You see, now that you have a website, you will do anything to build a lot of traffic to it.

But what is your business website all about?

It’s about conversion!

And conversion will drastically increase by sending targeted website traffic to your offers.

Then why do so many website owners still use guaranteed website traffic service providers? They promise you ‘tons’ of traffic in a pre-defined period, using ’state of the art’ technology. And if they’re good, they live up to their promises. But…

…how many sales does this kind of targeted web site traffic generate?

Probably none, otherwise anyone with a web site would buy this kind of traffic!

Photo Credit: dierk schaefer

Targeted web site traffic in these cases mean, that these providers will show a pop-up or pop-under to people belonging to the categories you’ve specified during the sign up or buying process. That counts as a hit and that’s how they can ‘guarantee’ the number of hits you ordered.
But that doesn’t mean these visitors are ready to buy. If they’re annoyed by it, they just click away while continuing their browsing.

That’s not the kind of targeted web site traffic we want, do we?
Again, what would you prefer: a 2% conversion rate of just 1,000 really targeted visitors or only 0.05% conversion rate of 10,000 visitors? I would definitely prefer the former! The only guaranteed targeted web site traffic is the traffic that brings in the bacon. NO such service will ever guarantee you sales.

So, how can you increase your sales or sign ups?

The best way to achieve this is looking for visitors in your target market yourself.

Search engine optimization is a great form of generating targeted web site traffic. Without going in too much detail (there are tons of great sites explaining SEO), you can start by researching keywords before publishing another page.

Another great way is to get your web site traffic from forums. That’s where your potential customers are asking questions that you can answer and include a single signature leading to your offers.
The more you contribute to knowledge sharing, the more you are regarded upon as an expert about the subject and the more trust people will have in your products or services.

Or you may use SEO friendly directory services. That’s where visitors are looking for something interesting and they may click your links. That’s targeted web site traffic.

Another way is to advertise in ezines about your subject. Although response rates of newsletters has decreased lateyl, so have the advertising fees. There are many ezines available on the Net where you can advertise and still bring in targeted web site traffic. Try a site like Ezine search.

Over the years, I got quite experienced in generating website traffic. Like my friend Willie Crawford. Here’s what Willie says about free traffic:

The reality is that you HONESTLY can only master a few traffic generation techniques. Try to learn and implement too many different techniques, and you usually don’t have time to get really good at any. I personally get hundreds of thousands of visitors to many of my sites every month.

I personally use, and recommend that you get really good at, just a few techniques. I’ve written a special report that shares “My Ten Most Effective Traffic Generation Techniques.” I just cover the ten that are easy for me to manage (with my incredibly busy schedule) and that consistently product great results.

I read Willie’s report. It’s simple and excellent!
I suggest you get it too.
Get your copy of “My Ten Most Effective Traffic Generation Techniques.”

So, what’s your take on targeted web site traffic?
Post your comments below

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Targeted Web Site Traffic

One of the best free traffic generating methods is Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

That’s where you optimize your site in order to get a permanent high ranking in the search engines for the keywords or key phrases that you optimize.

I’m not going in to this, that’s for another occasion, but by applying SEO you will certainly get your website traffic, although it takes quite some time.

Photo credit: Pro-Zak

Running an affiliate program is another way to get your website traffic for free. Letting others do the promotion for your products is a great way to generate that traffic.
You should submit your program details to several affiliate programs directories to achieve this. And promote your affiliate program on your website.
Only downside is… you got to have your own products.

Link exchange as a way to get your website traffic still is possible, but a bit out of fashion these days. That’s because, due to abuse, search engines don’t like reciprocal linking as much as they used to do. It still works though, and it works very well if you can do it in the form of contextual linking, fitting well in the high value content that you provide.

Of course there are the social media sites that you can use to get your website traffic. Only recently I published about 7 of these sites specifically about traffic generation, starting with 8 Digg Tactics For More Traffic.

Posting useful comments on topic related blogs is another way to get your website traffic. If you use this method, then please, don’t spam!
A useful comment on my blog is rewarded with a nofollow one-way backlink to generate traffic, but for every valuable comment there are at least 100 spam or promotional comments.
Don’t do that. Like the search engines with link exchange, blog owners don’t like that and tend to change back to the normal NOfollow situation.

There are many more ways to generate free traffic, but today we’ll concentrate on forums.

