Website Promotion Internet Marketing

Tracie wrote in and asked me to provide a brief overview on how I drive traffic to websites. Every site I have is ranked in the top 1% in the world and many in the top .2%. So, I think I have pretty good information to give.

While I’ve covered many of these topics in other articles, I’ve never put it in just one place. For that reason I’ll provide links for further reading for many of the topics covered here.

I also made a video that goes over all the ways I use Website Promotion and Internet Marketing in general. Here is the video.

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What Doesn’t Work for Me

While I do post all of my articles on over 40 social network websites, through the WPing FM WordPress Plugin, I’ve had little success with sites like Facebook and Twitter.

I’ve driven Facebook (sites, fan pages and groups) to as many as 5,000 friends. I’ve found that the hassle of doing so, was not worth the return. I only noticed about a 3 to 4% jump in traffic after I mentioned articles. I also noticed that if I started to post more frequently, I received a bigger jump in traffic that then was followed by me losing followers.

So, while I do post to these sites, I don’t worry much about driving traffic to them any more. Here is an article that show you how to automate posting to Social Networks. I do however focus a lot of time on sites like Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit and Delicious.

How to Use Aggregator Sites to Drive Traffic

Sites like Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit and Delicious allow people to post their favorite sites to them. Those sites are then ranked by other people that visit these aggregators. If one of your articles becomes popular on any of these sites your traffic will increase dramatically.

Here is the formula I follow on these sites. The best performing aggregator site for me is Stumble Upon, but I have friends that swear by the others:

• Every time I find a good article I take the time to submit it
• I open all 4 at once and make sure they are aware of each others good articles
• I search for good articles, outside of the United States, that are often ignored
• I watch for when big YouTuber’s post a new video and then submit it

After I have posted at least 200 other sites, I post one of my best. If you over post your own site you will be ignored. Believe me 9,000 extra hits in one day is worth the effort. That really is how big the payoff can be on average!

Post on Other Website Forums

I also go to Technorati.com and look for the top sites (traffic wise) for any new topics I’m covering. I search those blogs for any comments in the forums, that I have good information on. So, if someone is having trouble losing weight, I post something like this:

I understand what your going through. I also struggled with trying to lose weight, but I finally have lost 80 lbs by reading nutritional books. You don’t need supplements, exercise or expensive foods. I put together a list of the things I eat at the best foods you can eat.

I often will make reference to specific comments the person makes and only comment if I can help. If you do this you will be welcomed into the community of that forum and they will go to your site.

Everyone of My Sites is a WordPress Site

Why WordPress?

• FREE
• Very easy to maintain
• Communicates well with Search Engines
• Most people who are successful on the web use it
• Makes you do the right things with your website
• Many tasks are automated

I’ve written a lot about WordPress. Here are some articles on how to set it up and how to use it to drive tons of traffic your way:

• Creating a WordPress.com Blog
• Installing WordPress on a Domain Host Go Daddy
• Easy WordPress Install on Go Daddy
• The WordPress Global Dashboard and What you can do with it
• Posting Articles, Images, Video, etc. in WordPress
• WordPress Media, Links, Pages, Comments, and Ratings Explained
• The Appearance Tools: How to Change your Entire Site with a Click
• My Favorite Blog Plugins
• Free Content, Articles and Posting with Press This
• Submit Website for Free
• Upload Video Files to Multiple Sites
• Easily Submit to Multiple Social Networking Sites
• WordPress Problem’s Solved Pt 1
• WordPress Problem’s Solved Pt 2
• WordPress Problem’s Solved Pt 3
• Best WordPress Themes Free
• Ad Sense Google Ads & WordPress
• Post RSS Feeds in WordPress
• Post to WordPress

Why Don’t People Go to Your Site?

Here are the main reasons people don’t go to your website:

• Your site hasn’t been submitted to Search Engines
• You don’t have a sitemap.xml file
• You don’t have content or it’s hard to find
• People go to websites for information and not advertising
• You don’t update your site

Where to Submit Your Website

• google.com/webmasters/tools/
• bing.com/webmaster
• siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit

Also submit to Yahoo Developer Network, Google Analytics, Ask, and all the other search engines you can find. Here is another article that will show you how to Submit Your Website to Search Engines

What’s a Sitemap.xml File

A sitemap.xml file must be on your website. It tells search engines:

• That they are welcome to look at your site
• What is most important on your site
• How often you change your site

WordPress creates one for you easily and you can find out how to set one up in this article How to Submit your Website.

Are You Blocking Search Engines?

I see tons of sites in which there is no text for Search Engines to read because:

• The whole site is just pictures (Search Engines can read text that is saved as an image)
• The whole site was made with Flash (Search Engines have a hard time reading Flash)

Don’t create a roadblock between Search Engines and your text as was done with this site.

This entire site is just images! All of the text is embedded in images that are then embedded in a Flash player.  Don’t do this.

You Need New Content on Your Site

If you don’t love your website, nobody else ever will. You should spend at least 10 minutes a day posting something on your website. Original content is of course the best, but at the very least post other people’s interesting articles.

You can do this easily with the Press this tool, that comes with WordPress. Here is an article on that Posting with Press This. You can also automate the process of posting to your site in many ways. Here is an article on how to set that up How to Make Money Blogging.

Here also are some great free article websites:

• 212articles.com
• articlealley.com
• articleblast.com
• articlebiz.com
• articlecube.com
• freesticky.com
• findarticles.com

Your Domain Name is Probably Bad

You must have a domain name that is a keyword phrase people use when they want your information. Here are some examples of good names:

• backsidepain.com
• preschoolbaby.com
• limbprosthetic.com

Don’t use your business name or some catchy thing! So you ask, how do I find out what people are searching for?

How to Find Your Best Domain Name

Google provides a nice way for you to find the best domain names and what you should be writing about. The link to that tool is adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Now type in words that you think apply to your new site, separated by commas. You could also find other site’s keywords by entering their domain name in the box that looks like this.

After you click Get Keyword Ideas, search for phrases that have a small amount of competition and a lot of searches for that phrase. Here is an example in “Sewing Needlework.”

Go check if that phrase is taken at Go Daddy and if not get it.

You should focus on phrases that have very little gray in the Competition column.

Post Videos on YouTube

If you’re on my site, chances are you came here from YouTube. The reason being that 70% of my traffic originally comes from YouTube. Here are some reasons to use YouTube:

• Instead of a cold and dead website, people will gravitate toward a real person
• Over a third of time spent online is spent watching video (YouTube is the Biggest)
• Less than 20% of traffic online goes to regular web pages
• 70% of my website traffic comes from YouTube

What Sort of Videos Should I Post?

• Be funny or provide original information
• Don’t worry about the quality of the video
• Make as many video’s as you can
• Copy Ze Frank if you don’t know what else to do (How to Vlog like Ze Frank)
• Look at what other successful vlogger’s do

That’s All for Now

There are a bunch of other things I do and if you want more tips, leave a comment below. I hope you enjoyed this because it took some time.

Till Next Time

Think Tank

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