How to gain web traffic through 9 simple tips

Driving traffic to your website can be a time consuming task. However, these easy tips may help you increase traffic and convert those visitors into actual customers. 1. Title on your main URL and secondary pages Originally, my title was ADVANCED SYSTEMS-A Leadership & Organizational Training & Development Firm near Chicago, IL. If I searched for the first two words ADVANCED SYSTEMS using Overture at inventory. overture I found a little over 4,000 keyword searches. By using this tool, I entered various key words and discovered that the term education and training had over 210,000 searches during the previous month. Research also recommends that the title length not exceed 77 characters and so I continued researching the most effective key words to pair with my first two terms. Also, additional reading suggested that you indicate your location within this title. Even though the completed title may exceed the recommended length, this is OK because the search engines do read beyond 77 characters. Also, as you construct or revise each page, make sure that title has the appropriate key words. Currently, I am doing that for my site because as stated earlier ADVANCED SYSTEMS is not a popular searched term. 2. Content Both my Internet marketing coach ( leaders-perspective) and my marketing consultant ( hodgecommunications) acknowledged that the content on my site of which I wrote was of exceptional editorial quality. Their praises made me feel very good. However, both told me that the content wouldn’t “sell an igloo to an Eskimo.” This wasn’t what I wanted to hear after spending hundreds of hours writing this exceptional content. Currently, I am revisiting each page and rewriting the content using a marketing content focus instead of editorial one. I had failed one of the basic lessons in marketing – write to the audience needs by identifying potential benefits not your expertise. 3. Search Words Again using the mentioned site in tip #1, I began to rewrite the content and then checked key words and phrases to ensure that they were embedded within the content. Writing in Microsoft Word, the writer can go to the Edit button and scroll down to the Find icon. By typing in a specific word or phrase, this handy tool will check to see how many times it appears in the document. A note of caution – Be careful not to overload your content with search words because the robots are quite sophisticated and can distinguish this overload. 4. Call to Action Within the content on each page should be a call to action. The visitor should be encouraged to sign up for a free newsletter or contact your office by phone or email. Also, you can provide links to other pages within your website such as “click to hear read more articles.” 5. Thematic Approach Using a theme entices search engines to travel through all the pages within your site. The theme can be your unique selling proposition. Also, a thematic approach encourages your visitors to visit more than one or two pages. 6. Use of Pictures, Graphics and Flash Pictures are far more effective than clip art. Remember to use a variety of genders and ethnicity because your Internet audience is diverse. Be careful with flash and other time consuming graphics as they may consume too much time to download. Many visitors leave sites if the site doesn’t download in a matter of seconds. Time is money not only for you, but your visitors as well. 7. Free Offers Visitors like to receive free offers from ezine booklets to articles to recommendations on books and other sites. Entice your visitors with freebies and have them coming back for more. 8. Regular Updates Sites need to be updated on a regular basis to encourage Search Engines to continually visit your site. A static site is not good for web traffic or building relationships with your visitors. Construct a plan to revisit your pages to provide new content for Search Engines. HINT: Remember to check Key Words as you update your pages. 9. Perfection and Under Construction Since web sites should not be static, perfection is an ongoing experience. Don’t wait until the content is perfect. Load it and then watch your statistics. Under construction shouldn’t be forever, however prioritize those pages you wish to update first. If you need to add a page, do so and mark it as “Under Construction.” I currently have several new pages “Under Construction” and still have yet to revise all my pages. Working using a plan (see tip 8), I anticipate completing the entire site within the next 30 days. And then, revisit at least 2 pages each month to update the content. These last two months have been an incredible learning experience for me as I continue to work on my site to expand traffic and therefore potential clients. For example, one of the most visible results has been a 300% increase on one of my revised pages ( processspecialist/youth. htm). Even though the site is still has pages under construction, I know that following these 9 simple tips will continue to multiply traffic and eventually increase my client base. Word Count: 853 Copyright 2005(c) Leanne Hoagland-Smith, processspecialist This article may be freely published. Permission to publish this article, electronically or in print, as long as the bylines are included, with a live link, and the article is not changed in any way (grammatical corrections accepted).

