There are many ways through which you can generate traffic to your business website, but by far blogging is among the best methods to do it for free. Just by sharing your thoughts regularly through a blog, you can start increasing your fan base within a targeted niche and give your products and services massive exposure.

Here are some steps on how to increase your website traffic through blogging:

1.    Install blog software on your website through your hosting control panel. If you have your own domain name and web hosting provider, it is easy to install a third party blog platform on your website. This may sound a little bit technical but it is not. For example, if you are using Hostgator for your web hosting, there is an option for you to install a WordPress blog on your site for free. The WordPress blog will then be hosted on a dedicated folder within your website, and you can smoothly guide your online visitors to the blog through your home page.

2.    Start posting valuable content on your blog. Initially, after your blog is created, what you need to do is publish some content on it to get the ball rolling. The recommended amount is at least three to five blog posts before you start promoting your blog. You have the liberty to do the actual writing on your own, or you can outsource the entire project to an experienced blogger who understands your niche or industry. Make sure that you prioritize writing for your audience instead of the search engines.

3.    Bookmark and share your blog posts on social sites. After your blog has its initial set of blog posts, start generating some traffic by sharing your blog post links on social networking and bookmarking sites. Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and Linked In, are just some of the big social networking platforms where you can easily reach people when you post. When you socially bookmark your blog posts, you will not just be able to spread the word to hundreds of people, but you will also be able to alert the search engines regarding your fresh content.

4.    Give your blog readers an easy way to subscribe. When you promote and maintain a blog, your goal is not just to gain one-time readers. Rather, your aim is to generate subscribers who will regularly visit each time you post new content. Readers can subscribe through your blog’s RSS feeds (Really Simple Syndication feeds). These are simple widgets naturally built within your blog that gives readers easy access to your most recent content either through their online browser or email address.

5.    Exchange guest posts with other bloggers within your niche. If you want to gain a bigger share of the pie of internet traffic within your specific industry, team up with bloggers in your niche for guest posting agreements. The easiest way to do this is to contact those bloggers via email or telephone and try to negotiate the terms on how you can make a guest post on their blog and promote your website links. Looking for guest posting prospects on an on-going basis is a great way to increase your traffic and become an authority in your niche as well.

On the other hand, if you do not have your own website yet, you can still start a blog by opening an account in WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, or any other free blogging platform.

If there is a part of search engine optimization that is crucial in today’s era, then that part is SEO link building. Experienced experts in search engine optimization will tell you that many of the sites that have high rankings on Google and other search engines are there because they have many credible websites linking to them.

Of course search engine crawlers still look at other factors including the use of keywords within the text in your pages and the contents of your website’s Meta tags, but getting links to your site remains of the most important determinants of where you will appear in the SERPs (search engine result pages). This is because search engines interpret the fact that other sites are linking to yours to mean that your site contains very useful information, which is what Google and its counterparts have always wanted to give their users.

So, how do you do SEO link building for your website?  Simply put, create great content for your website and others will link to it, and you won’t even have to ask them to do so. This is actually the best and the only acceptable method by search engines. The problem is that it is not as easy as it may sound. Developing that great content will require lots of work and time, and it would probably take even more time before other website owners start discovering your content and linking to it.

This difficulty has led to website owners seeking other ways of getting the desired links. There are basically two approaches that you can use:

1)       You can choose to do it yourself

2)      You can pay someone else or a company to do it for you.

Let’s start by looking at how you can do it yourself.  There are actually more ways of doing this than we can discuss in this article. The most popular techniques include article marketing, blog marketing, social bookmarking, creating Squidoo lenses, use of directories and posting in forums. The basic idea behind these techniques is to create content, comments or posts that contain information related to what your website is about and posting them in the respective areas, with links to the website you are marketing. These techniques work to some extent but as search engine algorithms change, they may stop considering these links as powerful since they are not merit based.

Having discovered how important quality back links are to websites rankings, there are many companies that sell link building services. You can use the services of these companies in your SEO link building without much struggle.  There are several companies that offer backlink services and you should be careful in choosing the companies since some of them will use link spam techniques which once detected by search engines will hurt your ranking. Members of IMReportCard love the trusted service like LinkVana, which builds powerful link wheels around your site using high PR sites in the wheels.  The links that are created in the wheels are permanent back links to your site!

