Traffic 101

Finding Freelance Jobs

2009-03-24T04:29:00.000-07:00

Note -- I know this post is a little off topic, to creating traffic for your website, but I believe it's equally important.

In this day and age, outsourcing yourself is a great way to make extra income.

I believe in bringing in multiple streams of revenue, then if one is cut off, it's not such a big deal.

I've been busy building a website, which is only about a month old, but has surpassed my previous websites and blogs on Alexa.

To say the least I am impressed. But I am not writing about my website yet, I'm writing about a page online there I have devoted to finding freelance writing jobs.

By writing part time, last year I was able to make $700 extra a month.

Want to know more? Check out how to find freelance writing jobs.

Remember it's important to put your eggs in different baskets. That way with the bad economy, if one of your streams of revenue is cut-off, it's not such a big deal.

Stay tuned as in the next couple of weeks I'll mention the new program I am using to build my website and how it's got SEO built in.

T

Bought a 1500+ page website for $20.00

2009-02-01T09:32:00.000-08:00

I have finally had success. After searching the internet for two years, I've finally found a great product that actually makes you money.

I just bought the 1500+ page website on Thursday and am already making $2.00 a day in google adsense.

If you are like me, and want a content rich site, but you don't want to write each page yourself, this might be an option for you. But if you do want to do all the hard work yourself, then you should stop reading.

All I had to do was load the 1500+ page website onto my FTP server and it was good to go. The site is fully automated, so I don't have to do anything. All I need to do is promote, via social bookmarking, and submitting links. Since I decided to use a PR2 domain (I already had it ranked), it made it easier for me to be indexed and make money.

The program I purchased is Adsense Treasure, and for a limited time he's only selling it at $20USD, once time is up, it'll go back to $197.00.

Even at $197 the program is well worth it. To view a sample of my new website check out Hot Tips on Cars, Computers, Finances, shopping and more.

I will keep you posted on my success, but I am already happy making $2.00 a day.

Using Twitter

2009-01-03T08:31:00.001-08:00

If you are like a lot of people out there, you have no idea how to utilize twitter. Up until a few days ago, I struggled with it too. After all it only gives you 140 characters, and it's hard to plug your website with such stipulations. Also, how do you get followers and keep them?

Through trial and error and following other successful twitters, I was able to find a bit out.
Listed below are some of the steps I took to get people to follow me, and to get the most out of the website.

The more you update twitter, the more authority you will be given.

The more you use it, the more you will get out of it.

Follow twitter grader By using this program, you can search elite twitter people, and people who have the same interests in you. Twitter grader also gives you a grade and shows you people of influence

Like a website, the more people of influence who are following you, the higher your twitter grade will be.

Just by using twitter grader, and following some people of influence, my twitter grade has increased. Now every time I log into my email I see at least 10 new people following me a day. Other successful tips, that I have yet to implement:

Send an email greeting to your new follower, or @ greet them

In your email greeting have a link to a twitter page which introduces yourself to them. Great way to start driving traffic to your site.

If anyone has any more twitter success tips, I would be grateful to hear them. But for now I just follow the people with large followings, to see what they are doing.

Remember, you have to go in there every day and update your stats. Also remember not to sell yourself too much or you could turn them off. Don't be too personal either. Try to offer tips and tricks that are helpful to people, or things that have helped you.

Good luck!

Has your blog gone stale?

2008-12-29T09:08:00.000-08:00

If you are like me, and haven't posted to your blog for over a month, when you normally post five or six entries at least a month, than your blog has gone stale. What do you do?

Should you try and fix it, by continuing to blog?
Should you start a new one, one that's easier to blog about and something you'll enjoy?
Should you just give up entirely?

I can't answer these questions for you, but I can give you a bit of background.

First, I think it's easier to go back to a blog, than to start a brand new one. But that is just me. First, you've already submitted your url to search engines, got link backs, and been submitting your url to everything, so to scrap the blog at this point, seems a little sad. Second, you have people finding your site and coming to it, so to scrap these people...might not be smart.

But, if you're convinced a new subject or new blog is the way to go, than good luck. You will of course, need a lot of content again, and you will need to submit your url to everything possible. You have a long road ahead of you, but it's a great road if you pick something you are excited to blog about.

Lastly, are you meant to blog? I'm still wondering about this one for myself. I work full time and have two blogs. One of them I love writing about, it's easy to come up with topics, I could babble for hours, whereas this one...I am hard pressed to come up with a topic and write about it. Hence, the stale blog.

