Traffic Tips 101 1 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Legal Notice: This ebook is copyright protected. This is only for personal use. You cannot amend, distribute, sell, use, quote or paraphrase any part or the content within this ebook without the consent of the author or copyright owner. Legal action will be pursued if this is breached. Disclaimer Notice: Please note the information contained within this document is for educational purposes only. Every attempt has been made to provide accurate, up to date and reliable complete information no warranties of any kind are expressed or implied. Readers acknowledge that the author is not engaging in rendering legal, financial or professional advice. By reading any document, the reader agrees that under no circumstances are we responsible for any losses, direct or indirect, which are incurred as a result of use of the information contained within this document, including but not limited to errors, omissions, or inaccuracies. 2 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Table of Contents Article Marketing.. pg. 4 Blogging & Guest Blogging......pg. 9 Paid Traffic...pg. 11 SEO (Search Engine Optimization)...pg. 15 Local SEO (Search Engine Optimization)...pg. 19 Social Bookmarking.....pg. 21 Using Social Media For Targeted Traffic.....pg. 25 Using Squidoo........pg. 31 3 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Chapter 1: Article Marketing Writing articles has to be one of the best and effective ways of driving traffic to your web page or marketing material. We will just skim the surface of this hugely popular form of traffic generation to cover everything would be a book on its own. Article marketing is so effective because they are advertised on websites that already have a high volume of traffic going to them so you don t even have to try very hard. If your article is well written then it has a high chance of going viral very quickly. Because they have a high volume of traffic simply by adding a link to your website in your signature at the bottom of the article is deemed as a highly regarded backlink by all the search engines. Backlinks are used by the search engine spiders to rank your website and if they see that you are connected to high ranked websites it will rank your website accordingly. When other people choose to use your article it can make it go viral especially as they can only use your article if they copy it as a whole including your signature as well. Who knows where your link to your website will end up! 4 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Making Articles Work For You Provided that the articles are informative and full of useful hints and tips and not written like a sales letter then people will read them. That is their purpose to be read and the more informative they are, the more they work. People tend to think that writing articles is difficult but it is easier than you think. If you have a business, then you will already know your niche or subject pretty well, and so all you have to do is just write about that. Let s say you ve written a book and you want to sell it. Simply, write an article based on the book s subject, add a link to direct them to the sales page of that book in your signature and hey presto you will have sales pouring in. It doesn t have to be directed to the sales page it all depends on what action you want the reader to do next. The link doesn t have to sell a product or service it can simply direct them to subscribe to something or even to a landing page where they can get a free gift just for reading your article, it all depends on what action you want the reader to do next. Below the signature you should state that if they want to use your article then they have your permission provided they don t change anything and they use your link. The more times the article is copied the more viral it becomes. 5 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Writing Expert Articles The purpose of writing articles is to build yourself up as an expert in your niche and to use that knowledge to drive traffic to your products or services. The more articles you write the more you will be seen as the expert to turn to in your niche and therefore, you are the one they will purchase from. Don t write the article in a selling format, it should always be informative. If it sounds like a sales letter then it has no place on an article website and will put the readers off which in turn will then damage your credibility. In order to build up a following you need to be consistent in your writing. Submit the same amount of articles each week or month and if only submitting once or twice then always submit them on the same day each week. This way your followers will know when to expect your article to come out and will be waiting eagerly to read it. Tips For Writing Articles Don t tell the reader everything they need to know as they won t have any need to purchase your products. You need to just tell them enough to get them interested in purchasing and wanting to find out more. The purpose is to get them to click the link at the bottom of the article the one that 6 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
takes them to the sales page or the take action page. Most articles are between 500-700 words long. You still need to write it in a similar way to a sales letter to encourage people to actually read your article in the first place. The starting point, just as a sales letter, is with an attention seeking headline that stands out and gets noticed. Follow this on with a sub-headline that backs up the headline statement and you re on to a winner. The opening paragraph should explain what the article is about and then be followed on by the other paragraphs which continue that theme. Make sure that all the paragraphs flow into one another and aren t jumbled up which will just confuse the reader. The final paragraph should close the article and give a summary of what it was about. This is then followed by your signature and link as mentioned earlier. Where To Submit Your Articles There are plenty of article websites out there and all of them free to join and free to submit your articles to. You just have to abide by their rules and regulations. If you use the keywords article directories into a search engine then you will find a whole list of article websites to submit your 7 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
