If you want to get more traffic to your Website you will have to do it the old-fashioned way - earn it. You should never have to pay anyone for information on this topic.
The focus of this article is to offer you a method for building up solid steady traffic to your Website. Below are key points that will help you.
Create a Website: The most fundamental thing that you can do is to create a Website. I suggest starting by making the site short and simple. Keep the images to a minimum and wording low. Make the home page spacious and non-cluttered. A high quality Website will bring solid steady traffic! There are many good Web hosts, however, my recommendation is to sign up with Host Gator. My reasons are that they are the most SEO astute Web host on-line and their rates are excellent.
You can hire someone to make the site for you or build it yourself as I have done. I have chosen Dreamweaver as my Web page editor. I would recommend for you to purchase and learn a Web page editor and create the Website yourself. You will not be charged for this and above all you will have incredible flexibility in making changes and accessing your Website. Be encouraged for you will be surprised how easy it is to learn and manage a Web page editor.
Be sure to welcome your viewers to your site and tell them what the site is about - be focused. Show that you are an authority on your topic and demonstrate this by listing credentials such as: College Degrees, Professional Certificates (Teaching, Radiology, Accounting, etc.), Awards, Books, Journals, and Published Reports (all pertinent press releases are highly recommended).
Create a Blog: Second only to making a Website is to create a blog. A Website is static whereas a blog is dynamic because of the RSS feeds, keywords, subscribers, and followers. The purpose of the blog is to drive traffic to your Website. There are a number of blog hosts that you can choose from, I have chosen Blogger because it is owned by Google and cross-references to it. It is very prudent to post articles that you have already published on an RSS source (such as EzineArticles) to your blog because they will show up on Google searches. Put articles on your blog that are about your business and what you have to offer, be sure that your articles are keyword rich to topics on your Website. Also put links to your Website on your blog, usually there are "gadgets" that blog hosts offer to you for this. Post items on your blog that will show your focus and establish your expertise. Where it is relevant post images on your blog, for example, as an artist I critique internationally famous paintings from galleries around the world so I put an image of the painting under discussion in the article on my blog so that the reader can see what I am critiquing.
After you have posted items to your blog submit them to search engines, blog directories, and RSS feeds. This is crucial in getting your blog established and distributed to readers and search engines on the Internet so that it will be a useful tool for driving traffic to your Website!
Promote your Website locally: Make lots of business cards and go out and meet people! Go to bars, clubs, user groups, and trade associations to promote what you do and have your Website as a support vehicle. Remember that you are your best agent and that your Website is your aid.
For example, as an artist that does House Portraits for Realtors I attend Realtor trade expos around the country where I have a booth and promote my art. While I am there I have a bowl where all the passing agents can drop their business cards. When I return home I take these cards and contact each agent on the phone and ask for their permission to send them a link to my Website. I have only received positive responses to my request and most people are glad that I took the time to call!
I have composed a form letter that has links to my Website and I email this to them. This has directly given me one of the most valuable things you can possess: back-links! Back-links are very important because your Website attains higher page rank with good solid links to it. It is important to get high quality links to your site that are related to your area of expertise. The more high quality links to your site the higher your page ranking will be.
Important! In your Website make a "Link to us" page with a large link button to it prominently placed on the upper portion of your home page. Design this "Link to us" page so that it is very cleanly organized and in it make a note offering to exchange links with your viewers. Prominently place your icons front and center with almost no wording. Make it so that your viewers only "click" or "copy/paste" your links. The more you write and ask them to do the more you will lose your viewers for people do not like to read and they hate to follow instructions. Everyone throws away the instructions manual on devices that they buy so too they will toss your page away with an "X". Do not put any kind of code (HTML, Hexadecimal, Binary) on this page - that is a killer!
Whatever your business is you need to go out and meet people and tell them about your Website, it will work for you.
Write Articles: It goes without saying as I write this very article how important it is to establish yourself with authority. By writing articles not only do you achieve high Internet visibility you also are letting people know that you are an authority in your field. People do business with individuals that are informed and established. By writing good informative articles you are putting yourself in excellent light.