In cyberspace discussions, forums can play a significant role. You can discover many such discussion forums that are related to your products or services.
Publish high quality answers on them. In most cases you are allowed to add your website link in a signature or bio line in order to get your website traffic. Thus your link will be visible on every post you submit.

While topic related forums can easily be found, there’s something even more powerful to get your website traffic: a secret forum finder using keywords and page rank to find the most relevant topics with lots of potential link juice!

It’s explained in a brand new guide I just finished reading. Actually it’s for finding backlinks in relevant forum topics, but what applies to backlinks also applies to website traffic.

It’s an outstanding, comprehensive report, written by Jack Duncan.
In fact, it’s so good that I’m presenting this guide through my affiliate link, so if you buy (at a ridiculous low price!), I’ll earn a bit of money. After that, you can do the same and earn your money back in no time, since it’s a 100% commission.

Using the secret forum finder tools and methods, you’ll find plenty of fantastic forums with strong authority and pagerank just waiting to be directed to your site.

In fact, by the time you’ve completed this training, you will have located more high PR forum links then you could possibly submit in a day…

That’s a great problem to have!

At that point, you need to either outsource the submission or decide just how many links are needed to achieve ranking success.

So….

check out The Definitive Guide For Finding High Pagerank Forum Backlinks

Read it and let me know what you think about this way of getting your website traffic.
Post your comments below.

EDIT:
I found this highly valuable audio about 3 Keys to Using Forums for Internet Marketing.
Close the door and click the start button below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Get Your Website Traffic From Forums.

First a note about these one-way inbound links.
The way I get them is almost automatic. Since I started testing this link network tool a couple of weeks ago, I have over 150 inbound links.

This system build links slowly, as it should be. It takes me 10 minutes each day, and that’s only because I want to see who’s linking to me and, more importantly, who I want to link to.

You can also set it on fully automatic, so you don’t have to lift a finger after setting your site up. And the set up is quite easy when you use the automatic spider function that recognizes all pages in your site and puts them in a file that you can upload to the system.

Check it out now so you can increase your website traffic too.

Photo credit: Pro-Zak

But how about your internal linking structure? Is it designed and optimized to fully profit from these incoming links, so you can increase your website traffic?

If not, or if you’re in doubt, you should watch the videos I just saw. They show you exactly how to structure your internal website links to fully profit from the link juice passed.

And it isn’t limited to just one website. There’s a whole strategy laid out for linking related sites, so you can dominate the search engines for your keywords.

I don’t think many people use these strategies.
After watching the videos, I immediately made some changes in a couple of sites I own and operate. Because I think it’s powerful and I want to test it.

I’m prepared to share the results with you, but the thing is, you can watch the videos for less than 5 dollars right now and I have absolutely no idea for how long. So if you’re interested in increasing your traffic in 7 days, check it out now.

And then there’s Michalis Kotzakolios, maybe better known as “BIG Mike”, the Greek (or drunken) Warrior.

Big Mike created a new site a couple of weeks ago called Header Software. You really should visit that one if you’re interested in header graphics, because, after signing up, you will receive a professional header, footer and background image each and every day. They are in png format, so the quality is high and you can modify them to suit your needs.

Anyway, the reason I mention this site (apart from the free headers) is, that Mike has written a simple guide to increase his site traffic. Search engine optimizing experts won’t find anything new in there I guess, but for everyone else it’s a good (and easy) read.

Rather than a bunch of seo tricks and tips, it’s merely a report on what Mike has done to increase traffic to his new site. That makes it valuable, because it seems to work what he’s done. Traffic to his site is growing every day.

Mike allowed me to give it away to you. So, download your copy of “Stupidly Easy Optimization“.

In this report, Mike mentions a few of his products (RSS Bot, Directory Bot and Social Bot). I use them myself. They will help to generate more traffic, only they are somewhat expensive. However, clicking the links to these products in this file makes them available to your for only $9.95!
Wholeheartedly recommended to further increase your site traffic.

That’s it for today.
Enough to increase your site traffic I guess.
Let me know your thoughts.
Post your comments below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Increase Site Traffic In 7 Days

Hendry Lee made the cut. He sent in an interesting post on how to get your first 10,000 visitors to your site, one of the main problems most people starting out will experience.

