4 Strategies To Help You To Make Money From Your Website

Copyright © 2006-2007 Trey Pennewell


People always seem to be looking for new ways to make money online. There is nothing wrong with being innovative and trying new methods to make money online. The problem comes up when people, seeking new methods, forget to pay attention to the proven methods of making money online.

What has worked in the past for successful webmasters is still working today, and will likely continue to work into the foreseeable future. There are 4 primary areas that a webmaster must focus on to be successful. These four areas are important regardless of the type of website you run or the product or service that you sell.


Conversions

Conversions are critical. You can get a million visitors to your site, but that means nothing if none of them make a purchase at your site. Conversions are calculated as the percentage of people that make a purchase at your site, compared to the number of total visitors.

The higher your conversion rate, the less traffic that you need to your site. Many webmasters struggle with getting that all-important traffic to their site. So instead of exclusively chasing traffic, also work on increasing the amount of traffic that you can convert into sales. There are a number of ways that you can do this with your online business.

Many webmasters understand that having a compelling sales letter, or sales pitch, is crucial. If you do not have the best possible sales letter, then you are losing potential customers. If you do not feel comfortable writing your own sales letter, consider hiring a copywriter to do it for you. You could also ask the copywriter to develop a few sales letters for your business, and you can do a comparitive analysis to see which ones bring the best conversion results for your business.

You can also improve your conversion ratio by paying attention to the layout of your web pages. There are a lot of different opinions on the best layouts for selling your products or services. For me there are a couple of easy ways to determine web page layouts.

The first thing that I consider is what I like and dislike about other websites. Is it hard to find the product on the page? Is the price hidden? Is a description of the product easy to find? Is the ordering information easy to find?

The other factor that I look at is what successful webmasters before me have done with their layout. There is no need to reinvent the wheel here. Instead of spending weeks trying to develop my own perfect layout, I will start with a template similar to those that are known for making high conversions.


Linking For Traffic

Now that we have covered conversions, we can talk about linking for traffic. While your conversions may be very good, it will never be 100%. So what this means is that the more of that precious traffic you get (at whatever conversion rate you are getting) will result in more sales and more money. It is known that the more links you have to your website, the more traffic that you will get. The links to your site are critical in driving traffic.

First of all, people click those links. I value a link from a high traffic website as much or more than a link from a high PageRank site, because actual humans are likely to be clicking the link to my website. I also place a very high value on having articles published in ezines and newsletters, because it always results in a nice boost in my website's traffic. The amount of traffic that comes as a result of having an article published in an ezine or newsletter will of course vary depending on the number of subscribers on the list.

A certain percentage of readers will always click the links that I have in a webpage or an ezine. And, a certain percentage of those who visit my website will convert to sales. Having my link appear in some ezines or newsletters can literally translate to thousands or tens of thousands of visitors to my website in a single day!

If you utilize article distributions, you can often get your articles published on a variety of websites and ezines. These articles will have your link in the author box, and you will also have the opportunity to discuss your web site and the products or services that you offer in your author box. This being said, the more effort you put into writing a good article and author box, the more likely you are to get some traffic as a result.


Linking Popularity

Building links for search engine placement purposes is just as important as linking for traffic. The more relevant back links that you have coming into your site, the higher your website will rank in the major search engines for your keywords. Back links are one of the best ways that you can get your online business to rank near the top of the search engines for your niche.

Be sure to use an anchor text on those links that is the same or similar to the keywords that you are targeting. Also, try to get those back links from relevant sites as much as possible. By this, I mean try to get those links from sites and webpages that have something in common with your site. A link from a webpage about bird watching will have little in common with your website about automobiles.

To illustrate the importance of back links, look at Digg.com (http://www.google.com/search?q=link%3ahttp%3a%2f%2fdigg%2ecom). They have a whopping 131,000 back links, which is why they are one of the most popular social book marking sites on the Internet.


Link Baiting

Link baiting is a great way to get those important back links, both for traffic and for link popularity. But, what is link baiting? It is when you have something so interesting / amusing / informative / useful that people will want to link to you, without you asking them to do so. Having something on your site that people will blog about, tell their friends about, or to send emails to their contacts about, is what constitutes link baiting. Your bait is so powerful that the fish will basically jump into the boat, without you ever needing to ask!

What kind of things work as link bait? This will depend a lot on the audience that you are trying to reach. In the SEO world, good link bait is placing free webmaster tools on your site. This means that people will bookmark the site; refer to it on forums, and possibly blog about what they learned by using your free webmaster tools.