I decided though to keep at it, as I've worked hard getting my link backs and submitting my url to search engines. I know I won't be as dedicated to this blog as I am to the other one, but I won't scrap it yet either.

I'd be curious about what you do to come up with ideas, and things to blog about...as that seems to be my major issue with this blog. For now I read similar blogs, to come up with ideas.

Well till next time, enjoy the holidays!

Outsourcing your jobs!

2008-11-16T05:04:00.000-08:00

The most common mistake that many website owners and bloggers make, is doing everything themselves.

In the beginning this may seem like a good idea, and a great way to keep costs down, but you are severely limiting yourself in the online marketing world. Every smart business owner knows to delegate, and you should be no exception.

A great way to get traffic is by outsourcing. You can hire someone to posts 200 links to your site. You can hire someone to write a 100 articles about your site with certain key words, and choose where you want them posted. You can hire someone to write an ebook, design your website, or software for you. The possibilities are endless.

What is great is because of the internet, you can hire people virtually anywhere. You can hire someone from India, or the Philippines and they will work for a lot less than say someone from Canada or the States. Because the currency is USD, they are making a lot of money by working online.

A great place to is Rentacoder. You can create a bid, and start building your reputation. It's sort of like ebay, where you can view freelancers rates and comments on their jobs. That way before you pick someone you'll have an idea of their skill level. Freelancers can also post comments about you too, so remember to be professional. The other great thing, is they take the money for your project and hold it in escrow until you are satisfied with the results. The great thing about this, is it protects you from someone saying you didn't pay them.

If you are new at outsourcing, I would say this is a great place to get started, because there is a lot of checks and balances to help you out so you won't get swindled. It's a great place to join and build a long-term relationship. Plus you can go online and see what other people are paying for projects, so you'll have a better idea of what to charge.

Another great site to start outsourcing your work is Getafreelancer.com It is free to join, and you can start posting your jobs right away. This site is similar to rent a coder, in that it allows you to build a reputation, and you can view potential freelancers work and their portfolio before you decide on a bid. I really like this site, because people are on there from everywhere.

Whatever site you decide to use to post your jobs, remember, it's important to delegate everything. From putting ads on Craigslist, to joining social sites, to writing articles, to writing sales copy, to designing websites...and much, much, more.

Good luck!

Traffic Update

2008-11-05T18:46:00.000-08:00

As you know I've been trying to build up my email list for my first newsletter I am putting together. I plan on issuing the first issue once I have a 100 members. My incentive is a free 36 page report on how to market yourself on the internet.

I wrote this report last year, back when I was still testing out the basics to online marketing. Initially I was selling this report for $19.99, but decided to give it away for free. The reason, to get people to sign up for my ezine. In order to be able to download this free report, you need to give your email address and first name.

Well since I created my website last month, I have had a steady flow of subscribers. I have tried a few different traffic methods, and the best one hands down is kijiji. I put an ad online and the next day I have at least two subscribers. Which translates to two more people who've downloaded my report, and been added to my email list.

I've been using forums and posting comments on blogs, but the steady flow of actual subscribers comes from the free ads. Now you need to be careful with Kijiji, because they will check your site, and if you are offering something that is free, and it's really not, they will find it and delete your ad. But if you are posting legitimate offers, you have nothing to fear, and I strongly advise to use this great service.

Stay tuned, and I will let you know when I do finally reach 100 subscribers to my ezine.

Tressa

Page Ranking

2008-11-02T06:47:00.000-08:00

I thought I would touch on this a bit. Page ranking is an algorithm that google uses to understand what value your web page has. There are many discussions on whether this is a value or not. I think it is.

The higher your page ranking, the more authority your website has. Which means you can charge more for advertising because you can prove how valuable your site is. For those of you who don't know what I mean, check out Alexa. This site will tell you what your page number is out of millions and millions of websites.

When my blog first started, it wasn't even recognized as being it's own blog. Alexa just ranked it as blogger #9. Don't I wish. The week after that, Alexa ranked it as 25,000,000. I was happy to make it in, but knew I had a lot of work.

So by writing articles, with the author resource, providing the linkback, and by commenting on other blogs, I have slowly been working my way up. I didn't really use directories or search engines like I have in the past. I've just used forums (where you add your signature as your link), and commenting on blogs. These have been my biggest tools.

About the middle of the month, my blog was suddenly 12,000,000 and I was impressed with that. My first blog I created (learning how to get traffic), took me almost a year to make this number. Now I can do it a lot faster. My other blog, is now PR 2, but it's almost been a year online, so I would expect that.