IMRC members also get access to an exclusive 30 day free trial of LinkVana, which is an excellent way to get started with your link building strategy.  You can sign up for the Free LinkVana trial here.

Another great option is SEnuke X which is an automated tool that helps your build backlinks on autopilot.  SEnuke X offers a FREE 14 Day Trial which is definitely worth checking out!

In conclusion, it is clear that SEO link building in 2012 calls for a creative approach. There is also no doubt that great content on your website is crucial if you are to get merit based links, which Google and other major search engines deem to be most credible.

Tweaking or adjusting some important factors in your website can dramatically increase your search engine rankings and traffic. However, lots of internet entrepreneurs overlook, underestimate or ignore the power of on-page search engine optimization. As a result, they are not able to maximize the results that they can get from increased organic web traffic.

A popular misconception about on-page search engine optimization is that it is a difficult and extremely technical thing to do. However, the truth is that the concept or principle behind it is much simpler than it really is. The following tips and step-by-step guidelines will help you adjust on-page website factors to dramatically improve your organic traffic:

1.    Strategically place industry competitive keywords in your page title and meta tags. This requires you to include the keywords you want to rank for within the page title of your website. In the page title alone, it is possible for you to target at least three to five keyword phrases. However, you should be wary of repeating the keyword phrases too often. Avoid repeating individual words more than once or twice, as it will look like spam to the search engines.

The meta tags section of your website is where you should place a longer list of keywords that you want to rank for in the search engines. Make sure that the keywords you list in this section are relevant to the content of your website.

2.    Create a sitemap. A sitemap is a separate page that lists down all the links and pages that your website has. The links and pages are arranged in hierarchical order and clearly show which page links to the next. Creating a sitemap is extremely important if you want to increase your online rankings because search engines crawl this to determine the structure of your site and internal linking factors. Sites with a better structure and clearer hierarchy of webpages tend to have higher search engine rankings than those who do not have any sitemap at all.

3.    Make your navigation bar links keyword-rich and SEO friendly. Instead of using common words in your navigation bar such as “Home”, “About Us”, or “Contact Us”, try to include your keywords. For example if you are in the weight loss niche, try navigation bar headings such as “Weight Loss Home”, “About Our Weight Loss Team”, or “Contact A Dieting Expert”. On the other hand, try not to overdo this as it may be bad for your rankings and traffic if done in a spammy way. Another good strategy would be to use generic, common terms within the home page, then use keyword rich navigation bar titles on your site’s subpages.

4.    Let keywords occur naturally in your website copy. In the past, SEO practitioners simply included their targeted keyword phrases repeatedly within the body of their website content in order to optimize their sites for the search engines. Today, this method does not work as effectively as before. What you should do to get the search engines to love you is to let your keyword phrases occur naturally within your site’s sentences and paragraphs. Sometimes the individual words of a keyword phrase must be spread out and diluted all throughout the sentences and paragraphs to make it all look more natural.

Adjusting important elements within your website may seem a bit difficult at first, but its long term results are worth it. Constantly tweaking your site, or outsourcing the task to an on-page SEO professional, is well worth the time, money and effort you invest because you’ll get much more targeted traffic in the long run.

While searching for local businesses on Google, you’ve surely noticed the local business listings and accompanying map at the top of the results page.   These listings are from local businesses have taken their position on Google places, which in many case are listed even above the other organic listings (prime SERP real estate!).  We surely cannot overemphasize the benefits that businesses get from these listings, and the loads of traffic that the unlisted businesses are missing out on. That is why every serious business should claim its position on Google Places.  As a matter of fact, to set up your listing, you simply need to go to http://www.google.com/places/ and fill out the details of your business. However, doing only this may not get you to a coveted position on the first page of Google search results.

So, here are 6 important steps of Google Places optimization that you should follow to get your business on the first page.

1)      Ensure is that you have a complete listing- There are several fields that you will be required to fill when listing your business on Google maps. If you really want the most out of the listing, do not leave any of the fields empty. Remember that you are in a competition with other businesses. Picture this out; several other businesses similar to yours have also claimed their position. In such a scenario, wouldn’t Google crawlers give preference to the business that has a video to that that does not?