If you want to send me a great guest post, feel free to do so at guestpost@, followed by the name of this domain. I will review your contribution and if I like it, your post will be scheduled. There still are 2 spots available.

Here´s Hendry Lee´s contribution. Enjoy!

How to Get the First 10,000 Visitors to Your Blog or Web Site

Getting your content on the Web becomes very easy nowadays, thanks to the blogging technology.

Building a successful blog or site, however, requires more than just typing and clicking on the “Publish” button. It takes knowledge and skills to create a successful blog.

The good thing is, none of these are rocket science. Blogging can be very rewarding because you can work from the comfort of your own home, or anywhere you want, get involved with the topic that you like and still make a good living from it.

Note: In this post, I’m going to use the word blog but you can apply the same tactics to web sites because blogs just are another type of web site.

One of the biggest challenges for every beginning blogger is to get traffic to the level that is significant enough to make money or grow a business.

Photo Credit: Stig Nygaard

A rocket uses most of the energy during the launch, but once it’s moving, the inertia becomes an asset to keep the rocket moving. This is comparable to starting a blog. When you get started, every visitor matters a lot.

It takes a lot of effort to make your blog visible, not to mention that you need to build credibility and establish your expert status.

Once you start getting steady and growing traffic, your loyal audience will eventually help you propel your blog to the next level. Every new post results in a few more backlinks to your blog. If you keep the pace by updating the blog with more good quality content, it can only grow because you get more readers and keep existing ones.

Before that happens, a lot of work needs to be done. For bloggers who wonder why they can’t seem to get their blog off the ground, I’d say this is to be expected. The problem is, if you don’t focus on doing the right things, you can actually be the one who pull the blog down.

Please don’t underestimate the effectiveness of these 10 blog promotion tactics. Perhaps you are already familiar with some of them, but a slight change in your approach can often bring meaningful improvement to the result.

With that said, let’s get started in our journey to the first 10,000 visitors.

1. Setup your tools
Technology is there to help you become more productive. Most likely, you have been using some of these tools:

• A web browser – My personal favorite is Mozilla Firefox and Flock.
• News reader – Subscribe to RSS feeds from related blogs.
• Google Alerts – Setup to monitor terms related to your niche or brand.

2. Load your blog with great content
Content is the reason people visit and come back to your blog. Spend time to create really good articles on your blog. You want the readers to be impressed with the information you have on your site.

3. Comment on other blogs
If you decide to contribute to other blog in the comments area, make sure you leave something that adds value to the post. This is how you drive traffic back to your blog because impressed readers would want to know more about you.

Leaving blog comments is also a way to make the blogger recognizes you. With great information on your site, some visitors may become subscribers and link to your content.

Tips: Finding dofollow blogs and participate in the discussions build inbound links to your blog. That strengthens your search engine positions.

For bloggers who you’d want to build relationship with, consider adding their RSS feeds to your news readers so you can keep getting updated content from them.

4. Become an expert in discussion boards
Forums are a place where people who share the same interest hang out online. You can find public forums in your niche and participate actively. Don’t begin your first post with blatant promotion.

You need to build your credibility and name in the forum by helping others. Discussion boards usually have a signature section where you can display URLs to your product or web site. Forum regulars are more likely to click on your link if you’ve built a strong profile in the community.

5. Take advantage of online publishing sites
Squidoo and Hubpages immediately come to my mind. Those sites allow you to create pages on the area of your expertise. In Squidoo, you can load RSS feed from your blog using one of the modules.

Both of them let you link to external pages, so you can get referral traffic and backlinks at the same time.

6. Article marketing
You can re-purpose your blog content into articles for syndication in article directories. This is an easy way to get traffic and inbound links with anchor text of your choice. This strategy is very powerful yet doable for bloggers, because if you are blogging, you are already producing content regularly.

Many web site and ezine publishers also use articles from directories. Guest blogging and other methods of getting your content on other people’s sites are also considered a form of article marketing.

7. Use the power of social media
Many people claim that social media is the best thing since sliced bread. Probably an exaggeration, but there should be a reason behind it.

In November 2007, more visitors came to this blog from StumbleUpon than from Google. My personal experience showed that only with a few thumbs up (or votes in Digg) can brought several hundreds of social media visitors to my site almost overnight.

My blog post, 10 Blog Post Title Templates That Work Like Gangbusters, got 771 visitors from Stumble Upon in one day with only one review and 16 thumbs up.