article to. And don t forget to put it on your own website. Submit your articles to.. http://www.ezine.com http://www.squidoo.com http://www.goarticles.com It can be time consuming and you could hire a freelancer to submit them to all the article websites on your behalf. Be careful of using automated article submitting software as some article websites won t accept any article submitted automatically it has to be done by a human. Then all you need to do is get maximum exposure to your article by using other forms of traffic generations such as social media and forums. To find freelancers.. http://www.elance.com http://www.odesk.com http://virtualassistant.com 8 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Chapter 2: Blogging & Guest Blogging Introduction To Blogging Blogs were originally called weblogs and then later shortened to blogs. They are posts on websites about everything and anything and are constantly being updated. Because there is always new content being added to blog websites the search engines love them. A blogs sole purpose is to give valuable content in the form of education, provide news, give reviews or simply just to entertain. You are bound to find a blog on almost every niche possible. Getting Started With Wordpress Blogs are usually set up on Wordpress as it is the easiest website to install and manage once set up. As with any other website you will need web hosting and a good domain name (preferably a dot.com account as blogs tend to go viral very quickly). Blogs use the posts section of the website, so when setting up your website make sure that you allow visitors to leave comments. Finding Content For Your Blog A lot depends on what your blog is about. If it s personal or something that you are really passionate about then you should write the content yourself. 9 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Alternatively you could outsource the task to a freelancer. There are plenty of websites where you can hire someone to write several blogs for you (links for freelance hiring is on page 8). Another source is to ask guests to write blogs to put on your website. This works particularly well if you have a section of your niche you don t really cover. Example if you were in the internet marketing niche and you maybe wasn t fully conversant with a certain section, say SEO or Affiliate Marketing, then you could find an expert in these areas and invite them to be guest bloggers on you website. In exchange you could write blogs for their website or let them promote their products on your website. Associating with other experts and being seen to associate with other experts can give you a lot of credibility within your niche. Other ways could be to use PLR (Public Label Rights) material where you can purchase articles which have already been written but you have permission to add your name to it so it looks like you have written it yourself. Make sure you read them carefully before adding them to your blog as a badly written article could do more harm than good to your credibility. I would recommend purchasing plr articles from.. http://www.theplrstore.com/ 10 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
How You Can Make Money Writing Blogs For Other Websites There are several ways in which you can monetize your blog and drive tons of traffic to it. Several ways are already written about in the book such as article writing, social bookmarking, social media and all of these ways as free. One of the most effective ways of driving traffic to a blog is to have a button for RSS Feed (Really Simple Syndication). This means that if a visitor clicks on your RSS feed button they subscribe to your posts. Then whenever you add a new post it lets them know that you have added new content. This encourages recurring traffic and the search engines love it which means higher ranking. Again this is all free to do, so you d be silly not to. Leaving comments on other people s blogs that have a relation to your own can be effective as well. By leaving a comment it leaves your signature which is then returned back to your own website. As you know backlinks are loved by the search engines which can only mean goods things for your website. When leaving comments add some valuable content so that they feel enthralled to want to find out more, which of course is on your blog site. 11 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Chapter 3: Paid Traffic Adwords The basic concepts of adwords are using keywords to create a Google Adwords campaign that could guarantee you listing on page one of the search engines (provided you pay enough for the keyword). Basically it is the same as SEO but this time you are paying to rank your keywords in order to guarantee being at the top or on the right hand side of page one. Facebook Ads As with Adwords having an advertisement on Facebook can mean that you can go even further when reaching your target because Facebook have all kinds of personal data about its members that it can zoom in and target specific people. The principles are the same, you choose your target market, and keywords and then create your ad. PPC (Pay Per Click) These are the sponsored advertises that appear on the top in the colored section and on the right hand side of the listings after someone has entered a search. They are ranked in order of how much they have paid per click. Eg if your keyword was sea fishing and you bid $1.00 pay per click then the ad below your ad has paid less, say $0.95. If someone clicked on your ad using the keyword sea fishing then your account would be charged $1.00. 12 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
