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Archive for the ‘General’ Category

Build a Hub, Get Free Traffic

Most content on the Internet today is user driven, meaning anyone can create content and post it online. The thing is that not everyone knows how to use SEO (search engine optimization) to get their content seen by search engines. If you’re one of those people who are creating content but not sure how to get it seen, consider setting up a Hubpage (hubpages.com) and let them do the optimization for you.

Hubpages allows users to create and set up their own hub for free and submit content that they retain the rights to. You can have your own website and repurpose the content or create new content on Hubpages with backlinks to your main website. Hubpages has been considered an authority by Google so the content you create may get to the search engine results faster than if you had written and posted on your own site.

Since Hubpages allows you to link back to your main site and create a user profile for free, readers can find your content and click through your main site, which is where you want the traffic from the Hubpages you create to go to. However, Hubpages can also be utilized as your main site as well which still results in free traffic.

Offer Free E-books to Drive Free Traffic to Your Website

If your website needs traffic, you can find many free e-books that give you the rights to offer them free on your website. If you need to drive traffic to your website, you can offer a free e-book to anyone that wants it. This way, you also get a email list of visitors for future uses such as newsletters. Free e-books and newsletters to those that received the e-book is a way to get free traffic and email people your newsletter when you make updates.

Of course, you can just add a application to your website for people to subscribe to your newsletter, but giving away a free e-book is just another incentive to keep coming back to see what you are up to every day. Use Twitter to announce a free e-book giveaway and watch the people flock to your website. Everyone enjoys getting something for free even if it is just an e-book.

Market yourself and your website free. This is the one thing that many first time web owners don’t know about and start spending money on marketing campaigns with no profits coming in. Don’t make the same mistake. Free traffic just takes a little work on your part.

Join a Forum in Your Niche Area

Forums that are in your same niche area are great places to mingle and state your intentions. If you join in conversations and become known for what you have to say, people are going to follow any link you supply. Of course, this takes some time because people need to get to know you first. However, links to your website will stay visible for everyone to see. You can drive traffic to your website by becoming a force in your niche area.

If you have a wealth of information about catfish fishing and you have an e-book to sell, you want to join a forum with other anglers. The forums should be populated with real people. May sure, before you join the forum to check the areas of interest to make sure that there are recent entries. You want a forum with at least five digits in followers.

After you join, you can add your website link in your signature. This allows anyone to click it and land on your website. After time, you can talk about your knowledge and what you might have for sale or for the readers to enjoy. Free marketing is always the best way to make money and get traffic.

Make a Hubpage to Direct Traffic to Your Website

Hubpages can be used by website owners such as yourself to drive free traffic to your website. Hubs are informational articles that can be linked back to your website. Another aspect of a hub is that while you are driving traffic to your website, you can also add your own Amazon and eBay affiliate links and Google AdSense. Even if someone reads your hub and decides, it is not for them, maybe you can earn a little money from affiliate marketing.

For instance, if you are selling a work at home product that you think can help everyone. You might write an article about working from home. You can then add your website URL to link back. What you have done is intrigued the readers curiosity. They are going to click your link just to see what it is you have to offer. Become an authority on your niche and make many hubs that link back to your website. Hubs are free to create and stay online forever.

Every good backlink to your website helps you get higher up on the search engines and more people will see your website before others. Use a catchy title and watch the traffic flow.

Cash in on Free Traffic with Contests

Run a contest on your website and give away a product such as a book, e-book, kid’s toy or something related to your niche. People love contests and will follow links to any contest just to see what you are giving away. Have them leave a comment to be entered and guaranteed that they are going to keep coming back to see what you have every day.

Now, to use contests on your website, you have to get the word out that you have a contest. You use Twitter and other social bookmarking sites to spread the word. You may have noticed by now, that social networking plays a big part in generating free traffic to your website. You not only want to use the social bookmarking yourself, but you want to get others to recommend your website as well.

You need readers and by offering a contest where someone can win something just by leaving a comment or even writing a short note about the contest on their website or blog is the way to do it. Backlinks to your site helps with the search engines and again helps with traffic. All of this is free and can drive traffic to your website.

Get the Traffic You Need with Testimonials

If you have a website that sells something or that gives out great information, people are going to be willing to give you a testimonial in return for the good advice or product. This is a sure way to bring more traffic to your website. Twitter for one, is a great way to have people give a testimonial for your website. If someone thinks that you have a good product or a good resource website, they are going to recommend it to others by way of Twitter.