While social media users have a short attention span, they will subscribe to RSS feed if you have an effective plan.

Once you reach the 10,000 visitors mark, you already have the skills to drive more blog traffic. With the inbound links, you may start getting organic search engine traffic traffic as well.

–
Hendry Lee helps bloggers overcome technology challenges in starting and growing their blogs. Get daily tips, techniques and strategies by visiting his blog at Blog Building University.

So….
what´s your experience getting your first 10,000 visitors?
Post your comments below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

How To Get Your First 10,000 Visitors

As promised in that post, here’s a sneaky but entirely ethical method to virtually ensure you acquire an onslaught of visitors and, if you’re smart, new subscribers.

Look for a hot subject.
In most forums you can find out how often a thread has been read and how many posts it contains. You want to discover one that’s ‘burning hot’. It would be even much better if it involves a extremely controversial or emotional topic, because these forum posts get read often and tend to grow very rapidly.

Forum Romanum, Rome, Italy

Photo Credit: wili_hybrid

Compose an article about the discussed topic.
You know the subject matters, or it wouldn’t be so hot. Basically you are getting into the conversation that already occurs in their minds. If a problem is being talked about, your article should offer a solution, a case study, a bulleted tip-list, a tutorial or shortcuts or whatever this audience is seeking (they’ll let you know you right there in their posts).

Give your post a compelling subject line (check if the forum allows this – most do).
In other words, don’t use the original subject, because that is already passed from post to post within that thread. You want to give it a new, intriguing and compelling subject, similar to article titles and your headlines in sales pages and ads, but you might prefer to hint at being controversial as well. Then people will sit straight and read your post because they think it’s “gonna be good.” So most importantly, don’t be boring.

Let me give you some quick illustrations about how you could start your subject with a “controversial edge:”

- Wait a minute, what about…
- I don’t think so…
- I think you have it backwards…
- What about… plus it’s free!
- This is the best one I’ve seen…
- Umm…no…
- What I did was…
- That’s good, but this is easier…
- You can’t go wrong with…
- Why do that, when…
- Actually…
- Let me see if I got this straight…

In your post you only share a solid portion of your article and link to your article for the rest, where you have -of course- an opt in box with an incentive if they subscribe. I advise testing an archive of articles related to that topic or a mini-course.
Evidently your subject and lead must be strong and you prefer to stop at a point that leaves them hanging (the cliffhanger).

Give these forum readers your best tip and leave them wanting more. Suppose you’re at a forum for blues guitar and you see plenty of discussion on discovering to play guitar licks like Stevie Ray Vaughn. You set up a tutorial with tablature entitled “9 Stevie Ray Riffs You Can Learn to Play in an Hour.” In your thread post, you give way your best riff right there to prove you’ve got the goods. And then send them to your tutorial for the additional 8 riffs.

Or maybe you’re looking through a forum about stop smoking. Obviously these visitors would like to know the most effective ways to quit smoking. So you compose an article about it and then you return and declare “Here are the precise steps I took to stop smoking… and for over one year now I’ve been smokeless”.
Don’t forget that people prefer to learn from somebody who’s been there and done that. Whenever you are able to be that individual, you’ll have a steady flow of leads coming after your website wanting more. It simply doesn’t get any easier than this.

Whenever you bump into a hot topic that lends itself well to a list of resources, include your list offer as one of the resources. If you have, for example, an e-course entitled, “7 Ways to Stop Acne”, you can write a great “Top 10 Free Acne Resources”. And naturally your e-course is one of those free resources.
And don’t forget to leverage your content. Use it for articles, forum and blog posts, a free PDF report, whatever and wherever you can.

It’s likely that other list owners will publish it, because your article contains FREE resources. And as an additional bonus to get them to reprint it, you could allow them to include one of their own resources into your article. Heck, you can even pass the content with private label rights under the condition that your resource stays intact as is. Which means they can alter anything else they desire and even claim authorship, but your resource stays. And that means even more exposure for you.

Try it!
And let me know how you’re doing.
Or post your response below if you think I forgot something.
Or if you have other interesting tips.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Forum Trick For Traffic Surge

In the previous posts, we have discovered how to write and publish articles and how new and knew generates website traffic.
The end of your article should transition smoothly right into the resource box. That box should present itself as the next logical step.