CPA (Cost Per Action) These are used when you want the visitor to take action and do something. This could be to complete a survey or leave their details in exchange for a free gift. The idea is that the affiliate would be paid per action taken, so for every person who left their details, such as their name and email address, they would be paid for each one. It is the action that is paid for rather than the lead. By adding these ads onto your website not only brings in money but also brings in traffic. CPC (Cost Per Click) These are the advertisements that you see in the colored box and down the right hand side of the results page when you do a search. These are the paid advertisements. The more you pay the higher you appear on the page. It can guarantee you appearing on page one though! You pay for a specific keyword or keyword phrase and if a visitor uses that keyword and clicks on your website then your account is reduced by the amount that you bought the keyword or keyword phrase for. You can use affiliates to further drive traffic by asking them to promote your 13 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
ad on their website and have it so that the link opens up in your website. The affiliate is then paid per click on the ad that goes to your website. Solo Ads Solo Ads are simply asking someone within your niche who has a large mailing list to send an email out on your behalf. In return you would give a commission on the sales or pay a fee. This can be very lucrative as the money is in the list and anyone opting-in to your offer will then be joining your list. This is similar to a joint venture option. List building and joint ventures are whole subjects on their own and another book! 14 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Chapter 4: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) What Is SEO? When you want to find a website based on a certain niche or to find information, you enter what are known as keywords into the search box. This then brings up a list of websites that were found using those words that you entered. This is what Search Engine Optimization, or more commonly known as SEO, is. The act of using keywords to find a website that has the answers that you are looking for. The search engine spiders pick up on the keywords used within the text and images on your website and catalogue them in their memory. Then when someone uses one of your keywords it displays your website in its listing. Using SEO In Your Marketing Your website and everything that you sell should be optimized for the search engines including your text on every page and all your images. Everything you write or put on your website should be written for the search engines as well as your customers. Your headlines are one of the most important parts of your website as they are the first thing that the visitor to your website sees so make it count! Make it relevant and stand out as the search engines will scan this as well. When writing the copy for the website, products, marketing material, direct mail shots and even your 15 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
images always have SEO in the back of your mind. Make sure that it flows and you haven t just stuck keywords in just for ranking purposes, if it doesn t flow then the search engines will know and discard it as spam. As already mentioned blogging is one of the best ways of getting traffic to your website and for keywords. Search engines love blogs because of the constant new content. Discovering The Best Keywords To discover the best keywords you need to do some research and the best tool to use to do this is by using the free Google keyword tool. Always think as the customer and what keywords they would enter to search for your products. When you enter the keyword or keyword phrase into the Google keyword tool you will be given the global and local searches figures using that keyword. This will give you an indication as to whether it is a good keyword to use. Narrow down you keywords you don t want a broad search. Try to use local keywords as well such as your product followed by your town to capture the local market. Consider common spelling mistakes or if you have a product that could easily be mis-spelt include both the correct way and the incorrect one in your keywords. 16 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Effective Backlinking Strategies Backlinks are hyperlinks that go between your website and another websites and from their website back to your website. This is why article marketing is so good because they have a high ranking within all the search engines and you therefore, have a link on their website with a link to your website within your signature. Links that are important are.. Link Text links that are within your website that link to other pages. For this reason make sure that each page has a different title and all pages are included in your sitemap. Search engines love sitemaps. Title Tags When you appear in the search engine search page your keywords are highlighted. These are the title tags and so are very important. When you create a page or a post within your website the url comes up underneath the title and the last thing entered is the title tag. Description Tag This is the description that appears on the search page describing what the page or post is all about and why they should click on it to open your website and find out more. Keyword Tags The search engines just look at the keywords as text. Still make sure that you have at least one keyword in your title. 