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Throwing a banner ad up on your site
won't do you a lick of good unless
you have people coming to your site.
Find out how to get them in.
Ideally, if you want to maximize
your chances in making a sale, you
will need a professionally hosted
web site. You may not have the money
for a big web site, but it is better
for you to have your own web site
professionally hosted than have it
on a free host site.
Having your own web site does not
have to be expensive. There are many
hosting companies who will have your
site for under $10 per month. And
to have a domain name is really inexpensive
at $12 per year. Go through a company
such as iPowerweb
for hosting and they will even throw
in the domain name for free if you
subscribe for at least 1 year. You
can have a live site without competing
banners in a matter of 48 hours or
less. The one year package is only
$95.40 which includes the domain name
and set up fees.
The benefit of having your own site
is you have better control over content,
traffic, and ad placement as well
as access to a cgi-bin which can help
you create scripts to make your site
more interactive.
- Free sites tend to set very low
limits on traffic levels which is
a disadvantage if you need the traffic
in order to generate money.
- Free sites often impose their
banners and pop up ads first and
foremost over your content, so your
message is already drowned out before
you have a chance to reach the audience.
- Free sites also tend not to be
friendly when it comes to creating
meta tags. Meta tags are the ones
the search engine spiders read and
report. If a spider is blocked access
to your tags or if they cannot be
read, your site cannot be listed
on the search engine.
- Free sites also scream instability
and not trustworthy. If you want
to get people to trust you enough
to buy, you want to stay away from
any image that makes them think
you could be a fly by night operation.
There are so many free sites that
come and go so quickly that keeping
a bookmark is sometimes pointless.
People like to buy from a site that
looks like it will be around for
awhile.
Now you know how important it is
to have a web site professionally
hosted, you need to know the importance
of your domain name.
You want it to be easy to remember
so if people want to recall your site
and tell it to their friends, they
won't forget it.
Search engines also give a higher
ranking when your domain name is a
keyword of the topic of your site.
Take some time and think of several
possible names and do a check to see
if they are taken. If you find one
you like that is available, grab it!
With a professionally hosted web
site and a domain name with your keyword
in it, you have created the first
major steps in getting traffic.
You are now ready to create your
sales page. Keep
in mind the psychology of the web
surfer. Why would they come to
your site in the first place? What's
in it for them? If you don't give
them a reason to be on your site,
they have no reason to come to your
site. Keep in mind the saying, "If
you build it, they will come."
Build what? Content!
Content is the key to running a successful
web site. Create a few articles relating
to the product. This is why it is
very helpful if you buy the product
so you will know exactly what you
are selling.
Be creative. If you want to
sell the product on the advantages
you get on your golf game, make a
page on tips for playing golf or perhaps
the history of golf, or places to
play golf... the possibilities are
endless for topics on golf.
Perhaps you are a spiritual buff
and want to use that angle. Devote
your site to the powers of the subconscious
mind, the history of spirituality,
angels and/or spirit guides, being
your higher self...
If your angle is on stress, you could
create a site dedicated to how stress
affects the body, relationships, the
world... You could create a site on
the humor related to stress, what
gets people into a stressful situation,
or specific stressful topics such
as dealing with divorce, suicide,
mid-life crisis... Use your mind!
Within your article, you can mention
this great product you have which
can help improve their lives related
to the topic of your article. Work
it into your script as often as you
can without being too forward about
asking for the sale, a simple, "Click
for more information," or "Release®
Technique" link should suffice.
Once your article is done, be sure
to have a banner above and below your
article. You want one at the top so
you can introduce them with the Release®
Techniqueidea. It will be re-enforced
throughout your article. Then at the
end of the article, have another banner
ad to give the surfer one last opportunity
to look into your product before moving
on.
With the top banner ad, you could
put a text link under it saying, "Click
here to learn about the Release®
Technique." With the bottom banner,
your text link under it could say,
"Click here to order the Release®
Technique today." Do you see
how this asks your viewer to take
action? Chances are better they will
take action when asked to do so. The
more people you get to click through,
the better chances you have of getting
sales.
But how do you get people to your
site to see the ads in the first place?
When you have the article done
and the ads in place, that is not
the end of the story of creating your
web site. If you want to make sure
the search engines will see your site
and rank it higher than other related
sites, you need to use tricks of the
trade.
In the Tools
article, you will find a helpful guide
to creating the meta tags you need
to make sure the search engines will
see you and properly list you. Be
sure to put those meta tags in between
the head tags.
The basic meta tags you need will
be the title, description, and keywords.
The title should include at least
one keyword, the most important keyword
to describe your site. It should be
relatively short, catchy, and to the
point. The title is usually the first
thing listed about your site in the
search engine and is in bold letters.
You want your title to stand out above
other listings on the search results
page. For help in coming up with catchy
words, click
here.
Your description is usually the second
part listed on the search engine results,
right next to the title. You want
the title to make people look, but
your description is what will draw
them to click your site instead of
the other results pulled up.
Keep your description short and to
the point, no longer than 20 words,
and catchy.
Your keywords are very important
and usually misunderstood. No matter
what anyone tells you, there is no
guaranteed method to be listed as
number one on every search engine.
What you should aim for is to make
it in the top 3 page results.
Your keywords must be relevant to
the page. People think the keyword
"sex" is a sure thing to
get traffic, but they would be wrong.
There are hundreds of thousands of
real sex sites out there and not every
one of them will be listed as number
one if someone enters "sex"
in the search engine. In fact, if
your site is not about sex, those
looking for it will not be impressed
and go elsewhere.
Many people also make the mistake
of being too broad with the keyword
terms and try to cover every popular
topic under the sun. This also will
not rank you very high.
