Site TRAFFIC. How to get it!

Your Own Domain Name

Doing business online starts with your own website address (domain name).
At the mere cost of about $10 for your own website address there is no good reason for not taking this vital first step. When it comes time to promote your site you want to promote YOUR business not that of your service provider who has given you an address within their domain name.

When you promote your own address you are advertising YOUR site, not that of someone else.
Domain Specific Email Addresses

When you get your own website address (domain name), most service providers usually include email addresses specific to that domain name.

For example, info@sandihunter.com

It is better to use these kinds of domain specific email addresses for the following reasons:

-every time you send an email you are promoting your own website address

-many people like to use the free email addresses provided by Yahoo or Hotmail however every time you use that email you are promoting Hotmail or Yahoo’s services rather than your own services

-using a domain specific email address looks more professional
Book URL variations with original content

Since the cost of getting a domain address can be as low as $10 per year, many people have booked multiple website addresses that are variations on their primary address.

Example:

Primary address: www.sandihunter.com

Alternate addressees booked:

www.sandihunter.ca

www.hunterconsulting.com

The reason for doing this is to try and get better indexing within search engines, or to prevent someone else booking a domain name very similar to yours which may steal some traffic.

However, if your reason for booking multiple domain names is for search engine indexing you need to be aware that this will not give you a distinct advantage unless the content on each site is unique and not simply a duplicate of the primary domain name. Furthermore, if you post content to the primary domain name, then set up autoforwards at the alternate multiple addresses you will not likely get the results that you want. Most search engine indexing works to log only original non-duplicated content.
Offer Your Own Referral Program

Referral programs, also known as Associate programs, or Affiliate programs have been around for many years. One that you may instantly recognize is Amazon.com. Amazon’s Associates program allows people to choose items from the millions listed in their online catalog and promote them on their own Web site. Amazon then pays their Associates a percentage of the selling price of qualifying items that are sold through website links. There is no cost to join Amazon’s Associates program. Amazon’s Associate program is so popular because it is easy to do and really does work! One of the reasons for Amazon’s astronomical growth has been due to the success of their Associate program.

People all over the world sign up free, post the provided links on their website and in doing so Amazon gets free advertising on all of those sites! The fact that there are so many links to their site also gives them an advantage in search engine ranking. Search engines consider the more links to a site, to be an indication of the site’s popularity and thus give it higher ranking in the search results.

You don’t have to be the size of Amazon to offer your own Affiliate program to sell your own products and services. Worldprofit.com has offered an Associate program for many years, it is also free to join and pays a percentage of the selling price of various Internet business services. Many online small businesses have increased their sales using the Associate referral marketing strategy. Through the power of this type of referral marketing, any company large or small can advertise their site online at no cost.

Interested in setting up your own Associate or Affiliate program? Contact Worldprofit.com to create your referral program for you so that Associates and payouts can be tracked, and so the Associate websites can be created. If you have one or several products of good quality do not underestimate the power of this no-cost form of advertising.
Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click Advertising

When you hire a professional designer to create your site they should be well versed in search engine optimization strategies. Your site should have the necessary rich content, and metatags so that your site can be indexed properly by various search engine bots. Spend some time typing key words related to your products or services into Google.com or Yahoo.com and noting which sites come up first. Analyze their metatags (click on ‘view source’ in your browser) , content and pay per click rankings so you can outmaneuver your competitors. However don’t spend hours of every day on this and don’t think that buying a $100 piece of software is going to jettison your site to # 1 ranking for the rest of time. Search engine positioning is complex. Large companies hire someone just to manage this aspect of their site. If you have the budget for this do it, if you don’t, make sure you have content on your site that is embedded with lots of key words that people would logically use to find your site. Search engine optimization is important but if you are spending hours a day on this it is detracting from time spent on making sales. Like all things in life you need balance; good search engine ranking and attention to sales. If you don’t have the time or expertise for the search engine optimization, use a pay per click advertising campaign, see notes below.

Example:

Let’s say your site is for a veterinarian clinic and you are targeting only the Edmonton, Alberta market. Make sure your title tag carries your business name, a key word related to your business (if not in your business name), as well as your geographical location.

Mayberry Veterinarian Clinic, Veterinarian and Emergency Pet Care, Edmonton, AB.

Within the content of your site make sure your physical address is listed in text on your webpage with zip code or postal code, as Google in particular also uses that information for geographic specific searches.

Note: Refer to George Kosch’s video on Search Engines for more information on this topic.

Good reference site for further reading on this topic is:

www.searchenginewatch.com

Recommended Search Engine Pay Per Click Marketing Sites:

www.overture.com

www.google.ca/ads/
Publishing Your Own Newsletter

Publish a newsletter to get new traffic and repeat traffic. The key is to make the newsletter unique with not good but great content! It should offer unique and valuable content, special offers or discounts to entice readers and motive buyers. Always include your contact information, your email address and website address.

Use your newsletter to:

Promote your products or service to your subscriber list
Barter Power
Sell Ads within your newsletter
Stimulate sales with special offers
Encourage repeat traffic to your site

Example: www.ticketmaster.com

Ticket Master allows you to sign up for email notifications when events you specify are announced or scheduled in your hometown. The email alerts about bands, events and festivals that you’ve expressed an interest in, are then emailed to you along with a handy link for booking tickets. Think about what you can offer via a newsletter or email notification to stay in contact with your prospects and customers, to stimulate sales, make product announcements, encourage repeat site traffic, or even to sell advertising space once you have a reasonable number of subscribers.

Be an Unabashed Self-Promoter

Include your website address on everything!

Get the word out in as many ways as you can so people know your website address and have a reason to go there!

Include your website address and email address on…

Brochures
Business cards
Signage
Radio and Television ads
Letter head
Package inserts
Shipping materials
Your vehicle (may even be an advertising expense write off)

Offer Online Seminars, or Training on Your Website

When you have your own webcasting software you can:

Offer online meetings, presentations, seminars, and training

You can invite a guest speaker, or you can be the single host.

Make alliances with people in the industry you are involved with but not competing with.

It’s no secret that many well known speakers often charge very little for tickets to their event, however they know that on your way out a large percentage of people will buy books, tapes, DVD’s and other instructional materials.

Consider offering your webcasts or training at no cost, or for a small fee and then offer related products or services to your participants.

Note: Refer to the video on webcasting for more on this topic.
Use the media!

If you have a site that offers a unique service or product, write a press release or contact the local media. During slow news periods, or if your release is timely you may just find your story along with website address in the local paper or the evening news!

Example: Recently I learned that there was an upcoming news story about the increasing problem with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Worldprofit.com has hosted a non-profit site for the Fetal Alcohol Prevention League for over 10 years, I contacted the editor about the site and it was included in the story! The website was useful to readers but it also resulted in a ton of free advertising for this non-profit organization.

Example: I have a friend who has started a Social Club for women, she was able to have her website address included in a Women’s Health feature being run in the local newspaper. As a result of this free advertising she got the word out to over 800,00 readers about the club, increased her membership by 15%, sold some advertising on the site, and had over a dozen offers from local business to host her social events free!

Give some thought to what your site is about and what you offer along with how it benefits individuals or the community. If you have an interesting story angle that would appeal to their readers or viewers contact your local media.