Consider this strategy and test it: contribute your most beneficial tip at the closing of your article and offer your second best tip at the beginning.
This is in contrast to a sales letter, where we typically kickoff with our strongest benefit and work our way down to the lesser ones.
In an article, you may want that big blast near the end, just before your readers are funneled into your resource box. Besides, your final tip can carry the biggest weight if you lead up to it, by making all earlier tips hinging upon the last one, and by indicating the final tip to come.

Photo Credit: psd

Chances are, you want your readers to take a specific action, so your resource box should hint at more information to be found on the topic. Therefore, rather than sending them to your website, you want to send your readers to a special (landing) page containing specific info about the issue.

Tell them to do so! Create a specific call to action.
Tell your readers how to solve that problem, how to relieve the pain, how to get more of what they desperately want, how they can reduce the risks they take. In short, tell them where they can find the solution for all the problems described in your article.

Similar to what you do with your article title and the headline on your landing page, your resource box must express anticipation, desire, urgency, curiosity, and/or other emotional hot buttons.

To entice them, you can consider using an “ethical bribe”. Just like you need a premium to get them to opt in to your list, you also may need one to get them to your landing page in the first place. Test to discover what works best.

In the end, like your title, where the goal is to have your article read, your resource box must get your readers to visit your special landing page. Not tomorrow or next week – NOW!

And similar to the relation between a Google Adwords ad camaign and your landing page headline, so must your resource box match with the headline on your landing page. Think about it. If your resource box looked like the following:

…your landing page headline should tie into that offer. Maybe:

Or something like that. I just made that up, but you get the idea.

Remember, everything in your article is designed to funnel them to go to your landing page mentioned in your resource box.

Tell them EXACTLY what to do next: click, subscribe/order/download, whatever you want them to do and tell them to do it right NOW!

Here’s an extra, powerful tip: if your smart, if you’re really smart, everything at your landing page is premeditated to get them to subscribe to your list. Because you can communicate with them over and over again if they are on your list! So it’s a two-step process, two incentives: one to get them to go to your landing page and another one to get them to subscribe.

Finally, when done with all that, leverage your article wherever possible. You definitely want that article reused as much as possible all over the Internet (and off line as well).

• Post it in the article directories.
• Post it on all relevant forums.
• Submit it to search engines.
• Post it on your blog.
• Post it on your website.
• Encourage others to publish it in their ezines.
• Include your article in viral ebooks to be passed around the web.
• Offer your article as a premium report for other people’s products. Expand on the article, if necessary, to make it a content-packed report.
• Offer it for others to use on their content sites (e.g. Adwords), membership sites, as part of a mini-course, anywhere your target market will be exposed to it.
• Offer it to your affiliates.

Worried about duplicate content? There IS a nice and rather cheap piece of software, the only one that I can recommend, that allows you to easily rewrite articles and PLR content.

Sooooo…. did I forget anything?
Do you have something to add?
If so, post your comments below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Your Article Resource Box – How To Maximize Its Use

Here are some examples. Note how you will want to quantify as much as possible:

How To __________ In ____________

How To Increase Your Profits With 100% In 30 Days
How To Break Away from Debt In 4 Simple Steps

The Top X Ways To ____________

The Top 5 Ways To Lose 5 Pounds in a Week
The Top 10 Ways To Knock 5 Strokes Off Your Next Round of Golf

____ Little Known Tips for _______________

10 Little Known Tips for Training Your Puppy
3 Little Known Tips To Save Gas

Photo credit: caterina

Well, you got the picture. Just to illustrate how it works.
I’m not a copywriter, so there are much better examples available. Here’s a great selection:
Note: If you’re really interested in copy writing and headlines, you also sign up for the newsletters or feeds at the resources below.

• How to Write Magnetic Headlines. Brian Clark shows he’s a master at this.
• Write Magnetic Headlines With These 7 Tips by another copy writing master, Michel Fortin.
• Bencivenga Bullets, more specifically bullet 25, but you have to sign up here to read them. Please, do yourself that favor, it’s a goldmine!

One final remark about titles: when somebody is surfing an article directory, they’re coming across your article title alongside lots of others.
It’s rather like the Yellow Pages, one of the most competitive places to advertise. Why? Because your prospects see your advertisements right beside your rivals’.
You absolutely NEED to surpass the clutter. Your title should be about your prospect’s wants, needs and desires. It had better be about the individual reading the article, not the article itself.