2)      Use keywords- If your business name contains target keywords, that’s an instant plus. Most importantly, you should ensure that you include one or two keywords in the business description. Of course you should keep in mind that excessive use of the keyword may harm rather than benefit you.

3)      Take advantage of categories- When creating the listing, Google requires that you choose categories from a list of suggestion, for your business. Take advantage of this to help your Google places optimization by picking specific categories that describe your business well. The good thing is that you can pick up to five categories.  Think of what people search for when looking for your business, such as “Mexican restaurant” or “car dealership” and choose these categories for your business.  The first 3 categories are most important.  Another tip is to see what categories your top rated competitors have selected, as well.

4)      Build local links- Links from local resources such as the Yellow Pages, the Chamber of Commerce, local business directories and bloggers provide even more authority to your listing.

5)      Get reviews and comment on them- you may notice that some listings have stars under them.  Your average star review rating will not appear in results until you get at least 5 Google reviews.  Stars improve the CTR of your listing in search results.  Providing comments in response to your customer reviews build engagement and interest about your business.

6)      Video and photo sharing- One technique of link building that many successful businesses are utilizing is the use of video and photo sharing platforms. The secret here is to include your business’s physical location and keyword in the title of your video and the name, address, website url and phone number of your business in its description. Google allows you to upload 10 pictures directly to your Google Places page.  To get even more pictures to show up, you can upload them to websites like Flickr, InsiderPages and CitySearch.  That will allow you to tag the photos with your business’s physical location and keywords. You can then use the tagged photos on your Google Places listing by using the “Add a photo from the web” option.  Additionally, getting customers to post pictures through Google will allow you to showcase even more photos and show potential customers that your customers care about you (so your business may be worth checking out)!

Once you have your listing complete and submitted to Google, make sure you verify your listing.  It can take up to 2 weeks for Google to verify your listing.  Optimizing your Google Places listing provides your business with maximum exposure for minimum cost.  By minimum cost, we mean it’s FREE so be sure to take advantage!

Some people blog for fun, some do it to promote their business while others do it to make an income. Blogging can be a great way to earn some extra income. You can either make money from your blog directly or by offering a service.

A few ways to make money from your blog:

1. Place ads: You can place ads on your blog and make some money from it directly. These can be PPC ads, affiliate links, newsletter ads, or any other kind of ads.

2. Offer a service: You could offer a service which is relevant to the topic you blog about. For example if you blog about social media you could offer a social media marketing service.

3. Speak: You could offer a speaking service on the subject you blog about. People love to have experienced speakers speak at their events. If you’re an expert at a very popular subject it could lead to a lot of speaking opportunities. Speaking at events can be a great source of income and it could lead to better opportunities.

4. Sell a product: You could use the platform you build through your blog to sell relevant products. An example of a blog taking advantage of this is Copyblogger. On Copyblogger they publish articles on copywriting, writing, blogging etc. Using the platform they have built through publishing all this free content they sell tools which can help enhance your wordpress blog. You can do the same thing by creating products which are relevant to the subject you blog about.

5. Sell an ebook: Some blogs make high amounts of income by publishing ebooks. When you have already built an audience around a subject you blog on, the best way to make some money is to write an ebook on that subject and sell it. This can help you generate a lot of money. A blog that takes advantage of this and sells several ebooks is Problogger.

These are a few ways in which you can make a good income blogging.

Do you make a good income from your blog? Have you got some tips you would like to share with us? Please leave your comments in the comments box below.

Posted March 26th 2012 to Blogging • Comments (1)

Guest Posts!?  I hardly have time to write for my own blog, we hear you cry!

But before you dismiss this idea, let us tell you, guest blogging has some serious advantages!

Don’t be fooled into thinking that writing guest posts is simply a way to increase website traffic temporarily or just a strategy to get loads of backlinks!

Guest posting has many other benefits and here are our Top 3!

