The number one problem new website owners have is, “How do I drive targeted traffic to my website?”

A significant amount of time and energy is spent on this single task. A webmaster will commonly focus on:

• Ranking well in the search engines
• Pay Per Click (PPC) programs
• Pay Per View (Banner) programs
• Link Exchanges
• Directory Submissions
• etc.

All of these methods are viable means of getting traffic. In fact, if you’re lucky or competent enough to rank well for your keywords in the search engines, you’ll find that you get a very large portion of traffic to your website.

What do you do, however, if you rank poorly or, even worse, don’t even show up in the first 1000 results on any of the search engines? What do you do if you don’t have a budget set aside for marketing?

This is where people often turn to traffic exchanges. Quite simply, a traffic exchange is a program where you sign up and agree to surf sites in exchange for some credits. These credits are then used when other members of the exchange surf to your site.

Now, I’ll be quite honest with you, this traffic is not highly targeted traffic. In fact, if this were your only method of advertising your website, you’d probably fail. BUT it is a great method of getting traffic to your site in addition to the other methods listed above.

So, why do people use traffic exchanges? Here are a few of the benefits:

• Increase your Alexa rating! Did you know that some search engines factor your Alexa rating into their algorithms? More traffic means higher search engine placement!
• Increase your branding awareness. Any marketing expert worth his salt will tell you that branding is extremely important to stand out amongst the billions of websites out there.
• More traffic equals more sales. A percentage of people surfing will be enticed by your ads and click on them to find out more information.
• Another source of revenue. Many traffic exchanges will actually pay you money to surf. More importantly, as you refer other people to the network, you’ll earn a percentage of the money that they earn! It may be small amounts but if you work the system it could amount to a lot of money.

Now, before you head over to Google and search for Traffic Exchange, I’d recommend knowing a few facts:

1. Some traffic exchanges are simply out to get money from you and will refer very little traffic to you.
2. Some traffic exchanges have poor systems in place to stop cheaters from running programs to increase their credits faster.
3. Finally, some traffic exchanges will allow popups, activex controls, site rotators, etc. in their network. Any of these can stop your autosurfing from working, or even worse, allow your computer to be infected with a virus.

The best part about Traffic Exchanges is that you really have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The worst thing that could happen to you is you get a little bit of traffic which increases your Alexa rankings and you don’t get any money.

Of course, for the system to work, you’ve got to make sure that you do some surfing yourself. The makers of the exchange programs realize this and some of them even have an autosurf feature where you get a reduced number of credits while your browser happily loads page after page every 10 seconds or so.

Geoffrey Faivre-Malloy is a published author, speaker and owner of Make Money at Home Based Business Opportunities, one of the most popular home based business sites on the internet. His favorite traffic exchange is the InfoWizards Traffic Exchange.

For those of you who don’t know the definition: Link Exchanges are 2 links back and forth between 2 individual companies that have linked to each other. What is the purpose? To build “link popularity” within Search Engines!

What is the purpose?
To build “link popularity” within Search Engines!

How Does That Work?
Well when someone types in your business within search engines, you will get 2 types of results.

1) Your optimized site & related topics listed by you into the search engines.
2) All the links back to you from other sites listed within the search engines.

Number 2 is the important one for this subject: If your site is NOT “optimized” for great search results, a popular link could do just the same.

“Optimized” - Look for articles on “Optimizing your site for search engines”

Martin, PLEASE TELL ME MORE!!!

Well, let’s say that 80% of your visitors come from search engines. And let’s say that the search engine just all of a sudden deleted you out of the engine! You will still get people coming to your site and searching your site with great link popularity. All the links back to you will STILL be listed in the search engines!

Many professionals believe that you should only link to companies that have related discussions or information as your own! Me, always being the impartial one, I still try promoting link exchanges from all walks of life! You never know who will see your link and where!

It’s not only good for search engines! Huh?

That’s right, many link exchanges come from privately owned businesses, probably like yours. With this into account, once a visitor is satisfied with browsing the site, they may look for other resources! If you have links to your site all over the net, there’s more of a chance some people will see it and visit your site!

Please Note: When giving other companies your description of your link (Company Title) please make sure to be specific on your sites information!

Here’s an example of our text link:

Title: Affordable Web Design & Web Site Marketing Tips
URL: http://smartads.info

Description:
Smartads is here to help you expose your business to the world. SEO Services & Affordable Web Site Design for your online promoting needs. Web Site Marketing Articles to help you get more traffic to your site.

That’s it!

Here are a couple of companies that promote link
exchanges between all kinds of other companies:

- http://www.linkpartners.com/
- http://www.addurlhere.com/
- http://www.marketzone.net/addurl-exchange.asp
- http://www.smartads.info/links
- http://www.reciprocallink.com/
- http://www.link-city.com/
- http://www.go4links.com/Web-Internet.htm
- http://www.plainlinks.com/

These are just some examples.
They are not listed here as the best there is, just some of the many companies out there!

If your searching for companies to exchange links with, here’s a couple of things to look for!

1. Look for buttons or links that say this:

- Links
- Link To Us
- Reciprocal Links
- Link Exchange
- Directory (add your site and link back)
- Resources

2. When looking through other link programs, make sure they say something like this: “Link to us and well link to you” Many sites often only have “Help us promote our site, link to us!” and they don’t even link to you!