Now my blog is 6,000,000. I checked the page ranking tool, but it still doesn't have a value, it probably has to be 2,000,000 or less. But I am happy. Both my website Traffic 101, and my blog have climbed in value according to Alexa. And all this happened from using forums, commenting on blogs, and ads.

Because I am giving away a free report, I can post multiple ads on Craigslist, and Kijiji. I know this has helped me build up my email list immensely. I only did this the first two weeks of October, but since the ads are good for 45 days, they are still bringing me traffic. I will probably repost these ads over the next few weeks.

But I've definitely proven my method that I can bring traffic to my site, and help improve my site's authority. I'll keep checking and let you know how long it takes me to finally get a page ranking.

Tressa

Thinking outside the box marketing

2008-10-30T17:30:00.001-07:00

The biggest concern that people have when they make a website or blog, is traffic. I am a part of warrior forum, and I have been reading the posts for a bit, and the biggest complaint I hear from people is traffic.

How do I get more people to my website?

Well I would like to tell you there is an easy answer, but in my experience I have yet to find it. The "standard way" to get traffic is: writing great content, posting your url on everything, going to forums, submitting in search engines, posting free ads, writing articles, building an email list, and of course the social booking marking sites.

The successful blogs, and websites are the ones that have been around for a few years, and have been fighting the battle of back links and facebook.

But what is outside the box marketing?
I wanted to explain to people the different ways to marketing. Everyone seems to know the standard way:

using forums

ezines

ebooks

search engines

directories

comments on blogs

free ads (craigslist)

twitter

facebook

my space

digg

adwords

link referrals

Outside the box marketing is coming up with ideas that you might not have come up with. Like even though you have a website, why not take your marketing outside the computer. Why not put an ad in your local newspaper? Or distribute fliers around the neighbourhood, or better yet in the parking lot of a sold out arena. What about a contest? What about raising money for charity to get some good PR?

These are just a few I came up with off the top of my head, if you really think about it, you can come up with other ways to get more traffic, on and offline.

Starting your Blog

2008-10-25T08:04:00.000-07:00

I read a lot of blogs on the web. The ones I read are mostly about how to make money from blogs, and how to run a successful blog. I find that reading blogs is a great way to get blog posting ideas.

Today, I ran across a blog that was talking about how often you should post. This is a great question, and I think that as a blogger you need to address this before you even start your blog.

Here is a list of items you need to plan and think about before you even start a blog:

1. Your topic
2. How you want to present it
3. Who your target market is
4. How often you want to update your site
5. What are you looking for out of your blog - your goals,

There are a lot more, but these are a great start.

Your Topic:
So first, you've decided you want to create a blog. So what is it going to be about? What do you want to say? I suggest you find something that you are passionate about. It would be hard to blog about something you don't really know, or don't really love. Trust me, I have started a few blogs in my time and they have died fairly quickly. Blogging takes passion, hard work, and persistence. You do not get successful overnight, it takes trial and error and a lot of hard work. But if you are passionate, and love it, it won't feel like hard work, but more something you enjoy. Also if you enjoy your topic, it won't be hard to come up with post ideas, and your less likely to get burnt out as easily.

Also another great tip, write something. Don't spend weeks planning. A lot of blogs fail because they are never started, or people give up too easily. Remember that when you first start out writing a blog, it's going to be more of a hobby than a money maker. Like take this blog for example, I am only making money off google adsense, and not enough to quit my day job! But traffic tips and strategies are something I am passionate about, so blogging comes easily for me.

How to Present it:
Now that you have your topic idea, you are wondering how you should present it. Should you use a free resource blog like http://blogger.com/, or a paid blog? Are you a techie person, or not? If you aren't very technical like me, I suggest you use blogger, or a free blogging software that makes it simple and easy to use. My other half just recently discovered blogger, and already he has made two blogs, in one day.

Another thing to think about is the url. If you use blogger, you are going to get blogspot.com as the ending. If you use a paid blog, you can probably use your own domain, but again you'll need to be a bit technical. When you are looking at what to use as your url, try to make it about your topic and get a key word in there. For example, my blog is about traffic ideas and strategies and I put "traffic" in the url. This is a great way to help google index your blog.

Also decide if you are going to have ads on your site, banners, and how you want the site's over all appearance and theme to be. Now is the time to decide if you want to have one blog author, or a few, and what the tone and overall brand of the website will be.

