Website Traffic Monitoring Made Easier.
Those of you who indulge in website traffic monitoring may remember SEOMoz.org’s useful page strength tool… and while it did nothing to actually increase site traffic in itself, of course, it did at least provide a powerful analysis of where your site needed to be strengthened. Its most important function lay in mirroring the way Google ranked sites. Qualities it rated included the relative value of a page, as well as its internet visibility.
It’s been a while now since SEOMoz replaced it with their Trifecta tool. Fans were dubious, and even after the Trifecta tool started to show promising strength, the jury was still whispering behind closed virtual doors.
Many felt like Tolkien’s famous wizard, Gandalf, on the subject of breaking things on over-zealous quests to find out what makes them work; and even though Gandalf was no internet marketer, I thought, at first, he did have a point.
But I soon forgave SEOMoz, after trying the pleasing selection of (mostly) free SEO tools they’ve provided – along with the new Trifecta tool – on its page.
Here’s a short run-down of what you’ll find:
Linkscape – a potent “in-link” tool, powered by SEOMoz’ patent-pending metrics.
Term Target – analyzes your page (or your competitor’s) to see how well-targeted it is towards the keyword you specify.
Crawl Test – helps you discover what Search Bots “trip” over on your site. Elements it dissects are your Title tags, presence in Search Engine indices, cache dates, and HTTP response code. (N.B. You need to be one of their PRO subscribers, before you can use this particular tool.)
Term Extractor – A little reverse-engineering, anyone? The Term Extractor analyzes any page’s content, extracting SEO-targeted terms. (You can drag the link to your browser toolbar: A time-saving feature, if it’s a site you want to check often.)
Backlink Analysis Tool – Gives you an “advanced” look at the keywords linked to you by other sites.
SEOMoz Firefox Toolbar – If you’re a blogger, you’ll most likely have this one. It attempts to harness Linkscape’s thunder. Many swear by it – but I find it “messy”.
Rank Tracker – the really quick way to monitor and track your rank in all major Search Engines (including Bing and Yahoo, as well Google!)
Popular Searches – Archives, as well as aggregates, the most popular Searches from multiple sources (handy for niche generation ideas!)
Juicy Link Finder – The quickest way to find “authority” sites for your keyword!
GeoTargeting Detection – Good if your site is optimized for a local area or target country. You can check to see how well it’s optimized to your areas of interest.
Keyword Difficulty – This tool gives you an actual percentage score and detailed analysis of the top-ranking Google and Yahoo sites. Helps you decide how competitive a keyword might actually be.
SEOMoz Labs – Fascinating to visit, but suited to SEO developers more than users. It’s geared to their PRO subscribers.
But what do I actually think of the Trifecta tool, compared to the old Page Strength one?
Well… I’ve decided this one case where old Gandalf should have gone ahead and smashed the clock!
GILIW.COM
Tuesday, December 25, 2018
Monday, December 24, 2018
Increase FREE Blog Traffic By Using Web 2.0 Features
Web 2.0 Features That Increase FREE Blog Traffic
Social Bookmarking
After you set up a blog and start adding some posts, you will want to get the word out. To do that, you can use social bookmarking, which is just a way of tagging that blog post into areas that collect information from all over the web. It works about the same as when you bookmark a site in your web browser for yourself, except for social bookmarking you are doing it to a social storage area where many people can see what you've bookmarked. People who subscribe to these services and are searching for specific content have an easier time finding it then.
The nice thing about social bookmarking is that people can comment and rate the bookmarks that you add to a social networking site. In this way, you can have great exposure for a site and allow others to add their own ideas to it too. An example of a social bookmarking site is del.ici.ous.
News
If your blogs are more about current events, the latest technologies, or even politics, than you will want to use social news sites like Digg.com. These sites offer round-the-clock news and can be particularly popular with news hounds. They show up to comment and rate stories and depending on their popularity, you can land on the front page and get lots of traffic! So, be sure to use this site if your blog is appropriate for it.
Tags
When you write up a post, the blog interface will have a place for you to put tags in to identify what the article is about. You can simply type in some key words there, or you can use a plug-in like SimpleTags to help you identify good tag keywords. Either way, the more relevant the key words and the more searchable, the easier it is for people to find your blog. So, be sure to add that information in if you want to attract people to your blog.
