In the real world, I am a farmer. I raise goats, horses, and garlic, to be exact. Looking at how to capture that all elusive free, targeted traffic is a lot like trying to pen up 15 goat kids who are running loose in the barn. You see, in the barn, there are all kinds of obstacles that keep me from being able to simply shoosh them into the pen. There's horizontal bars, support posts, and all kinds of nooks and crannies that give them an easy escape route. There are too many obstacles and turns between me and the kids - so it's hard to catch them just by myself.
Web traffic is a lot like the this. You, the webmaster, can see the traffic out there, but that traffic has got other places to run to that is between you and them. So how do you "pen" that traffic in?
Well, going back to the barn and goat kids analogy, here's how I bring in the kids (traffic). First off, I've got to know how their base thought processes work. In the case of goats, they are herd animals, which means they prefer to move as one. They are also looking for the path of least resistance when they are moving about. In the barn, I am their resistance - in other words, I want them to come towards me, not away, but they don't understand me - so they go towards something that isn't trying to get their attention in such an obvious way.
I need to anticipate this behavior. So I set up some chain link panels in the areas they tend to run towards, which in effect diverts them more towards me. But they won't run up to me like a good ole farm dog does, they just follow the direction of the chain link panels - as far away from me as possible. But that's okay. Because I've set up the fencing points so that they kind of "follow" it towards the pen. While they are skirting me, I'm slowly moving around with, and behind them. Before they know it, they are at the opening of the pen, and since I am now coming up behind them, they run into it, and I follow up to close the gate.
This is how I look at natural, organic, free traffic on the web. If you want free-roaming visitors to come into your "pen" (website), you've got to set up some guide points to help them along.
My next post will talk about the virtual fence panels that can be used to help funnel more web traffic to your site.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
Free Web Traffic To Your Site
This is another established, high-traffic domain that allows you to place a link on their site, within whatever category you want. For a very small fee, you can also create a full-page ad that will point back to your website with the anchor keys of your choice.
This site had a Page Rank of 6 at one point, and with over half a million backlinks, that would make sense. However, I've noticed that it has dropped to a PR3 in the past couple of months. I would think that it is not considered a "link farm", but maybe the sheer volume of the links, without regard to focus or quality, had enough of a bearing that Google does not take it seriously any longer. An interesting experiment to obtain that coveted PR10 status, only to lose precious ground in the last Google update.
Relevant, or complimentary, links is what Google has been talking about all along. Matt Cutts gave a speech a few months back where he gave some simple advice that went along the lines of: Don't force your site on Google - let (Google) find you through natural and popular consensus (relevant backlinks).
This site had a Page Rank of 6 at one point, and with over half a million backlinks, that would make sense. However, I've noticed that it has dropped to a PR3 in the past couple of months. I would think that it is not considered a "link farm", but maybe the sheer volume of the links, without regard to focus or quality, had enough of a bearing that Google does not take it seriously any longer. An interesting experiment to obtain that coveted PR10 status, only to lose precious ground in the last Google update.
Relevant, or complimentary, links is what Google has been talking about all along. Matt Cutts gave a speech a few months back where he gave some simple advice that went along the lines of: Don't force your site on Google - let (Google) find you through natural and popular consensus (relevant backlinks).
Saturday, March 1, 2008
AmazingCounters
AmazingCounters.com
This is a free web traffic counter service with lots of different styles to choose from. The site feels, and looks, fun. Signup is very simple, and requires basic information such as email, name, site info, and password. You can choose from scores of counter themes to compliment your website.
I chose the palm tree design - hey, it's still winter here in Northern New York and palm trees are looking real nice about now...
This is a free web traffic counter service with lots of different styles to choose from. The site feels, and looks, fun. Signup is very simple, and requires basic information such as email, name, site info, and password. You can choose from scores of counter themes to compliment your website.
I chose the palm tree design - hey, it's still winter here in Northern New York and palm trees are looking real nice about now...
DigitalPoint Free Web Traffic Counter
DigitalPoint.com/tools/counter
This one has been around for awhile now. It is simple, very basic, and does what it is supposed to do - count the visitors to your pages. You can customize this counter with little graphics as shown by the sailboat image below.
This one has been around for awhile now. It is simple, very basic, and does what it is supposed to do - count the visitors to your pages. You can customize this counter with little graphics as shown by the sailboat image below.
StatCounter Free Web Traffic Counter
StatCounter.com
Very feature-rich for a free website traffic counter. Sign-up is quick and requires your website url, your name, email address, and time-zone specs. You can choose whether the counter will be hidden or visible. There are some other customization selections also. You can track referring sites/links for your visitors. The free account has a limit on the log space available.
View My Stats
Very feature-rich for a free website traffic counter. Sign-up is quick and requires your website url, your name, email address, and time-zone specs. You can choose whether the counter will be hidden or visible. There are some other customization selections also. You can track referring sites/links for your visitors. The free account has a limit on the log space available.