When you write articles be sure to write clearly on topics that you are an authority on which are helpful and informative to other readers. Utilize good grammar and make your message clean and clear, avoid obtuse wording and phrases to impress people. Write articles about your area of expertise and be on topic at all times. It is foolish and non-productive to write random articles just to get your name out. You will find that this practice will only lower the credibility of your Website as an on-line resource. Be prudent and only offer your readers high quality content filled articles. I highly recommend EzineArticles for publishing your articles because they are recognized as the best article publisher on the Internet and they work closely with Google.
SEO: This is a vast topic and I will just say a few things. In your title block (HTML source code) write a solid cogent title of two or three short phrases to your home page not longer than 65 characters (including spaces). Write a short and informative description, and list common keywords that are germane to your business. Do this for each new page that you make for your site and be sure to have a different set of phrases in the title block for each new page. Above all read as many articles and blogs on SEO as you can to stay on top of this science.
Do not stuff your Website with variations on your keywords or worse engage in Website cloaking, this will only get you into trouble and can even get your site permanently banned. Rather, write a good solid introduction clearly explaining to your viewers what you have to offer. Then, wisely utilize the keywords that you have in your title block into the body of your text. The search engine crawls will see and register these words and use them in ranking your site. Do not repeat keywords over and over it is bad for your site. Remember, Google wants your Website to be a good resource so keep that in mind as you develop your site. See Google Analytics for more details on working with data and techniques for enhancing your site.
SEO astute Web hosts such as Host Gator have in-depth resource tools and pages of data about SEO for your Website. These pages show you all kinds of data from who has visited your site to the exact number of back-links to your site.
Social Media: A great way to get back-links to your Website is through Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. What makes this so important is that most people do not have a Website but almost everyone is on Facebook or has a Blog. To get back-links you need to have the other person put your link on their blog so it is active. If your link is just sitting on their desktop it is no good to you, it has to be on a dynamic link platform like their blog or Facebook.
In your "Link to us" page have icons to Facebook, Twitter, and others prominently displayed as hyper-links. Below these icons have your URL posted with a short note to make it a link. It is very prudent to have a hyper-link below your URL to a Website of your choice with instructions on How do I make a link to another Webpage? See sample below:
"Copy/paste" URL below and link to your Website or Blog.
YourWebsite.com
How do I make a link to another Webpage?
It is strongly recommended that you create a business page in Facebook with links to your Website because this page is accessible to viewers without having to sign into Facebook and more importantly it is displayed on Google searches!
Join Web-based groups: Sign-up to Web-based forums like "Help Forum" in Google's Webmaster Tools. These groups are indispensable for they will put you in touch with other people that know a lot about the Web. You can learn about Website guide lines and protocol as well as share questions and discuss topics that are important to you.
With the downturn of the economy people more than ever have been turning to the Internet to make money to help make ends meet. Because of this there has been an increase of Websites and Blogs touting claims that they can get your Website to the top 10 search engine list quickly and provide you thousands of hits weekly to your Website for a "small fee" or some kind of subscription. Be prudent and go to trusted sources such as Google, Yahoo, Colleges, and Universities for Web-based user groups and they are all free.
In closing I would like to say that the best way to build solid traffic to your Website is to follow my guidelines stated above. Please avoid the marketers that want your money for promoting your Website. These Internet marketers and journalists write very compelling and motivating articles in hopes to sway you to follow their lead and purchase their products or subscribe to their on-line service. You always know that there is a catch when at the end of their "helpful" and "instructive" article there is a pitch to purchase their book. If they were honest and up right about what they were offering why not just spell it out in the very article that they are posting? Remember Dorothy's lesson at the end of the Wizard of Oz, after going through all the trials and tribulations in hopes of earning her passage back to Kansas, all that she had to do was simply click the heels of her shiny red slippers and she was home. The lesson here is that the power to get what you want from your Website and the Internet, like Dorothy's slippers, are on your feet. Always remember that everything that you need to know about developing and marketing your Website and what you have to offer is available for free!