Comments
As you begin to understand the blog world, you will start to develop relationships with other bloggers. You can use that networking to help you create more traffic for your site simply by going to other blogs and commenting on a popular entry. When you comment, many blogs automatically put in your blog URL in where your name appears, if you are in the same community. And, you can also use html to add your own link to an article that might be relevant to the post.
People who come to read the other blog will read the comments and if your's is interesting they may follow your link or click on your name. Either way, this will produce much more traffic for you than simply sticking to your own blog.
RSS Feed
This feature is automatic on Wordpress blogs and a plug-in in other blogs. You should have it enabled because it allows people to subscribe to your RSS feed. This feed gets sent to their newsreader every time you update your blog, so it keeps people motivated to keep visiting, but only when new content is posted. The more regularly you update your blog, the more frequent the RSS feed is updated and the more people visit your blog.
GILIW.COM
Social Bookmarking
After you set up a blog and start adding some posts, you will want to get the word out. To do that, you can use social bookmarking, which is just a way of tagging that blog post into areas that collect information from all over the web. It works about the same as when you bookmark a site in your web browser for yourself, except for social bookmarking you are doing it to a social storage area where many people can see what you've bookmarked. People who subscribe to these services and are searching for specific content have an easier time finding it then.
The nice thing about social bookmarking is that people can comment and rate the bookmarks that you add to a social networking site. In this way, you can have great exposure for a site and allow others to add their own ideas to it too. An example of a social bookmarking site is del.ici.ous.
News
If your blogs are more about current events, the latest technologies, or even politics, than you will want to use social news sites like Digg.com. These sites offer round-the-clock news and can be particularly popular with news hounds. They show up to comment and rate stories and depending on their popularity, you can land on the front page and get lots of traffic! So, be sure to use this site if your blog is appropriate for it.
Tags
When you write up a post, the blog interface will have a place for you to put tags in to identify what the article is about. You can simply type in some key words there, or you can use a plug-in like SimpleTags to help you identify good tag keywords. Either way, the more relevant the key words and the more searchable, the easier it is for people to find your blog. So, be sure to add that information in if you want to attract people to your blog.
Comments
As you begin to understand the blog world, you will start to develop relationships with other bloggers. You can use that networking to help you create more traffic for your site simply by going to other blogs and commenting on a popular entry. When you comment, many blogs automatically put in your blog URL in where your name appears, if you are in the same community. And, you can also use html to add your own link to an article that might be relevant to the post.
People who come to read the other blog will read the comments and if your's is interesting they may follow your link or click on your name. Either way, this will produce much more traffic for you than simply sticking to your own blog.
RSS Feed
This feature is automatic on Wordpress blogs and a plug-in in other blogs. You should have it enabled because it allows people to subscribe to your RSS feed. This feed gets sent to their newsreader every time you update your blog, so it keeps people motivated to keep visiting, but only when new content is posted. The more regularly you update your blog, the more frequent the RSS feed is updated and the more people visit your blog.
GILIW.COM
Sunday, December 23, 2018
"Credibility By Association" - A Strategy
The Strategy Of Credibility By Association
As we indicated in the chapter above, you can often sell things through the associations you make with it. In this chapter, we are going to discuss how linking your product to things that are familiar to your customers can help to breed a cozy familiarity that is appealing. For products that are new, it can even be a way to overcome the resistance to buying if you link the product with something they already know.
One of the easiest ways to do this type of association is to link your products to some cultural phenomena or fad that is currently in the forefront of the mass consciousness. Once it is associated with some fad, by default your product also gains tremendous popularity along with the fad. However, you do have to be careful that when a trend ends, that your sales don't dwindle too. The positive aspects of linking to a popular subject are obvious, but the negative aspects can sometimes be ignored and impact your sales. So, remain aware that you always have to understand that linking your product to other cultural trends works both ways.
The Strategy
You will want to identify what trends are foremost in the mind of your visitors. They could be cultural, ethnic, behavioral, or simply a shift in the public's awareness. As an example, if you are selling kid's toys and there is a popular television series that has enormous popularity, if you can link your product to this series, you will experience good growth in your sales.