Essential elements the perfect opportunity must possess

Copyright 2006 New World Opportunities Inc. It is midway through 2006 and we have an unprecedented number of people from around the globe on the internet attempting to build an online business and a successful one at that. More and more, many of these people are discovering that the state-of-the-art tools provided them turn out to be very rusty, ineffective and out of date. To compound the situation, many "sponsors","uplines" and "directors" who were so abundantly available before money transacted seem to fall off the face of the earth in the aftermath. So how does one go about seeking the utopian business model to either supplement or totally replace their current method of income? Well, one needs intelligent information to make an informed decision and to gather that requires a detailed analysis or as we like to call it in the industry, doing their "due diligence". However it is certainly valuable to know what you are looking for and for that purpose, I have prepared a series of criteria that will fit that mold. These are the essential elements I look for when evaluating any offline/online business opportunity: A program must be a one-time fee only. No monthly or recurring costs other than operational costs associated with marketing and advertising. Just no additional acquisition costs! Commissions must exceed 60%.Internet transactions consist of intellectual and informational property. These should easily provide sufficient profit margins of this magnitude to a distributor otherwise, move on. These payments should also be made directly to the member and not the company as I've seen far too many monies go directly into the company's coffers forever remaining there leaving the sales force high and dry. Each program must have one or more products in high demand that have an almost universal appeal to most of the general population. The successful candidate of a program should be non-inventory intensive and should require no physical handling or forwarding of packages. Everything should be deliverable via the internet. The ideal program must be available worldwide justifying the efforts of the internet marketer's time, energy and resources. The program should have no sales targets or quotas required of its people. The program will have the proper tools, resources, and knowledge to ensure the program can be marketed with such ease that an average 13-year old could execute it. The ultimate program must have a business model that generates both active and residual income. Ideally, you can add passive. Let me clarify. Active income is generated by those who choose to be aggressive in their marketing efforts, passive is a method whereby those that choose not to be assertive in their efforts can still see significant gains and residual is a model that allows each member to make money off of each person who comes in under them. Remuneration if you will. Saving the best for last. I have personally scrutinized thousands and have got my hands busy in several hundred of those opportunities easily spending over $150,000 in the process and I have to conclude-based on these experiences - that the paramount of opportunities consists of one undertaking NO selling, closing, prospecting, advertising,3-way calling and therefore NO rejection ! Unparalleled customer and technical support is a major plus to be considered. There are very few opportunities that will pass this very stringent test. Even then they would still have to stand up to further testing in the cash flow and income sectors. That being said, you would still discover that many of them fall in the low end of the internet spectrum thus requiring that thousands of "units" be sold each month just to get by. These are not businesses but more of a pastime. Pastimes will not prove to be lucrative. There is a business that does not require a significantly large start-up by most standards and affords one the ability to recoup their stake VERY quickly. It is a business whereby I have seen results unheard of in my previous forays into the marketing abyss. In fact, it is one held in such high regard that CNN in conjunction with The Discovery Channel recently selected it amongst hundreds of entries for their "Model of Excellence". Its automation is cutting edge and all one does is plug-in with ready to go web portals and tools. You can advertise or choose not to selecting a few pathways where it is all done for you for a very nominal , reasonable fee. Where most every opportunity - good or bad-has been maligned by those who cannot think outside of conventional "wisdom" or whom never got their enterprise off the ground; I have seen this elite model even pass that rigorous test ! Many get qualified in their first two weeks and a vast percentage are realizing $10,000-$20,000 per month by month 3 and I personally know many who are attaining $100,000 + months in the same time frame. For more insight keep an eye out for CNN and The Discovery Channel and for those who enjoy XM and Sirius satellite radio-keep an ear out !

7 Tips to staying motivated while working from home

Copyright 2006 Sandra P. Martini You’re doing it. For years you’ve wanted to work from home and you are finally doing it. You are no longer an employee who has a “J O B”; you are now a business owner, self-employed, ruler of your own destiny AND you have inherited all the responsibilities that come with owning a business: * You are the manager * You are the marketer * You are the service provider/widget maker * You are the bookkeeper And the list goes on. We often get so busy running our businesses that we forget why we started them in the first place. So what does a small business owner do to stay motivated while working from home? 1. Remember the “why”. Take a step back to remember the reason you went into business in the first place. What was your inspiration? It helps to focus intently on how you felt when you first realized you wanted to be successfully self-employed. For me, it was the sense of freedom and independence that I knew would come with success as an entrepreneur. 2. Give yourself a deadline. If you’re procrastinating about a project, you may be motivated by the self-imposed pressure of a deadline. Try giving yourself a deadline that you won’t want to back down on: send an email to friends announcing a new product launch, email your client with a due date for that big project you’re working on, take reservations for your first teleclass, you get the idea. 3. Maintain a support system. One of the hardest parts of being a solopreneur can be the sense of isolation. When things go right (or wrong), we no longer have the “water cooler” to go to. Be sure there is someone who you can share with, someone who is available for a quick motivational chat when you need one. 4. Keep the goal in sight. A simple, yet effective motivational tool is to keep your goals in sight – literally. I’ve taken a picture of my dream house and made it the background wallpaper on my computer. One glance at it is a megadose of motivation for me! 5. Take a nap. As counterintuitive as it sounds, taking a powernap is one of the best ways to rejuvenate your body AND mind. So the next time you’re feeling overwhelmed or low, slowly and intently read each of your goals and then go take a powernap. Let your subconscious work on ways to manifest those goals while you rest. When you wake, you’ll be raring to go! 6. Reward yourself. When faced with a large project, unpleasant task or anything that overwhelms you, plan a reward for once it’s done. The reward can be as simple as a quiet bath with candles or as exciting as a professional sporting event. Just be sure to plan a reward that YOU want and will enjoy! 7. Take a break. You’ve most likely never worked harder than when you are first starting your own business. In addition to actually “doing” all the work, you need to work on marketing, invoicing and other overhead or “non-billable” tasks. Don’t get caught in the trap of “all work and no play”. Be sure you take days off and breaks throughout the day to rejuvenate and gain some perspective. Whenever I’m stuck on a project, I grab one of the dogs and go for a walk…by the time I return to the office, things have usually sorted themselves out in my head. It doesn't matter how successful your home business is or how much you love to work from home; both new and established entrepreneurs face the motivational dilemma at some point and while some of the above motivational strategies may seem conflicting on their face – giving yourself a deadline versus taking a break for example – they all have their place in the life of a successful entrepreneur.