Top 3 Guest Posting Benefits

1. Build online presence: If you’re an expert at a subject then the best way to spread your expertise is by guest posting on popular blogs. When several posts written by you on the same subject appear on top blogs people will get to know that you’re an expert on that subject and they will want to work with you. It will also make it easy for people to find out more about you, as you will turn up in search engine results when they search for information on that subject.

2.  Build online relationships: After you write a guest post for someone, your relationship with this person doesn’t just end there – it’s actually the beginning. When you write a post for someone you start a relationship with them. This could lead to a lot of help from this person in the future – this could be in promoting you, sharing your content, etc. I have written a lot of guest posts on several blogs and this has helped me build many relationships which have led to better opportunities.

3. Use as samples: If you’re a writer the best way to get better writing opportunities is to have samples of posts you have written for the top blogs. If you have several posts you have written published on top blogs it can help you land high paying writing opportunities as you will be able to demonstrate that you have written at the highest level.

So these are our top 3 benefits. We suggest if you haven’t already started writing guest posts, start writing them TODAY!

Do you write guest posts? How has this benefited you? Please leave your comments in the comments box below.

What is link bait?

“Link bait is any content or feature, within a website, designed specifically to gain attention or encourage others to link to the website. Matt Cutts defines link bait as anything “interesting enough to catch people’s attention.” Link bait can be an extremely powerful form of marketing as it is viral in nature. The term often has a negative or dismissive connotation. The content for link baiting would be a text, image, audio or video clip and it interesting enough to catch the people’s attention.”

Source – Wikipedia

Link bait has been long associated with black hat SEO methods. Why? Mainly because opportunity seekers have used and abused the term / strategy to help improve their search engine rankings!

Used properly though, all link bait is, as Matt Cutts says so succinctly is creating content “interesting enough to catch people’s attention!”

Why is this important?

I know that seems obvious, but it’s to get people to share, comment and of course link back to your site!

Just this morning I was so taken with an article about Pinterests copyright laws, I immediately placed a link to the article on my facebook page – that is great link bait!

Getting links will help improve your website traffic and your search engine visibility. It will also help in making your website really popular as other people are writing / talking about it. Believe me, people are always looking for great content to share on Social Media sites, so create interesting information = get lots of links!

How to create outstanding link bait?

You need to be unique / original and very topical. It will be something that people are reading about / interested in right now! Ideally it will be something that hasn’t been highlighted or reported on before or you’re right at the forefront.

You’ll need to focus on writing powerful and unique content everyday, which other websites will want to refer to.  Phew that can get tough!

So, you can supplement your regular content with outstanding content occasionally. Just focus on creating interesting tips and articles about your niche and every so often you’ll fall on a golden nugget that everyone will want to share!

Create Infographics (like the one above courtesy of Mashable!)

There’s been a recent surge of Infographics being shared all over Social Media platforms and the web. That’s because people love images!

In fact photo sharing is now the No 1 sharing activity online!

Infographics are studies of interesting topics presented in the form of images. The great thing about them is they relay great info, quickly and easily in a pleasing aesthetic easy to understand way.

It’s all about speed these days!

Your infograph can be just a statement of a few well known stats presented in a creative way or it can contain brand new information which you can obtain through extensive research and experiments.

So if you want to create good link baits (great content) you need to focus on creating powerful and unique content your audience will find very helpful and totally shareable!

Have you ever created a golden nugget? How did this benefit you? Please leave your comments in the comments box below.

Getting lots of comments on your blog posts is a wonderful feeling and also great for business!

Not only do you feel good when someone writes an appreciative note, but having comments on your blog can also add credibility as it represents engagement, community and social proof.

Don’t be afraid of people commenting on your blog either, unless you have a complete troll who simply needs deleting, intelligent arguments can be a fantastic source of traffic and conversation!

Would you like to learn how to get more comments on your blog?

Then read the following 7 tips:-

1. Write thought provoking and helpful content:

If you get people thinking or in some way solve their problems, generally they will feel compelled to comment! Sometimes the more controversial you are, the more comments you’ll get, though please always be constructive and remember to Add Value!

2. Ask people questions at the end of blog posts:

Ask people if they found your post helpful?  Have they got any other tips they would like to share with you? A call to action at the bottom of a blog post, similar to this one will increase your comments no end. People like direction so give it to them!