Your product doesn't even have to be directly related to the event that you are exploiting, for it to work. As long as it draws attention - even controversy - to your sales ad. Online controversy is a sure way to gain attention even if it can be explosive. If you understand how to manipulate a controversy to your advantage, you can even use these controversies to sell your products. At the very least, you will increase your site's traffic.
Sometimes an event is a good thing to link your products to, like a historical event. This is actually done around major holidays when all sort of Christmas-themed wares and/or gifts show up in the stores. But, beyond the holidays there are events that can influence your visitors to buy your products: Earth Day for greenies, for instance.
Highly controversial or anticipated events can be great product promoters. The American national elections, for instance, is a giant boon for people who sell items with logos. Now, they can sell T-shirts, bumper stickers, and all sorts of different types of products by linking them to either the Republican or the Democratic candidates. As different controversies erupt over the candidates it can be a gold mine for people who want to show their party loyalties through the products they buy.
But, this strategy isn't just relegated to fads and controversies, it's also about making new products or unusual products more familiar and cozy. An example of this is an ad that was printed in the past selling smoke detectors that look intimidatingly high-tech which compared it to a very sensitive nose. Suddenly, the smoke detector wasn't so odd and frightening, but rather familiar to the average human being. In the process, the smoke alarm is reframed to something that a person can rely on every day to keep them out of danger without being too concerned about the mechanics of it.
GILIW.COM
As we indicated in the chapter above, you can often sell things through the associations you make with it. In this chapter, we are going to discuss how linking your product to things that are familiar to your customers can help to breed a cozy familiarity that is appealing. For products that are new, it can even be a way to overcome the resistance to buying if you link the product with something they already know.
One of the easiest ways to do this type of association is to link your products to some cultural phenomena or fad that is currently in the forefront of the mass consciousness. Once it is associated with some fad, by default your product also gains tremendous popularity along with the fad. However, you do have to be careful that when a trend ends, that your sales don't dwindle too. The positive aspects of linking to a popular subject are obvious, but the negative aspects can sometimes be ignored and impact your sales. So, remain aware that you always have to understand that linking your product to other cultural trends works both ways.
The Strategy
You will want to identify what trends are foremost in the mind of your visitors. They could be cultural, ethnic, behavioral, or simply a shift in the public's awareness. As an example, if you are selling kid's toys and there is a popular television series that has enormous popularity, if you can link your product to this series, you will experience good growth in your sales.
Your product doesn't even have to be directly related to the event that you are exploiting, for it to work. As long as it draws attention - even controversy - to your sales ad. Online controversy is a sure way to gain attention even if it can be explosive. If you understand how to manipulate a controversy to your advantage, you can even use these controversies to sell your products. At the very least, you will increase your site's traffic.
Sometimes an event is a good thing to link your products to, like a historical event. This is actually done around major holidays when all sort of Christmas-themed wares and/or gifts show up in the stores. But, beyond the holidays there are events that can influence your visitors to buy your products: Earth Day for greenies, for instance.
Highly controversial or anticipated events can be great product promoters. The American national elections, for instance, is a giant boon for people who sell items with logos. Now, they can sell T-shirts, bumper stickers, and all sorts of different types of products by linking them to either the Republican or the Democratic candidates. As different controversies erupt over the candidates it can be a gold mine for people who want to show their party loyalties through the products they buy.
But, this strategy isn't just relegated to fads and controversies, it's also about making new products or unusual products more familiar and cozy. An example of this is an ad that was printed in the past selling smoke detectors that look intimidatingly high-tech which compared it to a very sensitive nose. Suddenly, the smoke detector wasn't so odd and frightening, but rather familiar to the average human being. In the process, the smoke alarm is reframed to something that a person can rely on every day to keep them out of danger without being too concerned about the mechanics of it.
GILIW.COM
Saturday, December 22, 2018
Strategies To Get Traffic From Social Networking Sites
Strategies To Get Social Networking Free Traffic
Of course, your strategies may vary with the policy of each site. Some will allow you to do some limited promotion of your products and businesses and others won't. Some will allow you to bring in external content to help build your profile and others won't. Each have their own unique way to keep in touch with people, some through profiles only, and others through mobile status updates like Twitter. So, it can be a little daunting to give one technical way to use all social networking sites. However, the strategy is still the same for most:
Social networking takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. The sooner you get started, the more time you have to develop a network that is primed to be marketed later.