Your Target Market:
Once you have an idea of what you want to write about, how you want to present it, you need to think about who your ideal readers are. Think in a broad since. Are you blogging about business? Are you blogging about parenting tips, cooking tips, travelling, etc. You need to imagine who your ideal reader is and what they will get out of your blog.

An example, for this blog, my target market would be any one who has a blog or website and wants traffic ideas and strategies. Therefore I just have to put myself in a person's shoes who has a new blog or website and wants to know how to get traffic.

So now that I know who I want, I can think about places where to find people like that, and draw them to my site. A great place to go is forums. The best way to find forums in your topic is to go to google and type "business forums," or "marketing forums," or whatever your subject is about. You will usually find the top forums by doing so.

Then join the forum, and use your url as a signature and start commenting on threads. Before you know it, you'll become part of the community and people will start clicking on your link to check out your site. This is a great way to find your ideal target market traffic.

How often to update your site:
Now that you have found traffic to your site, you want to plan how often you update your site with new content. If people are coming to your site, they are going to expect some kind of consistency with your blogging. If you usually post one post a week, and start increasing it or decreasing it, it may effect traffic.

The best strategy is to plan how often you want to post and stick to it. For my blog, I am the opposite of a lot of bloggers. I believe in posting a lot of posts in the beginning, and than decreasing once I feel I have enough content. My goal is to post at least 3 quality posts a week, and to never drop below 2 a week. Other bloggers like to start slow, with writing one or two quality posts a week, and perhaps increasing as they go.

Whatever way you decide, just remember to update your site. There is no way faster to lose traffic than by not updating your blog.

Your blog goals or long term plan:
A blog is like a business, you need goals, a plan and a strategy. I have started blogs on a whim, without a goal or strategy, and found they crashed and burned fairly quickly. When you start a blog, you should really sit down and decide where you see it going in one year, two years, etc. And try to be realistic.

An example, my goal for this blog, is to have a page ranking of at least 2 or higher, have a high email list of like 1,000 people, and to be able to sell sponsor ads to companies. I would also eventually like to quit my day job and blog full time.
In one year, I would like to meet my page ranking goal and my email list goal. In two years time, I want to reach my blogging full time goal.

Now that I know what my goals are, I can start implementing them by, trying to get traffic, writing quality articles, and looking for ways to monetize my blog.

I hope this has given you some idea of the direction you want to take your blog in.

Tressa

The importance of Affiliates

2008-10-23T14:40:00.001-07:00

For those of you who have read my other blogs, I am an affiliate to Second Tier, which is coached by Russell Brunson. He's the 25 year old wrestler who made it big and has outside the box, advertising ideas. I'm not just saying that, the guy blows me away with his marketing ideas and strategies.

When I got his free dvd (I did pay $7.50 for shipping and handling), and I watched it, I was amazed. I've spent the money on the ebooks, and listened to teleconferences, so I've been around the block, but what this guy was proposing to do for traffic - was fresh! And stuff I'd never even considered.

The dvd was only an hour or two, but well worth it. And it's a traffic idea from that dvd that I am going to write this post on.

People are so concerned with building email lists for traffic. A great article to read on why email lists are so valuable, would be Problogger. I think email lists are a great way to get traffic, and to promote products, and get your name out there. I am not discouraging email lists in anyway, in fact I am building my own at Traffic 101.

But have you ever thought of this; access to affiliate contacts.

Think about this, once you join an affiliate, your goal is to sell their products and get people to join under you. The more people who join under you, the more you have access to their contacts. These affiliates are now promoting products that you are getting a cut off, 11-25% in Second Tier. Which now means indirectly you have access to these people's contacts and email list; you can help move traffic to your affiliate products; all your affiliates, are selling products, in their own newsletter, websites etc. And you are making money off the first level, and the second level.

Doesn't that mean you want to work twice as hard to get affiliates, along with building an email list? Say you get 3,000 people by email, but through your affiliates network, you can get access to over 30,000. That now means your contact base for these affiliate products has grown from 3,000 to 33,000.

If you like this kind of thinking, or want to hear more, I highly recommend joining Russell Brunson'sprogram. The guy has larger bloggers, and marketers like Mike Filsaime and Josh Anderson as part of his affiliate program. Mike actually just won a lease on a Hummer through one of Russell's many contests.

The point is, sometimes joining affiliates is a good thing, especially when they offer exceptional training on marketing, and traffic systems. This gives you access to a larger network, that you might not have had right away.

I hoped I've helped you with this information.

