A good point that was brought up in a recent comment that was posted was ‘How Do You Get Targeted Traffic To Your Website?’ I have been thinking about this one and there are quite a few methods of choosing your traffic. Firstly make sure you know what your targeted traffic is.

Find People that are Interested in what You are
Just say for example your website niche is sports, you really do not want to go posting around a website that is related to web designing, you will not find your audience there and they just will not want to even visit your website. You will be wasting your advertising time by attracting non-targeted traffic.

Once you find a place where you can start discussing your website niche, you will need to make sure you seize the opportunity to promote your website. If there is a section that allows you to post your website, do it! This is the perfect place to get people reading. If the forum allows it you can also have a signature and make sure it stands out in the forum post. If it stands out to you, then it most likely will for others.

Finding a very popular website that is the same niche as yours is good, but do not forget that other websites are growing and they would like some love from you aswell It will be good to make conversation with other websites, and ask for a few links back and forth, there is no harm in asking. You can also ask whether you can write an article on their website, this will help gain you targeted traffic.

Make sure you are Search Engine Optimized
It is important that your website is ready for the search engines to absorb your website information. So when people search for keywords websites like yours, you in amongst the results!

This could include the following;
- Use keywords related to your website and that you think other people would search for.
- Make sure your Meta tags in your code are included.
- Submit your website to the search engines if you do not want to wait. There is a lot of things you can do to optimize your website.

I am no SEO expert yet, but there are many websites out there that will help optimize your website.

Build Your Community
You might want to think about offering something to your readers that will allow them to discuss your niche. Discussions about your niche keep targeted visitors entertained as they will want to talk with others about your posts and share their information. You can do this by offering specialized forums, chat services, a shout box for example.

If you build a community it will allow for future visitors to search for information. Data that is stored on your website will be useful for the future. If someone wants to know something related to your niche they will know that they can most likely visit your website and know they can find what they are looking for. This will help make your visitors return over and over, when information is continuously building on your website.

If you have some Money to Spend
If you have some spare money lying around and you want to invest it in your website, you may want to start a Pay-Per-Click campaign. Google Adwords is a perfect example of this service. You only pay when your advert is clicked and you choose the keywords that your site appears to. You have the management to help improve your position in search engine rankings and your position is affected by how much you are willing to pay per click.

Make Sure You Keep Track
Keeping track of where your traffic is coming from with analytics is a great way to see if your traffic is targeted. If your receiving traffic from websites you want it from and websites similar to your niche, then you are getting that targeted traffic you strive for.

I hope this helps!

As a reader of many blogs, there are only a certain few that I subscribe to but there are many I return to on a daily basis. Google is the perfect example of this, you can’t subscribe to it but you type it in because it provides you with a search engine, and an important thing about it is it’s easy to remember. These are many reasons that people return but here I think are 10 really important ones. It is important to try to accommodate the needs of a reader by making sure you do your best in doing the things that make them come back.

1. Content, Content, Content
The amount of times this is said on blogs, you should have it plastered somewhere in your head if your a blogger. Good content is a key to unlocking your readers love for your blog. If you’re providing unique content that makes me want to read more then you are doing your job properly.

2. I can Remember You
If your blog name pops into my head and I don’t have to shift through tons of data on my computer to find your blog, then I will happily type your blog in from memory and away I go. I don’t have time to scan my small huge brain for what I looked at a few days ago.

3. I Like what You Give Me
You provide me with a lovely little top commentators plugin that provides a link back to my website. You also give me things like a “dofollow” on my comments. You sometimes hold competitions which I like participating in and sometimes post links to my blog in your posts. Rest assured I will be returning in the future to get my freebies.

4. You’re Different
There’s something about you that just wants to make me come back. You have a unique way of writing, and the way you do things on your blog make you stand out from everyone else. Your the person that will surprise me in coming up with something that is really unique. Your blog is well laid out, a nice design and a catchy tagline and logo.

5. I’m not Confused
I know where things are on your website, I don’t have to search for hours on end to just find out how to find something else that will give me something that I really don’t want and then it gives me the totally wrong thing which will end up just confusing me, the irony. Making things simple and easy to use will let your visitors know that they have no problem surfing around your site in the future.

6. You Update Regularly
I know that when I visit your blog the next day I will find content that I can enjoy reading through or you have updated the site. I like seeing changes and you do them often so I will have to see what they are. If you’re providing me with content that I can read and learn from, I will surely be returning to your website.

7. Your Linked Well
I see you’ve put time and effort into making sure your blog is out there in the blogosphere. I don’t even have to type your web address in because I can just click a link. I see your website on a lot of blogs so you’ve not only got me returning, you most likely have thousands of others returning to.

Creating one of those is very simple, it’s not for just those popular sites. If your starting a blog or just haven’t added one yet because you don’t know how to, my simple instructions will have you one within minutes.

Why do I want One?

• Having uniqueness to your blog is something that attracts visitors. Having a FavIcon is part of personalising your blog.
• It looks much nicer if someone bookmarks your blog. They will see the icon and it’ll remind them that it’s your blog, it basically brands your website.
• They make you stand out from the crowd, especially to people who don’t have a FavIcon.