The more time you spend on each site, the more you will begin to see clever strategies that others have developed to increase their influence as if by magic. And, like everything else in this book, always cross-link all your sites for a spider web effect, a vortex of traffic, to eventually pull them into areas where you can make sales.
GILIW.COM
Of course, your strategies may vary with the policy of each site. Some will allow you to do some limited promotion of your products and businesses and others won't. Some will allow you to bring in external content to help build your profile and others won't. Each have their own unique way to keep in touch with people, some through profiles only, and others through mobile status updates like Twitter. So, it can be a little daunting to give one technical way to use all social networking sites. However, the strategy is still the same for most:
- Set up a profile with your website links, and develop an online, authentic, personality,
- Invite friends you already know to link to you,
- Look at their friends list and see if you have mutual friends you can invite to link in to you,
- Join in the networking and keep your profile fresh with updates and new content like videos, pictures, and blog postings,
- Stay present and check in daily to answer inquires, add some status information, and see if you can make new friends.
- Check out other people online to see what they're doing to build their presence and copy it,
- Join groups and use a signature line to link back to your website,
- Network with other people online, staying conscious of who the major players are to connect with them if you can,
- Explore any applications or other features within the site for marketing and contact building,
- Always try to have a way to funnel your contacts back to a blog or website for those social networks that limit your marketing capability.
Social networking takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. The sooner you get started, the more time you have to develop a network that is primed to be marketed later.
The more time you spend on each site, the more you will begin to see clever strategies that others have developed to increase their influence as if by magic. And, like everything else in this book, always cross-link all your sites for a spider web effect, a vortex of traffic, to eventually pull them into areas where you can make sales.
GILIW.COM
Friday, December 21, 2018
Using Squidoo For Your Branding
Squidoo Your Way To Free Brand Recognition
Unlike social networking sites, that we'll discuss later in Chapter 6, social marketing sites allow you to define your brand and market it to make money online. Squidoo.com is the best example of a social marketing site that allows you to create lenses that are like a focal point of interest that you are an expert in. By being part of social marketing site, you will be able to network with other people interested in showing off their expertise too and that can build traffic to your site.
One of the many advantages to using Squidoo to help you get noticed is that you can do sales calls for action and it won't get you banned from the site. Squidoo is crawled by the Google spider and so there are many ways to use the power of Google to get your Squidoo lens ranked higher and attract people through the search engine dynamics. Meanwhile, it's perfectly okay to advertise your own products, your affiliate products, or anything else you want to promote on your Squidoo lens.
What's Up With Squidoo?
In order to learn how to maximize the potential to draw attention from Squidoo, you have to understand some of its features. Squidoo's main feature is a lens, which consists of a single web page used to promote anything that matters to you. You can use it to recommend products or services to other people. You can use it promote yourself, a topic, or your business. You can even earn royalties off the lenses that you create.
Lenses
The lens isn't just used to create sales copy, although many people use them this way. They are also for getting the word out about things that interest you or that might interest other people. You are able to create up to 10 lenses a day on any topic you desire. However, creating a lens that gets attention is somewhat of an art form. You don't want it to appear to be too commercial, and you don't want to spam a lot of keywords, but you do want to use strategies that can bring in traffic and convert to sales later.
When you write a lens, the best way to think of what content to add is to think of the various topics you are an expert on. Squidoo likes to remind people that they are like a cross between Friendster and Wikipedia. You want to be sociable, but you also want to get interesting and accurate information across to the readers of your lens. You want to narrow that topic so that it becomes a brand, of sorts. It should be very clear, it should have a niche, and you should strive to make it interesting.
SquidU
SquidU is the area for learning all things Squidoo. It is a bulletin board style format that allows you to see major categories of topics and search the database for topics of concern to you. If you are brand new to Squidoo, it can be very helpful to connect with people who know more than you do. They can help you optimize your pages, create attractive profiles, and guide you on the best way to use Squidoo for your particular topic. You are not only learning this way, but you are also networking. If you start to create online friendships with other Squidoo users they might come to your lens and vote on it, increasing the ranking. The more people that notice and rank your lens, the more that it will become a magnet for people on the Internet.