17 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Other link tags that are useful to know but not as important are the font size (the bigger they are the more importance they represent) and bold text is seen as more important than normal text. Follow these and you can t go wrong! Proven Linkwheel Strategies A Linkwheel is basically the structure of all your backlinks. Your main money making website is in the centre and the links all go towards your main website around it or to other websites that link to your main website. The more outlets and different types of websites such as articles, video or forums you link to the more backlinks you will have and the search engines will see your website as an authority and not spam. 18 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Chapter 5: Local SEO (Search Engine Optimization) What Is Local SEO? Local SEO is when you target local businesses rather than the internet as a whole. If you had a take-away shop for instance you would want customers to come to your take-away who live in your area so therefore, you would target your traffic to a 5-10 mile radius. With the increase in mobile devices being used and living in a faster paced society people are looking for products on their doorstep for speed of delivery. Local SEO For Your Business If you have a business that deals with the local community then you need to make sure that your website is responsive to mobile devices such as mobiles, ipads and any other mobile device. This is because most of your business will come from these mobile devices as people put in keywords followed by the area. Google + Local Google like to know that their clients are authentic and want to see a full name and address on the website. For those who service their local community and work from home don t really want people knowing where they live, for good reason sometimes, as it could mean customers knocking on their door or if you don t live in an affluent neighborhood it could all 19 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
reflect on your business. But, if you don t have these details then Google will penalize you for it. Google also like to see maps of where you are located. Yahoo Local Yahoo Local is a directory where any business owner can sign up to. It is basically Yahoo s answer to the yellow pages. There is also a news related page with all the latest up-to-date stories. It can reach millions of businesses and is free to join. Because Yahoo is also a search engine it means that your business also has a greater chance of being picked up in their search engines. You can join http://www.yahoo.com Bing Local Bing also have their own version of the yellow pages where you can register and add your business. This is called the Bing Business Portal. For a one off fee it allows you to add links to your Facebook and Twitter accounts, upload your company logo as well as your uploading your photo, show pictures of your products and link to your website. Or you can just add your contact name and local town for free. There is a forum attached to this website so if you do find you need help you can always go to the forum for the answers. You can join http://www.bing.com 20 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Chapter 6: Social Bookmarking StumbleUpon When you join Stumbleupon you list what interests you have and link with your friends on Facebook who are also on StumbleUpon. These are known as stumblers. Once you have done this stage you are then able to rate websites, video clips, articles, photos and more. The StumbleUpon platform is based on a recommendation powered system, where members visit (stumble) through websites and rate them according to their likes and dislikes. The more 'like' stumbles a website receives the more popular it will become and in turn the more traffic and exposure on the network it will receive. By adding your own website when joining you increase the visibility which means more traffic. When other Stumblers view your website then you need to return the favor. But be careful because they can either like or dislike your website. Being a member of StumbleUpon also gives you the chance to be detective! It means you can keep a close eye on your competitors and judging by their likes or dislikes you ll be able to see what works for them so that you can either copy them or do it better to stay ahead of the game. 21 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
You are allowed to add more pages but don t add too many as it could be considered as spamming. When you add pages you need to add it to a category. The category is very important as you want it to be in the right one to get the maximum amount of traffic. Remember, stumbler's have the ability to rate your site in several ways depending on which option they feel best fits your page. It doesn't just stop with a simple Thumbs up or Thumbs down. They can choose to leave a comment or share your page with others in their StumbleUpon network as well as on other social networking sites. The more thumb up's and comments that your page gets, the more it will be shown and the more long term exposure you will receive. http://stumbleupon.com Reddit Reddit is a platform for internet communities. Members get to vote on stories that other members have posted and the one with the most votes goes to the top. Reddit also have other networks within called subreddits. These are specific channels on specific subjects such as science, video gaming or games in general. Reddit also own Lipstick which is another subreddit based around gossip and entertainment news. Traffic is therefore, generated by posts and the voting upon those posts which can be voted up or down and where you can leave comments. Members who post are known as Redditors. http://www.reddit.com 22 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Del.icio.us Delicious is a social bookmarking