Not only can they use Twitter, but they can use other social networking sites as well. Digg, MySpace, Reggit and StumbleUpon can also be a way to get free traffic. People read your website or buy a product and do a little social bookmarking on your behalf while recommending your website with a short testimonial about the site to others. Now you have hundreds if not thousands of people seeing the testimonial from someone else and they have to check it out to see for themselves.

Testimonials are a great way to driver free traffic to your website and keep it going. You don’t have to be a marketing expert to increase traffic this way.

Advertise Your Site in Your Email Signatures

How many emails do you send each day? If you’re like the average person who uses a computer on a daily basis, you may send or receive up to 100 messages a day. That’s a lot of opportunities to share your website! If you haven’t added a direct link to your site in your email signature, you are missing out on a lot of free publicity.

You may think that the people you communicate with wouldn’t be interested in your site. Some people don’t include a link because they think it is the equivalent of spamming someone. This may at one time have been seen as so, but it is common now for business emails to have signatures with not only website addresses, but with addresses for social networking profiles and more!

Take advantage of the emails you send every day by taking the time to set up an email signature. It’s easy. With most email programs, you can input your information in the “settings” and you’re ready to go. Not all email platforms will allow HTML sigs, so in this case you may need a free signature program such as WiseStamp. These programs will automatically insert your email sigs each time you open your mail to compose a new message.

List Your Site in Niche Directories

A great way to get your site noticed by people who are specifically looking for information relevant to your site is by listing the URL in a niche directory. A niche is a specific area of interest or demand. If you are selling a tangible product, different niches can include books, movies, cleaning supplies, food, and much more.

Your site’s area of interest may be very specific or extremely broad, but either way you are sure to find a niche directory where you can be listed. A simple search of your product type may bring up locations where you can list your website. More than likely however, you’ll just bring up competitor’s websites. Try a search using your product and “listing directory”.

The main advantage to using niche directories to add a listing is that you are already reaching your target market. Advertise your barbeque business in the “Memphis Area BBQ You Can’t Miss” directory, and you know your URL is going to be seen by people ready and wanting to try your barbeque.

It takes little time and no expense to list your website in directories, so there’s no reason not to take this simple step to free marketing. It’s like listing your business in the yellow pages–for free.

Offering a Free Report to Your Readers

If you’re looking for a free and relatively easy way to draw free traffic to your website, offering goodies to your readers is always a good choice. Visitors love getting freebies–whether they’re a newsletter, a free report, a mini-series, or something of the like. Offering a free report is a common way to gain subscribers and get readers and one-time visitors to return to your site.

You can outsource the writing of the free report if you are better at running your site than writing. Many freelance writers can put together a quality report for you in as little as a few days, depending on the length, at a fairly inexpensive price. Once you have the report to offer, there are a couple ways you can distribute it in exchange for an increase in website traffic.

Perhaps the most popular way to use free reports is to offer it to your readers if they sign up or subscribe to a mailing list, through which you then try to sell your product or service. These mailing lists are managed through service such as AWeber. You solicit signups through the offer of this report, and you instantly add to your list of potential customers. Though readers may eventually opt out of the mailings, many find it too cumbersome, and you’ll most likely enjoy the benefit of a large mailing list for quite some time.

Use Profiles to Advertise Your Websites

Profiles–they’re everywhere! From social networking sites, to niche groups, to professional networks… at any time the average person has ten or so online profiles at various websites. Think of the potential these profiles have to bring in free traffic to your website. With each link to your site you increase its visibility, but you also add to the power of the web working for you while you’re offline.

Whether you’re actively participating in these sites or not, your profile will almost always remain active and visible to anyone who stumbles across it. Advertising your website URL on any profile you set up makes sense. Of course, you may have a niche site that you don’t want associated with certain profiles. In that case, you may only want to share your URL when the network you are on is more generalized, or geared toward a larger audience.

If you use Gmail, you can now create a profile that Google creates as a webpage. When someone does a search for you or a site you are associated with, the profile will show up at the top of your search. This is a great way to advertise your site, as Google allows you to add unlimited links and references on this profile. Take advantage of this marketing tool to get traffic to your website.