GILIW.COM
Unlike social networking sites, that we'll discuss later in Chapter 6, social marketing sites allow you to define your brand and market it to make money online. Squidoo.com is the best example of a social marketing site that allows you to create lenses that are like a focal point of interest that you are an expert in. By being part of social marketing site, you will be able to network with other people interested in showing off their expertise too and that can build traffic to your site.
One of the many advantages to using Squidoo to help you get noticed is that you can do sales calls for action and it won't get you banned from the site. Squidoo is crawled by the Google spider and so there are many ways to use the power of Google to get your Squidoo lens ranked higher and attract people through the search engine dynamics. Meanwhile, it's perfectly okay to advertise your own products, your affiliate products, or anything else you want to promote on your Squidoo lens.
What's Up With Squidoo?
In order to learn how to maximize the potential to draw attention from Squidoo, you have to understand some of its features. Squidoo's main feature is a lens, which consists of a single web page used to promote anything that matters to you. You can use it to recommend products or services to other people. You can use it promote yourself, a topic, or your business. You can even earn royalties off the lenses that you create.
Lenses
The lens isn't just used to create sales copy, although many people use them this way. They are also for getting the word out about things that interest you or that might interest other people. You are able to create up to 10 lenses a day on any topic you desire. However, creating a lens that gets attention is somewhat of an art form. You don't want it to appear to be too commercial, and you don't want to spam a lot of keywords, but you do want to use strategies that can bring in traffic and convert to sales later.
When you write a lens, the best way to think of what content to add is to think of the various topics you are an expert on. Squidoo likes to remind people that they are like a cross between Friendster and Wikipedia. You want to be sociable, but you also want to get interesting and accurate information across to the readers of your lens. You want to narrow that topic so that it becomes a brand, of sorts. It should be very clear, it should have a niche, and you should strive to make it interesting.
SquidU
SquidU is the area for learning all things Squidoo. It is a bulletin board style format that allows you to see major categories of topics and search the database for topics of concern to you. If you are brand new to Squidoo, it can be very helpful to connect with people who know more than you do. They can help you optimize your pages, create attractive profiles, and guide you on the best way to use Squidoo for your particular topic. You are not only learning this way, but you are also networking. If you start to create online friendships with other Squidoo users they might come to your lens and vote on it, increasing the ranking. The more people that notice and rank your lens, the more that it will become a magnet for people on the Internet.
GILIW.COM
Thursday, December 20, 2018
How To Prove That You Can Deliver The Offer
Proving You Can Deliver The Goods - Factor
Now, if you make an offer (no matter how incredibly good it may be), you won't attract sales if no one believes you can deliver what you offered. That's because people need to trust you before they will make a purchase from you. And, if the purchase is something that appears too good to be true, and they don't know you, they simply won't believe you are telling the truth.
Like any relationship, you have to build trust over time by delivering what you promise. So, what can you do for those that have yet to buy and haven't even entered into a commercial relationship with you? Well, you can flash your credentials!
Have you ever noticed that when people find out you are a doctor, they automatically assume you are smarter and richer than the average person? That's because your profession gives you credentials to be a person of integrity and a productive member of society. Education is one way that people flash credentials, by putting the initials to their degrees next to their names. There are certain ways to establish your credentials with your website audience that can be used to get them to trust you more and, thus, help you make the sale.
The Strategy
The nature of this strategy is to create a tone of authenticity and authority. You want to sound believable, educated, maybe even an expert about a particular topic related to your market niche. When people find someone who they can trust to tell them the truth exactly like it is, then they are more easily influenced into following the advise that person gives.
You will want to invoke associations that enhance your image as a knowledgeable and credible person and reduce the associations to those things that may impinge on your good name. Both of these aspects are looked at quite closely when a customer is trying to make a decision whether you are steering them in the right direction or just trying to make a fast back.
You will have to pay attention to the language that you use in your sales copy. It shouldn't contain any outrageous claims or even untruthful exaggerations. You want to highlight the benefits of your product or service, but in a manner that comes off as genuine, not hyped.
There are a number of different ways to implement this strategy, to help you build your credibility quickly and effectively, however, the strategy is still the same. You want to remove the objections in your customers mind to the possibility that they are being taken for a ride or influenced in underhanded ways. You do this by seeking to make sure your transactions always have a high degree of integrity from sale to delivery, and that you back everything with your good name.