website that lets you store and share your favorite links with other members. It works in a similar way to Reddit meaning it saves and bookmarks your favorite websites but with Del.icio.us you can bookmark them to your account on their website which means you have access to them no matter what computer you are on. This is one of the main benefits of Del.icio.us and also means that you can decide whether or not to share that bookmark publicly or keep it private on your account. Again traffic is generated by the use of the shared links to websites that are bookmarked. http://www.delicious.com Digg Again this is another website that brings you all the most interesting stories on the internet. The difference with Digg however, is that it brings you the news stories. Once a post has been submitted a Digger will check to see if it is interesting and if it is then it gets a button added. When it gets enough Digs it gets promoted to the home page. Digg has a feature that allows you to share your articles from Digg on your Facebook account which can also be access via a free iphone app. http://www.digg.com BuzzFeed Buzzfeed is a website that combines technology to detect viral content. 23 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
And we all want our content to go viral. These can be either video s, links or images which are on posts. The more posts you submit the bigger chance you have of being featured on page one of their home page and being rewarded with a star. Make sure you link your posts to your main website. http://www.buzzfeed.com Slashdot Slashdot is a technology related news website. Discussing technology and science where members submit posts which are then discussed by other members. Members also vote the posts and rate them. It is laid out in a blog format where people have left comments underneath. http://www.slashdot.org Newsvine Newsvine is a journalism news website. It is where you can write articles, seed links and discuss the news. Items can either be voted to stay on the website or voted to be removed. Members can submit articles just for discussion purposes or report in a journalistic manner. These are then voted on and can be shared. They can also earn money from advertisements on their Newsvine page. http://www.newsvine.com 24 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Chapter 7: Using Social Media For Targeted Traffic Facebook Facebook is probably the largest social media website on the internet with millions of members in several countries. Facebook allows you to have both a personal page plus a business page. It is a good idea to get a professional background for your business page. It depends on what your business is and what you are hoping to get from Facebook as there are a few options such as basic business page that people can join, or they can just like your page, you can have an open group page or a closed group page. You can advertise and add a button that goes direct to your website on your business page. The best way of all is to offer a free gift and collect their name and email address rather than sell to them after all it is a social website not a selling website. Use Facebook as a tool to direct traffic rather than for selling is much more effective. Together, with your business page you could have a Facebook ad which you can target specifically to those interested in your niche by using the information from their profile. Add a Facebook button on your website so they can go directly to your business page. The best way to get sales and traffic to your main website 25 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
is to build up a relationship with your followers on Facebook. Give snippets on Facebook and then direct them to your main website to read more. http://www.facebook.com Twitter It is much easier and quicker to build a targeted following on Twitter than it is on Facebook. To get targeted traffic chose someone who you really think is going to be a potential customer and then go through all the people that are following them and who they are following. Chances are they will also be in the same niche and then just click on all of their followers. People on Twitter nearly always follow back out of courtesy, although you will need to check their profile to make sure they are real humans and not robots, check that they are also active users there s no point in following people who aren t going to be interested in your tweets. Use search.twitter.com to find what people in your niche are talking about and follow some of their conversations. Once you get an idea of what people are interested in, join in those conversations and talk to them. Use questions to get people engaged and try and ask questions that are linked to articles on your website. This way they will want to go to your website to read your article. As it is in real time bear in mind the different time zones and the different times people go on Twitter, therefore, tweet the same thing several times throughout the day. Again have a Twitter button on your website. http://www.twitter.com 26 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Instagram Instagram is a website that can hold photo s of friends and family or just photo s in general. Although it is not as easy to get traffic as Facebook or Twitter is it can still be done. Make sure that you have a good profile. Instagram is all about images so obviously any images you put on there that you don t want shared would benefit from having a watermark on them. Add captions and put a link in there to your website (don t use a shortened link though otherwise it will look like spam use natural wording). Make the caption and the image relevant to each other and link it to something related on your website. Create a gallery on your website and just post your best images on Instagram which then directs them to see the whole gallery on your website. Or you could crop your image and direct them to your website to see the whole image. http://www.instagram.com Linked In LinkedIn is known as the business side of social media where profiles are more based on members career and professional profiles rather than their personal interests. LinkedIn is the preference for companies that do business to business (B2B) rather than business to customer (B2C). This makes it a very good place to start building your business 27 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