This gets even more vital when a newsletter publisher searching for content is surfing an article directory. After all, which do you believe will fetch you more exposure: a reader surfing articles or a publisher with a subscriber list of 100,000 who releases your article?

Here’s an example how to attract special attention: Why ‘New’ and ‘Knew’ Create Intensely Powerful Headlines. I used this for the title of this post.
Try this yourself, it’s a great example of ‘thinking outside the box’.

Ok, on with our article.

Your first paragraph has the function to keep your visitors reading. Your opening paragraph draws them into the main body of your article, so you make it intriguing and some kind of an extension of your title.

A few effective ways to keep that attention going are to:

- Ask a question
- Paint an emotional picture
- Present an overview
- Set the stage with a story, anecdote, or quote
- Present a problem
- Reveal an interesting or startling fact

Apply tested formulas. As in a sales letter, tested formulas boost readership and reaction to articles too.
Like:

• Before and After – I was poor, now I’m rich. I was a hack, now I’m a scratch golfer. I was fat, now I’m thin.
• Frequently asked questions – Include some great ones, but leave some out to be placed on your website. Be sure to let them know in your resource box at the end of the article that there are more at your site.
• Problem-Agitate-Solution – You present a problem, then agitate it further. Finally the solution is hinted at towards the end of the article (with an incentive for them to go to your website to get the full picture).
• Useful, but Incomplete – Give just enough information to entice them, but leave them wanting more (which your website will provide).

Establish yourself as the authority, but don’t be patronising. You want to come across as an expert on the theme, without being a “know-it-all” or self-important. Don’t forget these are real people reading your article and they can smell from a distance if you’re arrogant or superior.

NEVER ever underestimate the intelligence of your readers.
If you appall them, you’ve lost them. Of course the same applies to tasteless or offensive remarks. When in doubt, leave them out.

Ok, let’s stop here and save the article resource box for the next message.

Meanwhile, post your comments here.
Did I forget some things that are important to you?
Let me know what you’re thinking.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

New and Knew Generates Website Traffic

Photo credit: Pro-Zak

Therefore you want your articles to be distributed as widely as possible all over the Internet and in the offline world wherever possible. For example, here are some sites where you can submit your articles and where other newsletter authors and publishers will come to get content for other publications:

http://www.articledashboard.com/

http://www.articlealley.com/

http://www.goarticles.com/

http://www.articlecity.com/

http://ezinearticles.com/

http://www.ideamarketers.com/

http://www.marketing-seek.com/

By letting others bring out your articles in their newsletters, your website can acquire even greater exposure. Nothing terribly new about that.

Where most people go wrong is how they try to get readers of their articles to take action. That is, getting them to both:

1) Visit your website

and…

2) Get them to subscribe to your list

Yes, you want them on your list, because that, in contrast to that one-shot approach, allows you to communicate with your prospects over and over again.
You’re going to build a relationship with your subscribers. Having them trust you, so you can give them great advice which they eventually will follow.
That’s how you monetize your efforts of generating that website traffic. Rinse and repeat.

It takes some planning and work on your part to make this desired result happen.

• Writing your article takes time and effort.
• Getting someone to publish your article in their ezine takes more effort.
• Getting people to read your published article takes even more effort.
• It takes additional effort to get people to visit your website after reading the article.
• And finally, it takes effort on top of that to get your website visitors to opt in to your list.

Is it any wonder most people aren’t as successful as they could be? There are many places along the way for missed opportunities, where potential subscribers will slip through the cracks.

Not only that, but you’re competing with tons of other marketers who are trying to do the same thing. The odds are definitely stacked against you.

But in this series, I’ll show you some techniques to significantly improve your odds, techniques that 95 percent of all article authors aren’t using. Do you think this will give you an edge? It will…if you use these techniques and actually put them to the test.

First, let me talk about some of the basics of writing your article. If you go to article directories, you’ll find that too many of the articles you see there don’t even incorporate these basic response-boosting tactics.

The title of your article is key, so choose it wisely.
Your article title is your headline for your article. And in a sales letter, the purpose of your headline is to get your letter read, right? Well, in this case, the purpose of your title is to get your article read. You’ll find that many of the same principles of writing headlines apply to choosing your title. You want people to stop what they’re doing and read your article right then and there.