You need to be specific about your
page keywords. For instance, if your
page is about Tiger Woods and how
the Release Technique® can help
you play like him, your keywords should
not be so broad that it includes EVERY
benefit about the Release Technique®
or every term related to golf in general.
Instead be specific and use keywords
such as "Tiger Woods, improving
your golf, releasing for golf, Release
Technique and golf, be like Tiger
Woods, play golf like Tiger Woods..."
This will ensure that those who are
looking for information such as you
provide will find you and you will
rise above those who merely used keywords
like, "golf, tee, caddy, sex,
get rich quick, stress relief..."
The other meta tags do useful things
like report the copyright, language
used, rating [general content, adults
only, for kids...,] and messages for
the robots visiting your site on which
pages to report and how often to come
back on your page.
Meta tags are a big trick in getting
search engine traffic, but can be
boosted with images.
You can add images to your site which
will also boost your ranking in the
search engines. 1 by 1 Pixel images
work great. They are quick to load
and almost invisible. Using the alt
="" code within the image
tag, place your keywords. In the image
tags that are with the banner, use
words like, "Click here for The
Release Technique."
With all that in place, you can review
your page. Is it quick to load? Does
it give the visitor valuable information?
Is it easy on the eyes? Are there
any annoying turn offs: loud music,
too many pop ups, slow loading shockwave...?
Do you have the ads evenly placed?
Do you ask for action on the part
of the visitor ? Do you have catchy
title and description tags? Do you
have relevant keywords to your page?
Do you have keywords in your alt tags?
Are there keywords within the article
itself?
Once you get through all those problems,
you are ready to publish your page
to your web site. Use an FTP type
of software (many are available and
if you use Windows you have access
to Web Publishing.) Follow the directions
to upload the pages to your web site
and you are officially up.
Now you need to get found by the
search engines.
The best way to be listed in the major
search engines is to do it manually
or use the proper software or submission
service to do it for you.
Read between the hype of the software
submission programs. There are really
only a handful of true search engines
and the thousands they claim are actually
free for all link pages, classified
ads, and directories. As long as your
link is out there somewhere, a spider
will eventually follow the trail to
your site and you will eventually
get listed. But do you really want
to wait and take a chance?
Use a program such as
iSeek Traffic which is easy to
install and use. Just enter the information
about the site you want to submit
and you can even click on the Spider
option so it fills out all the rest
of the information for you. Then use
the Submit section and click on Search
Engines, FFA, and Batch to get full
coverage and start it up. You will
usually see your site listed on most
engines within 2-8 weeks. Just submit
to search engines as rarely as possible.
If you over do it, you can be blackballed
from listing for spamming the engine.
You can use that iSeek
Traffic to send your link out
to batch and FFA sites on a daily
basis. This saves you a lot of time
instead of manually entering the information.
You can get traffic in the places
you usually go. All the online clubs
and organizations for which you signed
up may have a Profile option where
you can tell more about yourself to
the community at large. Include a
link to your site!
If you are a regular on a newsgroup
or message board, create a 2 line
signature line with a link to your
site. Just be sure it is not blatant
advertising! A simple title of your
site, your name, or a catchy phrase
can be used with your signature link.
You can also use this for your outgoing
e-mail.
Once you do have visitors, you
would like for them to come back and
invite their friends.
This ensures you will have traffic
for quite some time with little extra
effort on your part.
To keep the visitor coming back,
be sure to imply that more information
will be added so they will have a
reason to see your site again. You
might want to drive that point home
to them by encouraging they bookmark
your site. On the Tools
article is a code you can use to help
people bookmark your site wiht a simple
click. If they bookmark it, they might
come back again.
To get the visitor to talk about
you to their friends, make it easy
on them with a script that can be
found in the Tools
article - Refer A Friend. It's a simple
cgi script developed by Bignosebird.com.
This script allows visitors to enter
the e-mail addresses of their friends
and send a personal note to ask them
to visit the page they were just on.
The friend gets an e-mail with the
subject that says "[Friend] wants
you to see this." And it will
have a personal message from their
friend and a link to your site. You
will need to follow the directions
exactly and know a little how to chmod
the script and to send in binary,
but it really isn't too hard. Your
host site must have a cgi-bin in order
to use this script.
Create a free newsletter or ezine
for visitors to your site.
You can send an e-mail to those on
your list daily, weekly, or monthly
to catch them up with the latest information
on your site or the topic of your
site. Invite them to come back for
more. Don't advertise in the newsletter
for the product as the highly sensitive
will cry spam! [Even if you have safeguards
up, some will run straight to your
ISP, host company, and the affiliate
with accusations of spam and get you
shut down before you can tell your
side of the story.] Merely tempt them
to click on the links to go to your
site to read more on the article.
Pitch the sale on your web page.
Just a word of warning before you
do a newsletter or ezine, be sure
you sign up with a program that can
help you with the process to weed
out names. There will always be some
wise guys out there who forgot they
signed up for your newsletter and
accuse you of spam or those who like
to put other people's e-mail addresses
into those forms.
Before you join a program ask if
they do a double check or request
a confirmation by e-mail before being
added to the list. This is VERY important!
If that person replies to the e-mail
and follows up, there will be proof
they did indeed sign up for it under
that e-mail account. Also, ask if
there is an easy way for people to
unsubscribe by clicking a link.
In your e-mail, be sure to add disclaimers
that they are receiving this because
they have subscribed. If they are
getting this by accident, you apologize.
To be taken off the list, click on
the link.
As long as you have the safeguards
up, you should have a pretty safe
e-zine or newsletter.
These are just a few techniques you
can use to get traffic to your site.
The more methods you use and the more
you use them, the better traffic you
will have. More traffic means more
sales.
Continue with Managing
Your Time
Copyright
© 2003 Judi Copeland,
AAA Resources
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