Tressa

Video Blogs

2008-10-21T16:23:00.000-07:00

Hi,
Lately I've been obsessing about video blogs. I am seeing more and more of them around; on pitch pages, sales pages, affiliate links, tutorials and more. It seems that this medium is a great way to increase your link backs and promote your website.

I've decided for my little experiment, to create a video blog, post it on You Tube, and my blog. Then from there I will see if it has given me any more traffic, and give you tips on what worked for me, or didn't work for me.

From what I do know, video blogs aren't as easy as they appear to be. I tried making one yesterday, and I tried to make it on the fly without rehearsing, to say the least it looked like I was ill prepared.

This week I am going to dedicate to writing a speech, practicing it, finding a way to edit the movie, and than posting it. If it's as easy as they say and traffic comes, I'll let you know.

Either way, video blogs should be under 5 minutes, and should be well planned out. You should either present a "how-to" idea, or a story. Make sure your video adds value.

If anyone does have experience with video blogs and promoting them, please send me an email, any guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks
Tressa
video blog

Getting Traffic

2008-10-19T18:19:00.000-07:00

You have your website or blog, but wonder how to get traffic?

Welcome to the world of promoting your url. In order to get a high page ranking, translation: get noticed, you need to always be promoting. Large sites like The Second Tier, teach that in order to stay in the lead, you can never stop promoting. For you to continue to grow and get traffic, you must plaster your url on everything you possibly can.

There are many traffic strategies and systems out there to getting traffic to your site. Some tried and true ones are:

forums
comments
articles
blog posts
directories, search engines
press releases
link exchange
free ads

How to get traffic in forums:
Search for a forum in your subject matter. For me, I am looking for traffic, marketing and SEO search engines. Hint, when looking for traffic go where the people are. Go to those websites already ranked with a high PR.

How forums work is, you need to write posts that add value and use the signature and avatar to make yourself personable and provide a link to your site. Every time you post, you are creating a link to your site. And the more valuable your posts, the greater the chance that someone will want to click on your site to learn more about you.

Some people boost that most of their traffic comes from forums. I think it's a great way to get your url out there, and to network and meet other bloggers, writers, promoters, people like yourself.

How to get Traffic from Comments:
Comments are another great way to network. Now let's talk a bit about no follows. No follows is an option that tells a blog, or website not to trust your url that you enter under your comment. This means that it does not get the ranking in google to help promote your url. Some people think that comments aren't great because of this reason. If you can find a site that does allow follows for links, and has a high page ranking, please let me know.

In the meantime, comments are great because they help you get traffic. Look at how popular problogger is. If you are one of the first people to comment on a post, you have 300+ or more people reading your comment. That's 300+ people who might click on your link and come to your site. That's why it's important to say something of value if you are commenting on an article. People might click on your site to find out more about you.

Articles can give you more traffic:
Submitting articles is a great way to get traffic because most article sites have a high page ranking. By using your author resource box, you are providing a link back to your site from an important website. Thus increase your importance in the google world.

It's important to submit strong, pillar articles to help get traffic to your site. People will read your article and want to know more, and click on your resource link, or even better, republish your article on their site.

When submitting articles, make sure they are 300-500 words, and check out sites like ezine articles,Article Base,and ehow.

Blog Posts are a great way to generate traffic:
When building your blog, it's important to have a lot of strong content. If you get traffic, you want to keep it, so you want to offer people something. For readers to keep coming back you need to add a value.

Example
I am giving you a value by providing you with this information of how to get more traffic.
It is important to have pillar articles, or articles of value. Also the more posts the better. Try to have your blog set up to two posts a page. The more pages you have, the more links, the more pages to index, the more important you look to google.

Take me, this is a new blog, isn't ranked high yet in Alexa, but I know that I need lots of content, pages, for my page rank to grow, so I am building it up.

Having strong articles will increase your traffic because other bloggers are going to link to your article, or republish it and help market you.

Directories and Search Engines give you traffic:
The tried and true method is submitting your site to search engines. The more search engines that have your site indexed, the higher your page ranking, the closer you are when listed under keywords.

There are hundreds of search engines, and I really don't have a method. I chip a way a bit every day. Some days I submit to directories for blogs, other days search engines. It's a never ending battle. But if you are a blog, submitting your site to blog categories is a great way to get links. Plus it's exclusively for blogs.

A word to the wise, I wouldn't pay for any submission services. First, I don't have any real proof that any of them work, and second, I'm not sure which ones you should check out.

Press Releases help get you traffic by:
increasing your page ranking. Press Releases aren't used enough by people. They are a great free resource to getting your story out there. Just make sure to keep your tone serious and speak in third person. There are great articles out there which show you how to write a press release. That or get my free report, which also teaches you how to write press releases, get my report.

