social media, web 2.0 traffic, internet marketing

Matthew Henderson asked:


In order to make sales online, you need to receive targeted website traffic. While all traffic can potentially lead to sales, it’s targeted website traffic that will bring you the most money. If you’re selling musical instruments, for instance, then your targeted traffic ought to be people interested in making music.

There are many ways to get targeted website traffic. Some will cost you money while others are for free. All you need is a good strategy, a positive attitude, determination, and maybe even a bit of patience. Whether you plan on getting your targeted website traffic to come in through search engines, links from other websites, article marketing, social networking, etc., you need to develop a strategy and stick with it.

If you have enough money to spare, then you can buy advertising space on a site similar to yours, but more popular. The investment can well be worth it, especially if the site has a page ranking of at least five or six. Not only will your ad be seen by many people, but they will be targeted. Having your page linked to a similar website with a higher page rank than your own will also increase yours.

If you want to develop your site with search engine optimization, then prepare for some hard work. Article writing and SEO go well together. You need to write several articles a week with keyword density at around 2% – 4%. Make sure all of your articles are well written and interesting. While you’re at it, you should add a lot of good metatags to your website as well. If you’re uncertain about what keywords to use, there are plenty of SEO professionals that will help you.

One great, fun, and free way to get targeted website traffic is by becoming involved with social networking. Many social media sites, such as YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and Stumbled Upon are great places for webmasters to interact with potential customers. If you create an interesting profile and make updates to it daily, you can meet a lot of people with similar interests. You’d be surprised at the number of webmasters receiving targeted website traffic daily through these websites.

While you’re at it, join forums about your niche. Interact with others and put in your two cents about everything. You can have your website as your signature. There’s no need to outright spam; you can get targeted website traffic by just proving your worth as an expert. People will read your posts, find them interesting, and decide to visit your website.

And one of the ways to get targeted website traffic fast is to use pay per click marketing. Just be careful and be sure to study up on the ppc marketing methods before jumping in full steam. There have been many, myself included, that have lost quite a bit of money by jumping in too fast. However, don’t let that discourage you because when used correctly, ppc’s can bring you a lot of targeted traffic fast.

These are some of the most popular strategies for getting targeted website traffic. Choose at least two or three of these methods and stick with them. Don’t give up. Spend at least an hour or two a day working with these methods, and you will receive all the targeted website traffic you need!



Bonnie

Justin Brooke asked:


In conversation with other marketers, I am often asked how Social Media Marketing is useful to a website. I realize that not everyone understands how social media marketing (SMM) can affect a websites page rank, traffic, sales (the list could go on).

Content is an extremely valuable resource to all web users. By putting it to work for your website you can find yourself as the “Reliable Content Provider” also known as an “Authority” on that topic. You can use social media to give you that authority.

Recently, I implemented just a few of the social media techniques taught my Social Media Rockstars and promoted my website to top ten Google rankings – making it an authority site for a keyword related to my business. Here is my example of how social media marketing affects the natural search listing.

1. First, I had a business website that needed more traffic (what website couldn’t use more traffic). This is already a successful website for a few other keywords, but I wanted to spread the valuable content provided with this website.

2. I then researched a high traffic, low competition keyword that was related to my business website. You only want traffic that is looking or searching for what you can provide them. I do not want to falsely advertise with irrelevant content otherwise all my efforts with social media marketing would be a waste.

3. Next, I researched my market to find out what they were looking for and how I could best provide valuable content to the web searchers looking up that keyword.

4. Then I created multiple forms of content – content is information provided to a website searcher; this can be text, video, or audio. *Remember that relevant content is what you want to create.*

The content was broken down into one short video and 12 articles. 3 of the articles were 1000 words, and the remaining nine articles ranged from 300-500 words. Note: be sure that this content is in someway relating back to the main site that you wanted to increase traffic, sales, or reputation. Whatever your purpose, be sure that this content is helping.

5. Now you need to spread the content across the different social media sites. I added the larger articles to the more popular social media sites.

Of course the video went to you tube. And for the social media sites that allowed me to share a video along with my content I added the video to it.

These 12 articles and one video spread across 13 sites drove traffic back to my businesses website. The key here is to post your content on a site that has a high page rank. This will tell the search engines that the content is coming from a reliable and valuable source. In return, those high ranking sites give your site higher rankings (or a more trusted reputation) because it’s being promoted by a high ranking website. (Sort of like the popular high school student introducing the new kid – you start off on a higher social status).

Don’t stop there! With social media marketing you need to share the content. You can so this by using social bookmarking sites, posting the information to a blog and sharing the article links in a forum. People are always looking for free information. Share your free information with everyone you can. If it’s valuable and relevant to the web users you shared it with they will also bookmark it on social bookmark sites creating viral traffic.

Now if, you remember form the beginning my main purpose was to increase traffic to an already published website. I now have 12 articles, loads of social bookmarks, and a video linking back to my website. If I did my social media marketing correctly this will definitely increase the traffic coming to my business website.

But that’s not my only result: because I have all of these popular authority sites sending traffic my way, the search engines now see that I am providing valuable content. In return for providing this content and sharing it through social media marketing tactics I have boosted the listing placement of my original website. Now in the search results for my targeted keyword I have dominated the top 5 pages with articles, social bookmarks, videos, and more importantly my main business website.

With my recent efforts in social media marketing (with in the last month), I moved my business website from the 21st position in Google to the 8th. On top of that, I hold 14 other positions in the top 30 search results for my targeted keyword. All this and I didn’t use half of the resources available with social media marketing.



Terry