GILIW.COM
Now, if you make an offer (no matter how incredibly good it may be), you won't attract sales if no one believes you can deliver what you offered. That's because people need to trust you before they will make a purchase from you. And, if the purchase is something that appears too good to be true, and they don't know you, they simply won't believe you are telling the truth.
Like any relationship, you have to build trust over time by delivering what you promise. So, what can you do for those that have yet to buy and haven't even entered into a commercial relationship with you? Well, you can flash your credentials!
Have you ever noticed that when people find out you are a doctor, they automatically assume you are smarter and richer than the average person? That's because your profession gives you credentials to be a person of integrity and a productive member of society. Education is one way that people flash credentials, by putting the initials to their degrees next to their names. There are certain ways to establish your credentials with your website audience that can be used to get them to trust you more and, thus, help you make the sale.
The Strategy
The nature of this strategy is to create a tone of authenticity and authority. You want to sound believable, educated, maybe even an expert about a particular topic related to your market niche. When people find someone who they can trust to tell them the truth exactly like it is, then they are more easily influenced into following the advise that person gives.
You will want to invoke associations that enhance your image as a knowledgeable and credible person and reduce the associations to those things that may impinge on your good name. Both of these aspects are looked at quite closely when a customer is trying to make a decision whether you are steering them in the right direction or just trying to make a fast back.
You will have to pay attention to the language that you use in your sales copy. It shouldn't contain any outrageous claims or even untruthful exaggerations. You want to highlight the benefits of your product or service, but in a manner that comes off as genuine, not hyped.
There are a number of different ways to implement this strategy, to help you build your credibility quickly and effectively, however, the strategy is still the same. You want to remove the objections in your customers mind to the possibility that they are being taken for a ride or influenced in underhanded ways. You do this by seeking to make sure your transactions always have a high degree of integrity from sale to delivery, and that you back everything with your good name.
GILIW.COM
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Blog Strategies For Free Traffic
More Blog Strategies For Free Traffic
There are various strategies to increase your traffic for a blog, with the goal of creating the maximum exposure for each post. You want to use all the features available for that. So, that when you initially write a post, you will want to follow these steps:
If you happen to get a trackback from another blogger, this is really great news! A trackback is a reference back to your post from another blogger with a similar post. This can generate instant traffic for your post and you may be wondering where it's coming from, until you see the trackback. So, make sure trackbacks are enabled on your site.
One of the ways search engines determine how to rate your content is by the number of backlinks. So, when you work with a number of other bloggers, you can raise each other's post values by linking back to posts or using trackbacks.
Lastly, if you are still having trouble raising interest, try to ride on the coat-tails of other popular blogs that have made the front page of some tagging or news site. You simply put a comment in their blog with a link back to your post. Or, you can try to respond to an interesting article online with your own commentary and offer a link back to their blog. Then, add a comment showing your own controversial view of the topic to get extra readers by sharing your link.
GILIW.COM
There are various strategies to increase your traffic for a blog, with the goal of creating the maximum exposure for each post. You want to use all the features available for that. So, that when you initially write a post, you will want to follow these steps:
- Identify a topic of major interest to your readers,
- Choose appropriate keywords for SEO or use plug-in,
- Write it up and tag it with relevant tags,
- Categorize it to make it easy to find in your blog,
- Add interesting and helpful content,
- Publish it,
- Bookmark it,
- Submit it to news sites,
- Respond to all comments to generate a discussion,
- Go to other blogs with similar topics and post comment and backlink.
If you happen to get a trackback from another blogger, this is really great news! A trackback is a reference back to your post from another blogger with a similar post. This can generate instant traffic for your post and you may be wondering where it's coming from, until you see the trackback. So, make sure trackbacks are enabled on your site.
One of the ways search engines determine how to rate your content is by the number of backlinks. So, when you work with a number of other bloggers, you can raise each other's post values by linking back to posts or using trackbacks.
Lastly, if you are still having trouble raising interest, try to ride on the coat-tails of other popular blogs that have made the front page of some tagging or news site. You simply put a comment in their blog with a link back to your post. Or, you can try to respond to an interesting article online with your own commentary and offer a link back to their blog. Then, add a comment showing your own controversial view of the topic to get extra readers by sharing your link.
GILIW.COM
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