Friday, September 16, 2005

 

Do You Want To Increase Your Website Traffic? You Need Content!

Why do people visit your website? Pay per click? Word of Mouth? Lots of advertising? Dumb luck?

Whatever gets them to it, only one thing will ever make them come back. And that is "Content."

What is content? It is information of some type that is of interest to your visitors. They learn something new or see a new slant on something they had heard about or are otherwise entertained. They return, hopefully often, to see what you have new. Keeping content fresh is key. Here are some ways to do just that.

1. Start a newsletter that has articles and content about the products you sell on your website. Offer an opt-in signup form on you website to receive your newsletter. Send your opt-in list a newsletter at least once a week. To make it fresh, write about one of the features of your product in each newsletter.

To add content, answer questions from your subscribers. It will make them feel good seeing their names in print and the time it takes to write the answers will go toward writing your newsletter, not just answering one email. Many of your subscribers probably have had the same question, but didn’t know whom to ask or didn’t want to take the time to write.

One caution: don’t turn your newsletter into a commercial. Make it interesting and they will click on your URL and buy. Make it a commercial and they will unsubscribe! Get free reports or ebooks at free resource sites and offer them to your readers as a nice gesture or as a bonus for purchasing your product. People love freebies. Give them what they want and they’ll come back.

2. Take those same articles and submit them to Article Directories like http://www.ezinearticles.com/ . Be sure to attach a resource box to the bottom of your article. A resource box is a 4 to 6 line short bio about you and a description of your website, including a live link. When submitting your article, make sure to request the article to be reprinted "as is" with your resource box attached. Imagine your article being printed in several directories with URL’s linking to your website!

3. Increase your search engine ranking and, therefore, the number of visitors who visit your site, by posting articles and content on your website. The more you put keyword rich text in your articles, the more likely the search engines will pick up your site. So, if your business involves offering products and services related to health, posting health-related articles and content will attract visitors to your site. If your business involves offering products and services related to vitamins, posting articles and content about vitamins will attract visitors to your site. I think you get the idea by now.

4. Go to www.blogger.com and create a blog with a name relating to your niche market or product. Put the articles and content mentioned in item 3 above in your blog. Blogs lend themselves to articles. Put links to your main website in your blog. This may be easier than updating your main website with articles unless you can maintain it yourself and update it with FTP.

5. Create an automated cashflow by using content in email training courses that have strategically placed live links to your website and affiliate programs. Turn your articles into courses. Use an autoresponder to automatically deliver the course, one chapter at a time. Use your course as a sign-up bonus for your newsletter or the purchase of your product.

6. Visit Forums that are related to your niche market. Read what visitors have to say. If they ask a question that you can answer, answer it. Sign it with your resource box information and live link to your website or blog. Even better, tell them to visit your site to read about the subject. If you can't answer the question, research it and write an article about it. Put it on your site and return to the Forum and now tell them the answer or to visit your site. Do this quickly before someone else answers it.

7. Instead of writing articles, write a review about a product you have used. Make it honest and about 500 words long so that search engines will take the review seriously. Again, add your resource box at the end of the review.

These are some ways to increase your traffic to your websites and increase your ranking in the search engines. Maybe I have stimulated you to think of other ways. Good.

Whatever you do to get visitors to your websites, you must build a relationship of trust with them. Give them good, worthwhile content and you will build a large list of subscribers who will look forward to visiting your websites and receiving your newsletters and product offers. You will also build your reputation as an expert in your niche.

If you do this properly, then they will become customers, they will buy a lot of your products and you will become rich!

Regards,

Walter Bowman