A press release creates an important link to your site, and can land you higher on a search engine listing. It's a great easy way to increase your page ranking. Just make sure you have an actual story and aren't just promoting yourself. You may get rejected if your press release adds nothing of value.

Link exchanges are another way to get traffic.
I don't think link exchanges are mentioned enough. Some people are for them, others couldn't be bothered. I like link exchanges, because they force you to look at other people's links, and they provide great link backs.

If you are planning on joining a link exchange, make sure you find one with a high page ranking, as this will add the most value for your url.

Whether you join a free one, or pay for one, doesn't matter. What matters is that you get a high link back, and you have the opportunity to market exclusively to the link exchange community. They also usually have a forum, and other ways you can communicate and market yourself.

Free Ads to get you traffic:
By putting ads about your website or blog on Kijiji, or Craigslist you can get traffic. My most successful area for getting traffic so far, out of all the areas I listed, is this last one.

I put an ad up that says I am giving my 36 page report away for free. People go to the website I have listed, and then from that page decide whether to give me their email or not. But the point is, the ad helped get them to my page.

Just make sure to be honest, if it's free great, if not be honest about the price or your ads could be booted.

In conclusion, this should give you more than enough to get you started on getting traffic. I chip away at all of these a bit a week. The more you do, the higher you will become on search engines. Did you ever wonder how popular blogs became that way? It was by trying these methods, and maybe a few others like video blogs, etc. But the point is, everyday they promoted themselves.

Your choice is whether you do it yourself, or you hire someone to do it for you. For now I've decided I will do my own promotions, but eventually when I get too busy, I might hire someone.

I hope I've helped you on your journey to getting more traffic.

Making Money from a Blog

2008-10-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, so earlier I told you blogging was the way to go if you owned a corporation. But what about if you just have a personal blog and want to blog for money?

Let me just start with, unless you have horseshoes up your butt, you are not going to make money off your blog right away. I'm not saying it's not possible, you might find a niche with no competition and high traffic...but the odds are against you.

Most people who start a blog, give up quickly. They either never initally launch it or worse, because it doesn't make money they give up.

Most successful blogs have been around for two years or more. And when you speak to these bloggers it's taken them that time to get traffic and a huge readership. They did not start over night as a success.

In fact when you talk to people like Darren Rowse at Problogger, he will tell you that he started his blog as a hobby. He also says that you shouldn't build a blog to make money initially, but as a hobby. If you are expecting to make money, you are going to be disappointed.

I'm not saying you can't make money on a blog. But the odds are against you. It's a constant battle of promoting your blog, and getting traffic to it. That and having highly valuable content. If your blog is just filled with google adsense, and ads, but no real content, you may get the traffic, but they won't come back.

To make money from a blog, you need to build foundation articles; reasons that people want to come to your blog. You add a value that they need, you give your readers hope. You provide them with something they are looking for.

Some bloggers say having pillar articles aren't important, but I differ. I think it's important to build a blog with a few strong articles. Hopefully these articles will create some link backs with other sites. Bigger bloggers might see your article and want to put it on their site. By doing this, they will give you a lot more traffic, and a market of readers you might not have gotten.

Another great way to get more traffic is to network. Join forums, groups, comment on other blogs with similar subjects. The more you publish your url on sites, the more linkbacks you create, the more you are increasing your page rank.

I think submitting your link on popular blogs via comments is a great way to go. Even if they have no follows. (No follow means your link is not a trusted source and google won't trust that link back, which doesn't help your page rank. Some blogs do have follow, which means when you link to them, your link is treated as a trusted source and helps your page rank.) Why I think commenting on no follow blogs is a good thing, because if 3,000 people are reading that blog article, that's 3,000 people reading your comment. And lo and behold, you are getting traffic you might not have originally gotten.

Some people actually try to be one of the first comments by a popular blog author, that way everyone who reads that article and wants to comment on it, is going to see that first comment. And the important thing is, to actually read the post you are commenting on, and offer something on value. If your comment is generic and dull, you might not get the traffic you would if your comment added value, or was interesting. The odds that people are going to click on your link are increased when you appear intelligent and informed.

Writing an article and submitting them in free article databases is another great way to get yourself out there. Write 3 or 4, 300-500 word articles and submit them to as many free sites as you can. Just be careful to make your article informative and not a sales letter. If it's nothing but promotion, your article might be rejected. Also keep in mind when submitting articles, it takes them a bit of time to be published.