Stephen F. Condren - Artist
http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Drive-Traffic-to-Your-Website-Naturally&id=5377195The focus of this article is to offer you a method for building up solid steady traffic to your Website. Below are key points that will help you.
- Create a Website
- Create a Blog
- Promote your Website Locally
- Write Articles
- SEO your Website
- Social Media
- Join Web-based groups
Create a Website: The most fundamental thing that you can do is to create a Website. I suggest starting by making the site short and simple. Keep the images to a minimum and wording low. Make the home page spacious and non-cluttered. A high quality Website will bring solid steady traffic! There are many good Web hosts, however, my recommendation is to sign up with Host Gator. My reasons are that they are the most SEO astute Web host on-line and their rates are excellent.
You can hire someone to make the site for you or build it yourself as I have done. I have chosen Dreamweaver as my Web page editor. I would recommend for you to purchase and learn a Web page editor and create the Website yourself. You will not be charged for this and above all you will have incredible flexibility in making changes and accessing your Website. Be encouraged for you will be surprised how easy it is to learn and manage a Web page editor.
Be sure to welcome your viewers to your site and tell them what the site is about - be focused. Show that you are an authority on your topic and demonstrate this by listing credentials such as: College Degrees, Professional Certificates (Teaching, Radiology, Accounting, etc.), Awards, Books, Journals, and Published Reports (all pertinent press releases are highly recommended).
Create a Blog: Second only to making a Website is to create a blog. A Website is static whereas a blog is dynamic because of the RSS feeds, keywords, subscribers, and followers. The purpose of the blog is to drive traffic to your Website. There are a number of blog hosts that you can choose from, I have chosen Blogger because it is owned by Google and cross-references to it. It is very prudent to post articles that you have already published on an RSS source (such as EzineArticles) to your blog because they will show up on Google searches. Put articles on your blog that are about your business and what you have to offer, be sure that your articles are keyword rich to topics on your Website. Also put links to your Website on your blog, usually there are "gadgets" that blog hosts offer to you for this. Post items on your blog that will show your focus and establish your expertise. Where it is relevant post images on your blog, for example, as an artist I critique internationally famous paintings from galleries around the world so I put an image of the painting under discussion in the article on my blog so that the reader can see what I am critiquing.
After you have posted items to your blog submit them to search engines, blog directories, and RSS feeds. This is crucial in getting your blog established and distributed to readers and search engines on the Internet so that it will be a useful tool for driving traffic to your Website!
Promote your Website locally: Make lots of business cards and go out and meet people! Go to bars, clubs, user groups, and trade associations to promote what you do and have your Website as a support vehicle. Remember that you are your best agent and that your Website is your aid.
For example, as an artist that does House Portraits for Realtors I attend Realtor trade expos around the country where I have a booth and promote my art. While I am there I have a bowl where all the passing agents can drop their business cards. When I return home I take these cards and contact each agent on the phone and ask for their permission to send them a link to my Website. I have only received positive responses to my request and most people are glad that I took the time to call!
I have composed a form letter that has links to my Website and I email this to them. This has directly given me one of the most valuable things you can possess: back-links! Back-links are very important because your Website attains higher page rank with good solid links to it. It is important to get high quality links to your site that are related to your area of expertise. The more high quality links to your site the higher your page ranking will be.
Important! In your Website make a "Link to us" page with a large link button to it prominently placed on the upper portion of your home page. Design this "Link to us" page so that it is very cleanly organized and in it make a note offering to exchange links with your viewers. Prominently place your icons front and center with almost no wording. Make it so that your viewers only "click" or "copy/paste" your links. The more you write and ask them to do the more you will lose your viewers for people do not like to read and they hate to follow instructions. Everyone throws away the instructions manual on devices that they buy so too they will toss your page away with an "X". Do not put any kind of code (HTML, Hexadecimal, Binary) on this page - that is a killer!
Whatever your business is you need to go out and meet people and tell them about your Website, it will work for you.
Write Articles: It goes without saying as I write this very article how important it is to establish yourself with authority. By writing articles not only do you achieve high Internet visibility you also are letting people know that you are an authority in your field. People do business with individuals that are informed and established. By writing good informative articles you are putting yourself in excellent light.