relationships where not only people who you connect to but also people they are connected to will see your profile which is a very important part of LinkedIn. To advertise your business, join groups in your niche. Joining groups gives you the chance to promote yourself and your business. Once people see exactly what you do then they will endorse your skills, which is basically your credibility status. Make sure that you are active by keeping your profile up-to-date and by returning the endorsement of those who have done so for you. LinkedIn also has a blog app where you can publish your best articles linking going back to your main website. The best articles to publish should be in your niche as the people who you are connected to and the people connected to them are the ones who will see it. http://www.linkedin.com Pinterest A relatively new social media website that virtually grew massive overnight (well it seemed like that). Like Instagram it is image based and allows people to share images by pinning them to a board. Images published on the board are shared and used to refer back to their website. You can drive traffic to your pinterest board from other social media websites such as Facebook or Twitter. This is will in turn drive the traffic 28 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
back to your website. A good way to grow your following on Pinterest is to promote other people s stuff and not to make it all about selling. http://www.pinterest.com You Tube Since Google own You Tube you will always see at least one video ranked on page one. Video s are usually not used for generating money but more for getting traffic to your main website. As this is a traffic issue the headline that you give your video is vital. Add some text underneath explaining what your video is all about and make sure that you use keywords and a link to your website. Get backlinks by putting the video on other websites. Submit the same video twice but start it at a different speed setting. When starting your video add a few seconds before it actually starts by using a blank screen then you can start the one video at one video at the beginning and the second one to start 2 seconds in. Give them different headings and different text underneath. This way they will ranked as two separate video s instead of duplicates. This gives you two ways of getting traffic using the different keywords. If it s successful why not add a third. Providing they have different text, headlines and they last for different times the spiders won t know they are the same video. http://www.youtube.com 29 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Google + This is Google s answer to Facebook and uses circles to categorize your friends, family, acquaintances and business contacts. As with all of the social media websites your profile is very important. It lets other people know who you are and what you and your business are about. As it s a social website connecting with as many other members who are your target market should be your goal. When you find a target then look through their connections and see if there are any other matches and connect with them. Create circles and put the appropriate people in the appropriate circle. By having your circles segregated it means that you have greater control over what information each circle views. This is so you can send them targeted messages that only relate to that particular circle. Remember to give valuable content as well as messages, you don t want to appear pushy or come over as just wanting to sell. Just keep your content fresh and up-to-date and join in discussions with other members and soon you ll start getting traffic to your own main website. Posting regularly and often is the key. http://www.googleplus.com 30 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
Chapter 8: Using Squidoo How Squidoo Can Help Your Business Squidoo is free to join and free to submit to. It is an article marketing websites and as we have mentioned several time submitting articles is one of the best ways to market your business. Squidoo is a high ranking quality website so any links to your website are going to be good news to the search engines. If you had an affiliate product Squidoo let you create a page which you can then link to your website. It is simple to use and the layout is easy to follow. Making Money With Squidoo As we have just mentioned you don t even have to have a product to sell you can simply sell as an affiliate and promote their products. One way of making money is by adverts. Squidoo allows the owner of the advert to save 50% of the revenue (the other 50% is split with 5% to charity and 45% for Squidoo). Write How To Lens Most people who search the internet are looking for a solution to their problem whether it be medical or just wanting to know how to do something. This is where infoproducts come into their own and can make you money. A Lens is just an article on one specific niche which can be updated and added to on a regular basis. 31 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray
The best how to lens use step by step images to show what you are writing about. Images make it easier for the reader to follow. How To.. are very popular in the search engines so these type of articles work really well. http://www.squidoo.com 32 Copyright 2013 Joel Gray