That means titles that are benefit-driven will outperform those that aren’t. Your readers want to know what’s in it for them. So you need to craft your title accordingly. This is no time to be vague or clever.

And before you choose your title, you’ll need to know a bit about your target audience. Their wants, desires, needs. Their problems. What’s on their minds. In short, you need to fit the message of the article, and your title in particular, to what your target market wants. And by target market, I mean those who you ultimately want to come to your website and opt in to your list. So the more targeted the message, the better.

Your title should…

• Address something desirable
• Be as specific as possible
• Convey a sense of urgency
• Make a promise
• Be intriguing

The more of these points you include in your title, the better you can generally expect your readership to be.

Stay tuned. I’m not done with this.
Meanwhile, give me your comments below…

Edit 20 Feb.: I just stumbled upon a comprehensive guide for keyword research for bloggers that you can use to find excellent keywords for your articles.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Writing and Publishing Articles To Generate Website Traffic

It’s beats Google by only a handful of visitors, but beginning November it was all the way down on my traffic resource list.
Just for the record, Windows Live is third.

The Stumble Upon traffic surge started one month ago when I published How To Use Stumble Upon To Your Advantage.
That was when I seriously started to use this service to give it a try after reading the articles mentioned in that post.

At the end of the month, Stumble Upon already was on top. I thought that may be a coincidence, but it’s been my main traffic resource since. And all I did was follow the the advice.

I’m kind of cautious when it comes to network building, because there’s something artificial about it.
You tend to build a network of people that you really do not know very well or not at all. The only goal is to extend that network just for the sake of it, but it actually has little or no use.

I strongly believe that the true networks that really work are very personal. And such a network exists outside of the walled space a social network is.

That’s why I started to contact some people after visiting their sites that I found at Stumble Upon and send them a nice message or a little review.
You see, clicking the Stumble button only gives a vote, adding a little review gives it a more personal touch showing your (hopefully honest) opinion. I never stumble pages I don’t like. I want to keep my reputation in good standing.

And that’s exactly what Stumblers like. In return, they’re more willing to do the same for you. It creates the traffic that you want.

I’m not the only one who’s pleased with the extra StumbleUpon traffic.
Here are some other interesting posts:
Social Networks: Why StumbleUpon Rules Them All
How To Ensure A Quality StumbleUpon Experience
The 1-Page StumbleUpon Blog Traffic Power Guide
Where does Stumbleupon traffic come from – explained
The Stumbleupon stampede – one amazing night of traffic
The Secret to Massive Digg/StumbleUpon Traffic Without Spamming
Can StumbleUpon Bring Traffic?

Here’s my StumbleUpon page again.
Add me as a friend after reviewing my site (leave some valuable comments) and build a personal network.
One that delivers!

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

StumbleUpon Traffic Beats Google

I hope you took advantage of this great offer, so you can make viral videos to generate traffic to your site. Also, more and more people are using video software to create some buzz.

Hey, but wait a minute …

That’s another question! An important one.

Therefore I have a resource available containing 60 free Camtasia Tutorials.

They show you things like:

• how to use Camtasia, simple basics for anyone not familiar with this great software,
• how to use Camtasia to capture video and animation from your screen (version 3 specific),
• how to convert video and audio in Camtasia (version 3 specific),
• how to edit Camtasia clips,
• various screencasting tutorials,
• how to use zoom and pan tools,
• how to export and upload movies,
• various video editing tutorials,
• using advanced Camtasia features,
• tips and tricks,
• how to insert title pages,
• Camtasia settings to get great results on YouTube,
• and a lot more…

How do you get these free Camtasia tutorials?

Well, there’s a catch!

You see, I want to increase my number of subscribers.

So, you have to be subscribed to my update service, either by email or by RSS!

I will send out a message on Sunday, 9 December with the download URL of these 60 free Camtasia tutorials.

Note: That message will NOT be posted here!!

You will receive an email if you’re subscribed by email.
If you’re using RSS, you’ll see a post in your feed reader!

Again, you can’t find that valuable resource at this blog.

So, if you’re not subscribed yet and you are interested in creating viral traffic using the free Camtasia software, subscribe now, either by email or RSS.

See you on Sunday!

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

60 Free Camtasia Tutorials