View My Stats
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Free Keyword Research Tools
Researching keywords has got to be one of the most intimidating, and time consuming, processes involved with internet marketing today. Unless a person or company has a very generous advertising budget, the only way to get a site seen by lots of organic traffic is to optimize for specific words or phrases, and then hope to get ranked high enough in the search engines for them.
Part of the idea behind getting free traffic to your website is not to spend too much money on the tools to get that traffic. There are quite a few keyword research sites and tools available for a price. Fortunately, most of the top priced companies also offer introductory, or free versions of their programs. Below is a growing list of free tools available for keyword research. Know about a free keyword research tool and don't see it listed? Leave a comment below.
Part of the idea behind getting free traffic to your website is not to spend too much money on the tools to get that traffic. There are quite a few keyword research sites and tools available for a price. Fortunately, most of the top priced companies also offer introductory, or free versions of their programs. Below is a growing list of free tools available for keyword research. Know about a free keyword research tool and don't see it listed? Leave a comment below.
- Wordtracker - probably one of the better known. Paid services can be expensive, but most web owners starting out may want to try out their free keyword suggestion tool.
- Google Adwords Keyword Tool - It makes sense to use the most powerful search engine today to do your keyword research. Google offers a multitude of free resources for the web owner - their free and very thorough tool will give you all kinds of keyword ideas.
- The Dowser - This company has many keyword and SEO research tools available for a price. They also offer a powerful desktop keyword research tool for free which helps you generate thousands of keywords and manage them from your pc.
- Keyword Discovery - considered by many to be the best alternative to the now defunct Overture search tool, you can use their free search term suggestion program online.
- Nichebot - Nichebot offers extensive tools in their paid service, but you can get some basic keyword research done through their free Nichebot Classic keyword tool.
- SEO Book - offers a keyword suggestion tool that pulls data in from the Wordtracker database. Nice, easy interface.
- Webmaster Toolkit - This is a free online keyword suggestion program that will pull results based on your search engine selection such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alta Vista, and others.
- Keyword Tumbler - A downloadable keyword research marketing tool that will take your keywords or phrases and give you a ton of variations with addon words, thereby giving you thousands of new keyphrases built around one theme.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Targeted Traffic
Once their websites are published online, the serious web owner starts looking at how to get more traffic to their site. Knowing that increased visitors can potentially bring more profits, thier search for the holy grail of traffic generation leaves the online entrepreneur vulnerable to many of the traffic scams and schemes that are on every corner of the Internet.
Lofty promises of easy, high volume traffic and massive profits often suck in even the most savvy of business persons because they want to believe the promises made by these traffic hawkers. It has been proven many times over that high volume will not necessarily translate into a high sales rate.
Visitors who come to your site through exit traffic, safe list memberships, or redirected from expired domains are not truly filtered for the particular product or service that you are offering, which more often than not results in them clicking off your site seconds after they have arrived. Quality traffic comes from people clicking links on topics targeted to what they are interested in and then being a directed to a website containing information they want and expect as a result of clicking that link. The bottom line is that the best and most dependable sources of targeted traffic come from links that people click.
To determine just how targeted your visitors are, you will need to track their activities from entry to the end result, whether it be a signup to your list, a purchase, or exiting. Being able to determine which clicks actually result in sales is vital. To track conversions from click to sales, and depending on the type of shopping cart software you are using, you can create a custom order confirmation page - i.e. the page that is displayed once the transaction is complete. This is very easy to do if you're using a payment processing service such as Google Checkout, Paypal, or any of the other third party payment processors.
Pay attention to the type of user demographic you are trying to target. Each search engine and web site has a particular type of user (age, interests etc.), and they will have different triggers that lead them to purchasing or completing a desire action. All of these things are important for you to know so that your advertising dollars will be spent in the most advantageous places.
Lofty promises of easy, high volume traffic and massive profits often suck in even the most savvy of business persons because they want to believe the promises made by these traffic hawkers. It has been proven many times over that high volume will not necessarily translate into a high sales rate.
Visitors who come to your site through exit traffic, safe list memberships, or redirected from expired domains are not truly filtered for the particular product or service that you are offering, which more often than not results in them clicking off your site seconds after they have arrived. Quality traffic comes from people clicking links on topics targeted to what they are interested in and then being a directed to a website containing information they want and expect as a result of clicking that link. The bottom line is that the best and most dependable sources of targeted traffic come from links that people click.
To determine just how targeted your visitors are, you will need to track their activities from entry to the end result, whether it be a signup to your list, a purchase, or exiting. Being able to determine which clicks actually result in sales is vital. To track conversions from click to sales, and depending on the type of shopping cart software you are using, you can create a custom order confirmation page - i.e. the page that is displayed once the transaction is complete. This is very easy to do if you're using a payment processing service such as Google Checkout, Paypal, or any of the other third party payment processors.
Pay attention to the type of user demographic you are trying to target. Each search engine and web site has a particular type of user (age, interests etc.), and they will have different triggers that lead them to purchasing or completing a desire action. All of these things are important for you to know so that your advertising dollars will be spent in the most advantageous places.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