3. Make it easy to comment:

Sometimes people need to fill in a lot of details like, name, email, website address, etc. to leave comments. This is a big No No! Make it easy for people to respond to you! Use easy commenting software like DISQUS or CommentLuv.

4. Respond to comments:

We touched on engagement above, this is hugely important. The more you build a relationship with your commenters, the more they’ll come back to comment! Always respond when someone comments on your blog. People don’t have to read your information, there’s more than enough out there, so let them know how much you appreciate them!

5. Comment on other blogs:

If you comment on other blogs and let the blogger know that you like their website and their content, they will want to return the favour by commenting on your blog. The beautiful human law of reciprocity! So take just a few minutes every day to comment on other blogs that you find useful / helpful.

These are just a few tips to get you going. If you stick to them regularly, you should start seeing a lot of genuine people commenting on your blog posts.

Now it’s your turn. Do you get a lot of comments on your blog posts? Are there any tips on you would like to share with us? Please leave your comments in the comments box below.

The Online Traffic Revolution Is Here!  And trust us, you definitely want to be a part of it!

Tonight, February 13th at 8pm EST, online traffic generation expert and top rated Internet Marketer, Daegan Smith is going to expose the TRUTH behind the online traffic conspiracy hiding right under your nose.

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There are several types of products promoted on a daily basis in the Internet Marketing space. If you’re like most Internet Marketers, you have an inbox full of promos. The value of all of these products varies drastically and IMRC addresses that issue by helping you choose only the best products, based off of real user reviews. But what about the other side of it … the product owner. That is something I am going to address right now, just in case you see the extreme value in selling quality IM products.

First, you need to figure out what value you have to offer. Most people have more value to offer than they realize, but that’s the topic of a future post. Once you have that figured out the big question is “How can I make the MOST possible money?” And usually the answer to that question is by helping as many people as possible in the biggest way you possible can. BUT, it’s crucial that you know how you’re going to present and sell whatever it is you’re going to offer, because one business model (or product type) could provide the same amount of value as another, but make 1,000 times more money!

To do that, you need to decide whether you are going to offer a one-time fee product or a recurring fee product. There are pros and cons to both, but in my experience, although recurring fee products/services typically have lower conversion rates, long-term they are far more profitable! Once you figure out how to make your subscription based product/service scalable (able to grow with little to no growth restrictions,) while providing value, which isn’t nearly as hard as many people think, you will continue to get payment after payment after payment from your customers, rather than one payment and then nothing.

But what TYPE of product is best?

There are a few different product “types” that are common in the IM space:

- Info Products: An info product can be a great list generator, a one-time fee product or even a service (providing new info products every month, for example.)
- Software Products: Usually a one-time fee for unlimited use, but a fee for future versions.
- Manual Services: Can be one-time fee or recurring fee, but typically not very scalable. There are exceptions like outsourcing, but even then, it can and usually does turn into a nightmare to manage.
- Software as a Service (SaaS): Almost always recurring fee and extremely scalable! A few good examples of SaaS are aweber and Backlink Booster.

While there are certain situations when any of the above are the best option, if we’re talking about the most profitable, SaaS is in my opinion the “hands down” winner because:

1. HUGE potential to provide value. You can do just about anything with software these days!
2. Extremely scalable. All of the work that is done, is done to improve the current service as opposed to regular services where the more clients you get, the more work you have to do.
3. SaaS is typically web based and should be if at all possible, so aside from basic browser compatibility, you don’t have to worry about ensuring every update is compatible with every user’s system. Do an update, upload it, ensure it’s compatible with the major browsers and your’e done! All of your current clients instantly see the changes without any action on their part.
4. Recurring payments. This is obviously one of the bigger points.  Instead of getting paid once per client, you get paid over and over and over again.

While I’m sure a few people may have valid arguments to this, I can certainly say that in my experience in developing multiple products of all types, web-based software products have generated the most money by far! A close second would be any type of product that is given away for opt-in, to build an email list.

So what is your experience and/or thoughts? I would love to hear them.

Posted December 30th 2011 to Internet Marketing • Comments (4)