When you write articles be sure to write clearly on topics that you are an authority on which are helpful and informative to other readers. Utilize good grammar and make your message clean and clear, avoid obtuse wording and phrases to impress people. Write articles about your area of expertise and be on topic at all times. It is foolish and non-productive to write random articles just to get your name out. You will find that this practice will only lower the credibility of your Website as an on-line resource. Be prudent and only offer your readers high quality content filled articles. I highly recommend EzineArticles for publishing your articles because they are recognized as the best article publisher on the Internet and they work closely with Google.
SEO: This is a vast topic and I will just say a few things. In your title block (HTML source code) write a solid cogent title of two or three short phrases to your home page not longer than 65 characters (including spaces). Write a short and informative description, and list common keywords that are germane to your business. Do this for each new page that you make for your site and be sure to have a different set of phrases in the title block for each new page. Above all read as many articles and blogs on SEO as you can to stay on top of this science.
Do not stuff your Website with variations on your keywords or worse engage in Website cloaking, this will only get you into trouble and can even get your site permanently banned. Rather, write a good solid introduction clearly explaining to your viewers what you have to offer. Then, wisely utilize the keywords that you have in your title block into the body of your text. The search engine crawls will see and register these words and use them in ranking your site. Do not repeat keywords over and over it is bad for your site. Remember, Google wants your Website to be a good resource so keep that in mind as you develop your site. See Google Analytics for more details on working with data and techniques for enhancing your site.
SEO astute Web hosts such as Host Gator have in-depth resource tools and pages of data about SEO for your Website. These pages show you all kinds of data from who has visited your site to the exact number of back-links to your site.
Social Media: A great way to get back-links to your Website is through Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. What makes this so important is that most people do not have a Website but almost everyone is on Facebook or has a Blog. To get back-links you need to have the other person put your link on their blog so it is active. If your link is just sitting on their desktop it is no good to you, it has to be on a dynamic link platform like their blog or Facebook.
In your "Link to us" page have icons to Facebook, Twitter, and others prominently displayed as hyper-links. Below these icons have your URL posted with a short note to make it a link. It is very prudent to have a hyper-link below your URL to a Website of your choice with instructions on How do I make a link to another Webpage? See sample below:
"Copy/paste" URL below and link to your Website or Blog.
YourWebsite.com
How do I make a link to another Webpage?
It is strongly recommended that you create a business page in Facebook with links to your Website because this page is accessible to viewers without having to sign into Facebook and more importantly it is displayed on Google searches!
Join Web-based groups: Sign-up to Web-based forums like "Help Forum" in Google's Webmaster Tools. These groups are indispensable for they will put you in touch with other people that know a lot about the Web. You can learn about Website guide lines and protocol as well as share questions and discuss topics that are important to you.
With the downturn of the economy people more than ever have been turning to the Internet to make money to help make ends meet. Because of this there has been an increase of Websites and Blogs touting claims that they can get your Website to the top 10 search engine list quickly and provide you thousands of hits weekly to your Website for a "small fee" or some kind of subscription. Be prudent and go to trusted sources such as Google, Yahoo, Colleges, and Universities for Web-based user groups and they are all free.
In closing I would like to say that the best way to build solid traffic to your Website is to follow my guidelines stated above. Please avoid the marketers that want your money for promoting your Website. These Internet marketers and journalists write very compelling and motivating articles in hopes to sway you to follow their lead and purchase their products or subscribe to their on-line service. You always know that there is a catch when at the end of their "helpful" and "instructive" article there is a pitch to purchase their book. If they were honest and up right about what they were offering why not just spell it out in the very article that they are posting? Remember Dorothy's lesson at the end of the Wizard of Oz, after going through all the trials and tribulations in hopes of earning her passage back to Kansas, all that she had to do was simply click the heels of her shiny red slippers and she was home. The lesson here is that the power to get what you want from your Website and the Internet, like Dorothy's slippers, are on your feet. Always remember that everything that you need to know about developing and marketing your Website and what you have to offer is available for free!
Stephen F. Condren - Artist
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