on any linking activity. Numbers help, but when you get a link from related subject, it increases the search engine respect for the link. And one way links are always a good thing.

Which in turn, will give you a higher index ranking for the link. But it also will mean that the people who do click on your link will be more targeted. This can be a huge factor in getting high authority links for the search engines and getting the visitor that you want.

If you sell a product or service on your website, getting targeted traffic as opposed to general traffic will greatly improve your conversion rate (number of visitors by number of purchases). After all, the traffic you want is potential buyers, not people surfing around looking for something to read.

So how do you find these subject related websites to make comments on and leave links? There are several ways to do this with the search engines. Do a search under the subject related keyword or phrase that you know will relate to your website. You should see websites that have forums, blogs, or comment areas that you can post information and leave a link in your signature.

Do not post crap, no value comments, or objectionable content. The website owner will most likely remove any comments that fit into those categories anyway. Provide valuable information to the reader, don’t solicit, be friendly and helpful. Demonstrate your value to the reader, and they will click on your link.

When looking for places to post comments, you can make sure you get both the possible click from the reader and the credit for the link by checking to see if they use what’s called the nofollow link method. In your browser there is a button that allows you to view the source of each web page. If you view the source and do a find or search for nofollow, it will show whether they use that linking attribute.

There’s some value even if you don’t get a link credit if the website has visitors that fit into your target group. But getting both the link value and targeted click is the best of both worlds. Posting on websites provides an easy way to get links and targeted website visitors. And posting on websites is much easier than sending out requests for reciprocal links that never get any response.

The basics of boosting website traffic should always include linking methods and the three free ways listed above can work well. Writing articles and posting on other related websites should be a part of anyone’s quest for more website traffic.



Marilyn