Web development, design, and site optimization

So are you always toying with new things to try and boost your traffic with little if any results? I don’t even know why I ask you this question, because I already know the answer for 95% of you.  Myself I have tried many, many tactics. Many were dumb ideas in hindsight and saw no return. A few though have in fact succeeded. Which falls right in line with some advice which appears to be universally shared amongst knowledgeable SEO professionals I have met over the years. If you stay persistent and toss up as many ideas as possible, your bound to hit one or two that work once and a while. Much like a baseball player who is considered good at what he does if he succeeds only 1/3 of the time.

Without much doubt, the most successful method of increasing traffic to my blog has been through the use of Social Media. I have been using a combination of Twitter.com, Facebook.com, and most recently EzineArticles.com.

*A word of caution, I strongly recommend you have a solid site content wise before you head down this path. Driving traffic to your site is useless unless you have compelling content to keep them there and keep them coming back.

1. Twitter.com - When I first started using twitter I simply followed people whom I already knew. This worked ok for a while. However I then got an idea on how I could leverage this as more of a tool to drive traffic. I did two things. First I used Twitterfeed.com to automatically post headlines of my latest blog posts to Twitter. Second I went out and scoped some famous “techie” twitter folk with lots of followers, I then started to add myself as a follower of as many of these followers as possible. The direct result is that I got many, many reciprocal follows. Best of all these are people who enjoy the type of material that I blog about.

Now on a daily basis my followers increase. Today I have 687 followers. I engage in conversation with them, I comment on their blogs if they have them, I also have setup link exchanges with some of them. all in all this is the biggest driver of traffic to my website.

2. Facebook.com - Within Facebook I have setup an RSS application that automatically shows my blog feed in my profile. That way anyone who visits my profile, can see my latest posts. This is limited to my immediate Facebook friends, about 334 in total.

In addition to this I have just setup a Facebook Fan Page where users can become a fan of DropTheMike and also can view the RSS feed there and meet other fans.

3. EzineArticles.com - This was recommended to me by a friend in the SEO business. I write and submit articles (minimum 250 words) which are posted to the site in an appropriate category. Site visitors can then read and re-distribute. The great thing is that you can embed links back to your site or blog.

Since doing these 3 items My traffic has been consistently going up and up. One benchmark I like to use is Alexa.com. Before starting these tree tactics I was around the 1 million traffic rank mark. As of today I am nearing 600,000.

Previous notable post on social media:

building-personal-brand-within-the-social-media-landscape/

online-marketing-budgeting-what-next/

entrecardcom/ (I am testing this again)

The life of affiliate marketing business depends on traffic. No traffic, no site to exist. It will help you increase your click ratio and sales commissions. Here are the 5 ways to drive visitors to your website:

Blogging - like a web diary where you can write interesting articles for readers. The articles you made can be use to link your readers to your site also known as back links. Back links can help you to improve search engine ranking. Register one of your blogs on www.blogspot.com and Google will promote your blog in 2 days with RSS feeds to gain more traffic.

Forums – a fun way to promote your business where you can post questions and answers to learn a lot and help others. Advertisements are not allowed here but you can display your email signature every time you post.

Viral Marketing - one of the oldest and best forms of marketing. You can give away an e-book on your site and have a couple of links and a full-page ad in the back for your product or service. Grant permission to your readers to give away the book and see this promotion snowball.

Social Marketing – one good example is MySpace. Myspace is now being used as a popular way of marketing products and services.

Article Distribution - a powerful way to promote your business where you can write interesting and informative articles for your readers. It will bring many visitors to your site.

Avoiding Affiliate Scams

Affiliate marketing helps you in making your business profitable and fun at the same time. The key is choosing the right programs. You can benefit with the good programs either be involved with scams that will not pay you for your hardships and owe you the commission you deserve in the end.

How to avoid scams: The best way to avoid these scams, do your research well. Consider these points before joining:

1. Does the company have good support? Do they answer emails and have valid contact information?

2. Do they have a valid offline address?

3. What % of commission do they pay; 30%-50% is the best.

4. Tracking system - this should be in real time and accurate.

5. Products should be well targeted for your market and of good quality.

Where to research:

1. Forums related to your industry. There are many savvy people who use the forums for reference. You can ask advice from others base on the programs they use.

2. Discussion lists.

3. Look into the program carefully.

4. Put the company name, plus the word scam, into the search engines and see what comes up. Use your own judgment, as sometimes these reviews may not be 100% true.

GOLDEN RULE: Look before you join to prevent being victimized with these scams. It is advisable if you ask other people’s opinions. Do not rush, choose good reliable programs wisely that will give you the profits you want for many years to come.