Everyone wants "organic" or "free"
traffic, but it's a full time job to try
to keep on top of the search engines
changing rules. Instead, if you build a
good content-rich site and do the things
on this list, you'll get traffic and
help your ranking at the same time.
1.
Use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) - Get traffic in an hour
with PPC. Google and Overture (now Yahoo). Don't bother
with others until you make these two work. The key to
this is to know your visitor value, bid on hundreds of
key words and phrases and split test your ads and track
each keyword, phrase or ad separately
2.
Distribute Your Content - write articles of value to
your target market. Distribute that content for other
webmasters to use on their sites as long as they keep
the link back to you in a "resource box" at the end of
each article. Distribute your articles through article
directories, ezines, and distribution services. The key
to make this work is valuable content.
3.
Submit Press Releases - submit electronic press
releases frequently with news of interest to the media
and your target market. Since press releases are news,
if they get picked up, it will be quickly and you may
get hundreds of links back to your site this way. Key to
make this work: write 300 - 500 word releases, include a
link back to you, and have them written and distributed
by experts who know how to optimize each release for key
words (not typical PR firms).
4.
Set Up a Blog with RSS - to be effective, blogs must
have frequently updated content. Base yours on
information helpful to your customers, not sales
pitches. Don't do it unless you can commit some ongoing
time to it. Seth Godin says the keys to a successful
blog are: Candor, Urgency, Timeliness, Pithiness (short
& to the point), and Controversy. The key to making this
work is to make it interesting to your visitors, submit
to blog directories, ping the search engines when you
post and distribute your content with RSS.
5.
Get One-Way Incoming Links - All the previous tips
will create incoming, one-way links but you can also buy
links from other sites from text link brokers. Don't do
reciprocal linking, it's dead. Make sure you get links
from pages with a Google Page Rank higher than "0". A
site Google rates as "0" may be because they are
penalizing it for some reason. If you link to it, you'll
get penalized too.
The key
to making this work: Make sure links have your keywords
in the anchor text and make sure they are text, not
graphical links. Make sure they are from other relevant
sites, not link farms or FFA (Free for All) sites. The
ideal is links from relevant pages without many other
links.
6.
Give Other Sites Your Testimonial - let them publish
it on their web site as long as they link back to you.
This can get you a one-way link from a site that would
otherwise not give it to you. The key to make this work:
keep it short and to the point.
7.
Email Promotions - Advertise in Ezines, place ads in
someone else's email newsletters that reach your target
market. The key to make this work: track everything
carefully.
8.
Joint Ventures - Get promoted to your JV partner's
customer database by your JV partner. John Reese sold
over $1 Million of his information product in 24 hours
exclusively by using joint venture promotions from his
partners sending his offer to their customer lists. He
paid his partners commissions on sales. The key to make
this work: know your visitor value and have a tested and
proven sales page that converts well BEFORE you contact
JV prospects.
9.
Get Affiliates - If selling a product, offer a
commission to affiliates to sell for you. Each
affiliate's link to your sales letter conversion page
will bring you traffic and a better search engine rank
too. The key to making this work is to make it
financially attractive to your affiliates and give them
everything they need to promote your product or service.
Make it brain dead easy for them to do.
10.
Buy Other Web Sites - Find web sites that already
rank high on your keywords and verify their traffic with
the site owner and independent tools. Make sure you get
ownership of the domain - you can let them still use
their content elsewhere. Check deleteddomains.com to see
what domains you can register for a few dollars that
their owners have let expire. The key to making this
work: Check Google page rank, Alexa rank and the number
of back links for any site before you buy a web site.
One
marketer I know challenged some SEO experts to see who
could get ranked highest on a given term in 24 hours. He
won, the techies did a lot of slick things, but the
marketer just bought the site that was already # 1.
About The Author
Joe McVoy is a marketing consultant who has had
experience starting up & growing businesses. He founded
2 companies selling to Wal-Mart, Target and other
retailers, a mail order company and an Internet
marketing business. He helps clients with traditional
marketing, direct marketing, on-line marketing and has a
free newsletter & resources at:
http://www.profitablemarketingsystems.com