What do I need to make it Look like?
Choosing what your icon looks like is entirely upto you, but there are some things I could try to gather your ideas from.

• Your layout is a base for your FavIcon, if you see mine, I have a dominent colour of green in my layout and that is shown in my FavIcon. It gives the FavIcon a sense of belonging to your website.
• Take a picture on your website, maybe it’s your face and shrink it down.

How To Create It

1. Your going to need to create the image first of all. Make sure you take your time make sure the image size is 16×16 pixels. This is the required size for a FavIcon, it’s all the space you have to work your magic. You can create your image in paint or any other graphics program like Photoshop, it’s whichever you find most comfortable.

2. Time to make your file an .ico. .ico is the file extension for a FavIcon so you need to make it that. You can do this simply by uploading your image to websites like the ones listed below. They will automatically make your file an .ico if your program can’t.

• DynamicDrive - This website will automatically create a FavIcon from an image and create some other icons for you from an image, but if you have your own 16×16 image, just upload it and click ‘Create Icon’. Once it’s done download it again and you can go onto the next stage.
• FavIcon from Pics - Does basically the same thing, generates a FavIcon from a picture. Visit it here.There are many out there, but you only need to find a working one that will do the job.

3. You can now upload it to a directory however you usually upload your files. You can save it in a folder similar to ‘images’ if you like.
4. One final step, just add the following code to your website inbetween the < head > tags.

<link rel=”SHORTCUT ICON” type=”image/x-icon” href=”images/favicon.ico” mce_href=”images/favicon.ico”>

I’m guilty of this one, but I thought I’d put out the post anyway.  One key ingredient to success is a great monetization strategy.  Adsense doesn’t cut it on most blogs, MMO bloggers are too advanced for most affiliate programs… what’s that leave?  Your own products.

It takes all of 2-3 hours to create a short ebook, or report that you can sell on your website.  It can be on any topic, but it should be on one that you know quite a bit about.  For example, on a blog like this, an ebook showing how to rake in traffic from social media sites would be a great product.  A quick 10 page report that shows how to build traffic from stumbleupon, digg, reddit, and more is something that would interest your target audience, bloggers.

The first step is obviously creating the ebook.  This won’t take nearly as long as you imagine.  What you’ll need to do is open up Word, or whatever word processing software you use, and write an outline.  Develop bullet points from your outline, and then start writing.  You’d be amazed at how easy it is to put out 10 pages of information.

Next, we’ll need to compile the ebook, and make it look attractive.  Here is where I usually leave it to the people who excel in this area, and contact a freelancer.   Guru.Com, Elance.com, and Scriptlance.com are all good places to start.  You can also post your ad looking for a freelancer, free, at Digitalpoint.

Let them compile the book for you and then begin working on a landing page.  There are landing page templates all over the web that you can use for the code, and you’ll simply write your own sales copy and provide a “buy now” button from paypal.  It’s that simple.  You can automate the process so that paypal automatically sends them to the download page upon purchase, and it gets even simpler.

So really… why aren’t you selling your own products?

Article submission isn’t what it used to be.  It’s still effetive, but only if you work out a complete strategy to accompany your submitted articles.  Article Submission jumped into the limelight when claims of “bum marketers” making millions submitting articles started to hit the main stream internet press (blogs).  And it can still be effective, let me show you how.

Bum Marketing

Bum Marketing was a term that referred to the lazy, and easy manner in which results were obtained just by submitting an article, sitting back and collecting cash.  What marketers used to do, and still do to an extent, was submit articles to high pagerank article directories, which gave them instant authority in their niche.  They’d laser target their keywords, and this would give them quick results in non-competitive niches.  More often than not, these articles would sit in the top 5 results in Google, just based on the trust factor of the article directories the articles had been submitted to.  All that was left to do after submitting these articles, was to add a link within them, to your landing page, blog or website.

How it Works

First you’ll need to do some keyword research.  You’ll be much better served by using long-tail’s rather than competitive keywords.  The smaller the competition for a keyword, the less traffic it’ll bring you, BUT it will also be much easier to rank for.  It’s pretty simple to rank for uncompetitive keywords, so you’ll want to target them, and just want to do more work within the smaller niches.  Your only other option is slow results within a competitive niche.  So trust me, take the long tail’s.

After submitting your keyword rich article (3-5% keyword density), you need to build some links.  One of the best ways to accomplish this is by using Web 2.0 sites such as Twitter, and Squidoo.  Make a Squidoo lense, and link it to your article… link your article to your landing page, blog, or website.  You can also build links by commenting on Do Follow blogs, or by buying text links that pass juice.  Make sure to target your anchor text so that it includes your keywords.

The key is to link it to as many sources as you can find (the article) and then link the article to your blog, landing page, or website.  You can also link to your blog, landing page, or website from within the sources that you are bulding links for the articles… i.e. the Squidoo lense.

The objective is to obtain top rankings for non-competitive niches for your articles.  These articles will then pass juice on to your landing page, blog, or website.  Just remember, you have to get the links to make this work now!