If you are able to grow a reputation among your niche market as an expert, people will cite you and your website because of the quality information that you offer. If you run a humor site, people will forward the URL to their friends and tell them to check out a certain page.

Link baiting is also why the social book marking is exploding in popularity. If you have an article that gets onto the front page of Digg.com via link baiting, you will have an explosion in traffic. The same can be said for all of the major social bookmarking sites.

Link baiting is all about offering something unique that people will want to tell their friends about and that they will want to talk about. Spend some serious time thinking about what you can offer to your customer base that will result in successful link baiting for your website.


In Conclusion...

If you spend your time focusing on these 4 ways to make money with your online business, you are sure to be well ahead of most of your competitors. Optimize your site for conversions, build links for traffic, create links for popularity, and dangle some link bait for others to share, and you will find your customer base beginning to grow, and you will see your sales will start to improve.

About The Author:

Trey Pennewell and his team specialize in the design and implementation of linking strategies to help their online business clients improve their inbound link building efforts. LinksAndTraffic.com, owned by Bill Platt, works with their clients to determine what keyword phrases they should target to bring targeted prospects and search traffic to their client's website. Then Trey and Bill work closely together to bring the link building plan to fruition. You can learn more by giving Bill a call at 405-780-7327 between 9am and 6pm, Monday through Friday, or by visiting: http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com

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Three Building Blocks To A Successful Business Website

Copyright © 2007 Rick Sloboda


Are you planning to build or update a business website? The following three questions will save you time, money and frustration, and help you get the results you want.

1. What is your website's objective?
2. Who is your target market?
3. What's your position?

On several occasions, my colleagues and I have come across business owners who spent upwards of $20,000 on website design and development, with literally nothing to show for it.

The reason? They didn't invest time and effort to establish their specific needs.

They rushed ahead. And as they went along, plans changed, different ideas evolved and costly experiments ensued. The targets shifted month after month, right up until funds were finally depleted.

So how do you avoid this pitfall when it's time to launch your business website?

Figure out what you actually need before you start sending out any requests for quotes.

Here are three crucial questions you need to answer before you build a business website:

What is your website's objective?

The objective of your website is to support your business and its goals.

For example, do you want to sell products online, generate leads, build a brand and awareness, attract members, generate feedback or reduce call centre volume?

Here are the most basic business website categories and their purposes:

e-commerce – sell merchandise, increase sales, decrease expenses

Content sales – sell subscription services, generate revenue via ads or subscriptions

Lead-generation – generate sales possibilities, usually for high-priced products or services

Self-service – improve customer service and decrease costs, i.e. online help centre

When you're considering your business website needs, recognize not only your requirements, but what your customer needs or expects.

Base your website around building relationships and loyalty, which will help you achieve consistent, persistent growth over the long term. A short-sighted mindset will limit that growth success. In fact, it could harm your very existence.

Thousands of business websites disappear daily, replaced by thousands more of the same ilk. Industry Canada reports 50 per cent of businesses do not survive beyond the third year.

A carefully planned and executed website can help your business achieve sustained growth and stand out above the rest.

Who is your target market?

Before building a business website, you need to define your target market and understand their needs and wants.

This is essential to appeal to and connect with those you choose to serve. Before your website can sell anything to your target market, you need to be able to answer their questions and put their fears to rest.

Where do you begin? Groundwork. Go where your target audience socializes. Go where they work. Go where they shop. Observe their behaviors, and conduct informal and formal surveys. As well, study how your direct competition caters to them.

What does your target market value? What makes them feel good? And, quite frankly, what makes them reach for their wallets?

Your observations and research data will gain you a sound understanding of your target market's trigger points – what's truly important to them. By focusing on these key areas, you'll have an opportunity to make them noticeably better than the competition.

Moreover, if you take the time to understand your customer, you'll be better versed to provide customized and personalized service. While conducting business in cyberspace, many traditional business practices still apply.

What's your position?

You need to determine what market position you want to establish for your brand. How do you want potential clients to view you? What sets you apart from the competition?

Your business website can significantly influence how you are perceived, especially considering it's a common first point of contact between you and your potential customer.

What's your image of choice? Trendy or practical. High end or affordable. Swift or steady.

Your image will evolve -- for better or worse -- regardless whether you take a proactive, reactive or passive role.

So be proactive and shape how the market views you. Ensure your business website conveys clear messages that reflect who you are or strive to be.

You'll make a good first and lasting impression.

