10 Better Ways Than "SEO" To Get Web Site
Traffic
By Joe McVoy Profitable Marketing Systems, LLC (c) 2005
Does your web site clearly tell your prospects
why they should do business with you instead of your competitors?
Does it have a clear "call-to-action"? Are you set up
to track your visitors and conversion rates? And lastly, do you
know what a visitor is worth?
If you've done all this, you're ready to bring
traffic to your site. If you haven't, go back and do those things
or you'll be wasting money.
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 from these
things and help your ranking at the same time.
:: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) –
Get traffic in an hour with PPC. Google and Overture (now Yahoo)
are the primary ones, but you might also want to consider FindWhat.com.
Key to make this work: know your visitor value,
bid on hundreds of keywords and phrases that are not too competitive,
and track each keyword or phrase separately.
:: 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 your blog. Key to make this work: valuable
content
:: 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 can 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
keywords (not typical PR firms).
:: 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 (1) Candor, (2) Urgency,
(3) Timeliness, (4) Pithiness – be short & to the point,
(5) Controversy. Key to make this work: make it
interesting to your visitors, submit to all the blog directories,
ping the search engines when you post, distribute your content with
RSS (others can use on their blogs or web sites without the hassle
of negotiating permission and distribution doesn't get caught in
spam filters like email).
:: Get One-Way Incoming Links
– All the above will create incoming, one-way links, but you
can also buy links from other sites and from text link brokers.
Don't bother with 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 maybe because they are penalizing it for some reason
and if you link to it, you will get hurt as a result. Key
to make 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 sites. Best is links from pages without many other links.
:: 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. Key to make this work:
keep it short and to the point.
:: Email Promotions - Advertise
in Ezines, place ads in someone else's email newsletters that reach
your target market. Key to make this work: track
everything carefully
:: 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 50% commission on sales. 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.
:: 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. Key
to make this work: Make it financially attractive to your
affiliates, provide all the promotional and sales materials, give
them as many tracking codes as they want so they can track each
thing they do at their end, do the work for them and make it easy
to sign up. Provide tested emails, banners, and other tools for
them to use.
:: Buy Other Web Sites –
Find web sites that already rank high on your keywords, verify their
traffic with the site owner and buy their site. Make sure to get
ownership of the domain – you can let them still use their
content elsewhere. Check deleteddomains.com to see what domains
you register for a few dollars that their owners have let expire.
Key to make this work: Check Google page rank,
Alexa rank and number of back links for any site before you buy
it. (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 things, but the marketer just bought
the site that was # 1)
And lastly, the one everyone usually starts with...
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
– Lots of technical issues and you should hire an expert to
do it for you. Anyone who guarantees high rankings is a fraud because
no one can guarantee Google or Yahoo will do anything and the rules
change constantly. (They will guarantee some key word like your
company name, but not a competitive word that would do you any good).
How your site is designed is the key to this.
The big 3 of SEO are:
* Content
* Relevant one-way incoming links with good Google PR
* Proper site design.
Everything listed in the 10 points above helps
with content and providing one-way links, so all you need to add
is proper site design. Key to make this work: don't
think one page site, think a site with hundreds of optimized pages
all tightly themed and relevant to one target market. Make sure
to get someone ethical and competent. People publishing articles
on MarketingSherpa.com or SiteProNews.com are typically good.
Article by Joseph McVoy, President, Profitable Marketing Systems,
LLC, 1100 Nautilus Court, Lafayette, CO 80026
Ph: 720-890-8760, Fax: 303-604-6839 Email: joe [at] joemcvoy [dot] com
http://www.profitablemarketingsystems.com
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