Well that's a few ways to get you started on making money. Remember to never give up, and at least once a day concentrate on promoting your blog. Submit links to everything you can, and always blog. The more blog posts you have, the more important google is going to think you are. How do you think some of the popular blogs got that way? They offer pages and pages of content. For you to build a readership, you need to do the same.

Tressa
Traffic 101

my blog

Having Photos in your Blog

2008-10-18T13:04:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Nick Winch

Until recently I didn't really know whether having photos in your blog was a good thing or not. I would sometimes include them with posts, but I wasn't sure whether it would slow down the blog load time or not.

As of last week, I've finally become educated on the subject.

Having photos in your blog posts is a very important piece to blogging.

Some of the reasons are:

Draws the eye to the picture
Makes your blog post more interesting and engaging
May give you more traffic as other bloggers will link to your blog post
Adds a new dimension to your article
Makes your blog stand out

Need places to get photos?

A great free site is http://flickr.com/. Just make sure you understand how it works. You can use photos as long as you ask permission and use a link back to their site or profile. Another site is http://www.sxc.hu/home, stock exchange but this one you pay $1.00 to use for a photo. Or you can contact the person and get the photo free. I also like http://www.istockphoto.com/, where you can sign up and get credits to get photos, or subscribe monthly. It's about $1.00 a photo, plus by using istockphoto, you don't have to include a link or give credit to the photographer because you bought the photo.

I tried all the sites and really Stock Exchange seemed the most user friendly, I had more of an idea of what was going on.

Either way, start incorporating some pictures into your blog, and you might see the traffic increase.

Good luck

Tressa

Building a Corporate Blog

2008-10-17T09:32:00.000-07:00

By building a blog, you are giving your corporation a voice to express opinions and thoughts related to your branding. Without a blog, you would have to do this on a website, which would not be as effective. Blogs are personable, need to be updated more often, and convey any kind of image you are looking for.

By blogging you are giving a voice and personality to your business, which will build you credibility and make consumers like you, increase loyalty and build brand awareness. Also by building a blog you can create a link back to your website and get more traffic to your products.
By having a blog you can announce new products, include testimonials, review products, announce contests, have an ezine, and so much more.

Before you build a blog you should plan what you want your blog to say, and what the brand is that you are trying to convey with your customers. Remember to keep it consistent to what your company image is. So keep in mind who your target audience is and what they are interested in reading about.

Make sure you do your market research, look at similar corporate blogs to see what works and what doesn’t. A great way to get material for your blog posts, is from other blogs. (How do you think I got this post idea?)

Define key people who are responsible for updating and maintaining the blog. It is important to keep the image and personality consistent. If one day you are friendly and the next day you are cold, and impersonable, you will confuse your readers and you might lose them. Keep a few people, and verse them on how you want the tone and image of the blog to be. If you want it to be light and breezy, keep it that way. If you want it to be more real and with hard facts, don’t suddenly be flaky. Your readers loyalty depends on getting what they need out of your blog.

Make sure your blog is updated as least once a week. Unlike a website, a blog needs to be updated regularly for people to enjoy. Look at other corporate blogs to see how often they update. Make it a goal to write two posts, minimum per week. Make sure your posts are solid and informative, but also reflect your brand image.

Remember to proof your work, as this is represents your company. Also, keep the comments open so that readers can comment on your posts. I think feedback is important and can help you immensely. What might not seem obvious to you, could be obvious to one of your readers.
Comments is a great way to engage the reader and make them feel like their opinions and views are valued.

Either way I think a blog is a great way to go, it can help drive traffic to your site, convey a personal side to the corporation, and keep everyone in the now. There are many free software and programs for you to try a blog out if you are unsure. Myself I like blogger.

Either way, good luck.

Tressa

Join my affiliate and have a chance to earn $100,000,000!

2008-10-16T05:59:00.000-07:00

I am very excited to announce that if you join
my free affiliate I will get $1.00. For every person who signs up under me, I earn $1.00. It is free to join, and right now they are having a contest where you could win $100,000,000. Also for every person that person signs up, you get $.05. Contest goes from Oct 2 to Feb, 2009.

Either way, if you join now, you can start referring people for free and collecting $1 off each person who joins.

To win $100,000,000 Russell Brunson is offering little challenges that you need to perform, almost like a treasure hunt. After every little challenge you have the opportunity to win a prize, like a tv, a car, and much more. And while you are performing these challenges, not only are you learning to market, you are learning traffic ideas and strategies. I think it’s a great idea.