About The Author:

Rick Sloboda is a Senior Web Copywriter at http://www.webcopyplus.com Free web site tool: http://www.webcopyplus.com/tools More web site tips: http://www.webcopyplus.com/faqs

Read More Articles from Rick Sloboda:
Rick Sloboda's Articles on Webcopy Plus
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Why You Should Strive to Create More Than Just Back Links

Copyright © 2006-2007 Trey Pennewell


I read a message on a forum the a while back where a new webmaster was asking for suggestions regarding article submissions to create back links. The person asked how long the articles should be, how many hyperlinks to include, and other questions about article submissions. I was quite surprised by some of the responses that this poster received.


What Sort of Advice Was Given...

It was actually recommended that articles only need to be 250 words long and that the person asking the question should include 4-5 hyperlinks. Another person suggested to write a 500-word article and to include many hyperlinks, because the only purpose of the articles were to create back links.

There is some truth to this... A person could write a short article and get it submitted to many article directories. And, simply generating back links is one way that a webmaster can increase his or her position in the search engine rankings.

But, writing a 250-word article will probably not result in that webmaster being considered an expert on the topic that he or she is writing about.


Experts In Their Fields

Taking the time to create an informative and helpful article will help a person to be considered an expert in his or her field. Imagine for a moment if some of the most famous names on the Internet were to only write brief articles to generate back links. Would Matt Cutts (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/) receive the recognition that he does if he just scribbled a few sentences here and there? Would Joel Comm (http://www.joelcomm.com/) be considered an Adsense expert without writing informative how-to articles and books for those wanting to make money from Adsense? Would you know or care who Robin Nobles (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/) was if she did not create in-depth articles about search engine optimization? Would you even be bothering to read this article?

You can generate a bit of traffic by creating back links by hammering out low-quality articles. But, if you want to be known as an expert, you need to take a different approach and provide the quality information people are seeking. If you have information and expertise that others are unable to find on the Internet, then you will get many more visitors as a result of writing an article.

If you are looking for more than simple back links to your site, then it is worth it to take the time to write a high-quality article. A high quality article, that is written with the reader in mind --- not the search engines --- is more likely to actually get clicks (human visitors) into your site. This is what separates the very successful webmasters from those who are simply getting by.

To be known as an expert or an authority in your area requires articles and information that human beings will actually read. After reading this kind of article, a person will think to himself "This author has the information that I am looking for" and the reader will then visit the writer's website.


How To Succeed With Article Marketing

A well-written article can be submitted to literally thousands of publishers of ezines, newsletters, and free reprint article sites and can result in dozens and sometimes hundreds of back links for a website. Now, not every publisher will pick up your article, but for the ones that do, you get a back link. More important than the back links though is the number of people that will cite your article, forward it to their friends, and reference it in their own articles that they are distributing.

These high-quality articles are how a webmaster becomes known as an "authority" on a topic. When you write for the reader and offer something of real value, you will reap the rewards with a huge influx of traffic to your website.


How To Fail With Article Marketing

Generalized junk articles that are filled with hyperlinks and self promotion will only result in a few back links, and people who actually read those less-than-quality articles are not very likely to ever visit your site.

Poorly written articles are also unlikely to get published in ezines and newsletters where you can reach potentially thousands of readers in a single day.

The worst thing about the low-quality junk articles is that if people do read them, they might always think of you as a "junk peddler", and most people don't buy from people whom they perceive as "junk peddlers".

As a webmaster, you need to decide for yourself what goals you have in mind for your article submission campaign. If you limit yourself to only generating back links, you will not see the full potential of visitors and traffic that you could be getting to your website.


A Final Thought...

An article that is good enough to wind up on sites like http://www.About.com can give you a huge and consistent growth in traffic for some time to come. Articles that are picked up by large newsletters like http://www.SiteProNews.com can deliver thousands of visitors to your website in a day, add to your credentials as an "authority" website, and will create a situation where your website is one of the first places that people turn to for information in your field.

The bottom line is that if you write for the human reader instead of the search engines, you will be rewarded with many more visitors, and you can gain an authority status among your visitors.

The choice is yours. You can spend an extra hour or two creating a high-quality article that will be published on more websites creating more back links to your website, establish you as an authority in your field, and allow you to see thousands of visitors in a day when your article is published in one or a dozen ezines. Or you can save the extra hour or two and pray that your limited efforts will amount to anything of real value.

About The Author:

Trey Pennewell is a writer who creates articles that will be used to develop links for the clients of the Links And Traffic.com inbound link development services. Trey even practices what he preaches - his own articles have appeared on hundreds of great quality websites. Trey writes on several topics that are related to the target markets of Links And Traffic customers. Feel free to use this article on your website, so long as all links remain clickable. http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com

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