Russell Brunson has you build a blog of your dream and how you want to spend your money and than he teaches you how to promote this blog, make videos, and much more. If you aren’t into the contest, it’s a great idea to join just to learn how to market yourself and your product. The free training is worth it alone!

Anyway check it out for yourself ------> $100,000,000 challenge.

Tressa

Looking for a good affiliate to join.

2008-10-15T08:51:00.000-07:00

If you’ve ever googled the word “affiliate”, you know there are hundreds, thousands of sites you could join. So how do you pick your product? How do you know what a good one is? What should you look for? Who can you trust?

I’ve been where you are, and it’s difficult. My first criteria would be that the affiliate would need to be free to join. If it costs you money, it’s probably not worth it.

My next criteria item would be quality support and training materials. They may have a good product that you think you can sell, but what if you have questions and need help?

My next criteria would be to talk to people who currently are affiliates for that product, have they had success? Do the products practically sell themselves?

Never rush into selling products or goods that you aren’t sure about. If you do, this may damage your credibility. And as a website and blog, that’s really all you have with people. They trust you based on your brand image and what you put out through your words and images.

Now that you know what you are looking for, good luck. But as a second resource, I have included my own affiliate recommendation, and why I think it’s a good program to join.

I work for Second Tier. Russell Brunson is a young wrestler who has done what others have not been able to; he has dominated the market and has become a millionaire. He offers great products, a free DVD, a resource binder, and many more. His products range from $7.50 to $400.00 so depending on what one you want to promote, you have a wide range.

I also like his program because he offers tons and tons of support. There is a whole archive page on tutorial videos on how to get traffic, how to build an email list, and much more. He even gives away four of his traffic systems for free.

Since joining his program I have learned a lot just by watching his videos. He also has a live one every Monday, so you can ask questions, via the chatroom. Any time you run into problems, he and his staff are there for you. How this differs, is other programs I have joined have teleconferences, where you have to dial in and pay long distance charges, etc. His program, I can get comfortable, and than watch a video and take notes at my leisure.

The last reason I recommend his program is, I believe in the product. I have purchased the DVD for $7.50 and watched his system of how he created his fortune, and am in the process of implementing it.

If you are unsure at this point, keep following my blog, and I will continue to update it with posts about how I am doing with his affiliate. Remember, it’s free to join, no strings attached.

Good luck and happy selling!

Tressa

Marketing Online Tips

2008-10-14T08:23:00.001-07:00

Marketing and promoting yourself on the Internet is easy and mostly free. But one thing you need to be aware of, is constantly keeping yourself up to date. It’s easy to read a few ebooks and than think you are done learning the techniques, but everyday things change. What might have worked last week is now out of date.

A great way to stay ahead is to follow a few successful blogs and websites. Or join their ezine. That way you get instant updates.

I follow a few, and this allows me to learn new things and try out what works for me, or doesn’t. You also have to be able to tell if they are giving you good information or just trying to sell you a product. Trust me that this happens a lot.

A new site that has come out recently is twitter. Twitter is a fun site that you can update what you are doing at that moment in time. Plus you can link it to your blog, or website. The purpose of twitter is to get as many followers as you can. This helps promote your website, yourself, and what your status updates are.

There are some rules though, if you want to keep your followers in twitterville, do not self promote yourself too much. Keep your status updates unique and not boring and try to offer relevant information regarding your blog or website. If you are suddenly promoting a different tune, you may tune some followers off.

For some neat twitter tools, check out new twitter tools.

If you would like to follow me on twitterville, check out follow me.

Welcome to Traffic 101!

2008-10-14T06:29:00.000-07:00

Hi, my name is Tressa Anderson and I am an online marketer and promoter. I am also interested in the law of attraction and positive thoughts.

I have been exploring online marketing for almost two years. I’ve written one ebook, now a free report that I am offering at http://www.traffic101.org. I’ve learnt many things through my trail and tribulations, and am willing to help anyone who needs it.

If you are interested in signing up for my free ezine, please go to http://www.traffic101.org and get my free 36-page report on how to make yourself a brand.

For the past week I have been building my email list through promoting my free report that I am giving away. Having an email list is key to selling your products or services. It takes the average person 5 times to view a product before they decide to buy it. So by creating your own email list, you are giving that person more opportunities to learn about your product.

I will also be using this blog to make posts about the latest advertising techniques, or what I find works for me, or what doesn’t. For example, I have just joined twitter, as I hear it’s the next big thing. Follow me on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/traffic101, see you there!

Tressa