Not to say this is a bad thing, but if I’m going to link to you, the least you can do is link to me!

I hope this article has opened your mind about Link Exchanges!

Martin Lemieux
Smartads - President

Affordable Web Design & Web Site Marketing
www.smartads.info & www.smartads.ca

Martins Weekly Marketing Tips: www.smartads.info/newsletter
Daily Web Marketing Tips: web-marketing.smartads.info
Entrepreneur Help Site: mindpower.smartads.info

Everyone wants to know the big secret to driving traffic to their website. Every day I see an article or an ad talking about driving people to your website. Driving traffic to a website has become the “holy grail” on the internet. People are realizing that ‘if you build it, they won’t come… unless you give them a reason’. Website traffic just doesn’t happen by itself. Your website is just one of many millions on the web and people rarely just stumble upon your site by accident.

There are many ways to drive traffic to your website. You can
buy traffic from vendors that will pummel your website with hits from automated programs. This will increase your hits but will it increase your bottom line? Probably not. You can set up blogs that spider (connect to) your website increasing your traffic count. Does this drive users to your website? Only if your blog is sointeresting that people are reading it. There are thousands of blogs posted on the internet and your blog is just a needle in the internet haystack.

Another trick is to create RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds for your website and subscribe to other RSS feeds. This again will increase your hit count but will do very little to drive potential customers to your website unless you’re providing valuable information. Tricks will increase your hit count but do very little todrive potential customers to your website.

A better way to buy traffic for your website is by using pay-per-click with Yahoo and Google. You identify the most common keywords associated with what you’re offering and bid on those keywords. This can be a costly option if you’re bidding on popular keywords but it’s a reliable way to generate highly targeted traffic. In my next newsletter I’ll go into more detail about using pay-per-click advertising.

The best way to generate traffic for your website is to provide
quality content that will solve your customer’s problems. People search the internet for information that will solve their problems. Write and post as many articles as you can on your website.If you don’t have time to write articles or can’t write then hire someone to write the articles for you. You can have quality articles written by freelance writers at www.elance.com for practically nothing. The articles should be relevant to the problems your customers are experiencing and to the services you provide to solve those customer problems. Remember, it’s all about providing solutions to your customer’s problems. Check the “How To” Articles section on my website at www.valiss.com for more information about your website
content.

The bottom line is that you can’t trick people into finding your
website. You must provide valuable information that solves your
customer’s problems. Your customers don’t come to your website
to read your blog about how you spent the weekend. They’ll come
to your website if they know they can find a solution to their most pressing issues. Keep your content fresh and relevant to solving your customer’s problems and in no time you’ll have plenty of visitors to your website.

Next time I’ll talk about how you can use pay-per-click to generate targeted traffic and not spend a fortune.

Ted Prodromou spent over 25 years in the computer industry working for IBM, Digital, and Cellular one. Today he’s the owner of Valiss IT, a consulting firm that provides small business coaching and marketing help. He’s also a certified personal and professional coach.

Ted has created and led many coaching workshops and today is helping small businesses automate their marketing with his latest coaching program, “Attract Clients While You Sleep”. For more information visit http://www.valiss.com/specials.

I am not going to bore you by loading this article with a bunch of redundant, irrelevant garbage you already know. So let’s just cut to the chase.

I’m tired of reading the same old Link popularity articles. No one is saying anything new. The main question on everyone’s mind is “How can I get and KEEP a good ranking in the major search engines?” Even those websites doing well are fighting to keep their place. There must be a way to consistently appear in a good position with the major search engines?

Reciprocal links, OBSOLETE

Webmaster long ago realized the importance search engines attached to link popularity for top search index positioning and resorted to reciprocal linking hocus pocus. However this practice does not indicate either site as being an authority and actually gives a slight edge to the lesser ranked site. This strategy has already become obsolete and very soon the search engines will change their algorithms and teach their spiders to take it into account.

Inbound One Way Links, ALMOST IMPOSIBLE

To achieve high link popularity the best type of links to build are inbound one-way links. This simulates how natural links would accrue when other webmasters point to your site because they found the content worth linking to. Unless you are a manufacturer getting other webmasters to link to your site without you linking back is almost impossible. BE HONEST, would you do that? If you are interested in building inbound links here is an excellent article with lots of suggestions by Salihu Ibrahim

Link popularity, SAME OLD STUFF

So to build link popularity you resort to the same old stuff. Directories are categorized listings of links from around the web so you spend an evening getting listed in quality directories such as DMOZ or Yahoo, then a few more hours searching out smaller link directories. Here a new problem arises. I have noticed a trend in smaller directories today, you pay for a listing or for a free listing you have to reciprocate. Spend cash or get trash. Now what?

Content, Content, Content

We all know the most powerful way to get inbound, one-way links is to have great site content that other web sites will want to link to. So you write a few interesting and informative articles for your web site. Most of the top ranking web sites today got to the top because of great content why not you. Now you can send out a few e-mails to webmasters whose sites are in the same category and offer links to your content thus creating one way links, but they may ask for reciprocation, so what do you do?

The Real Silver Bullet, THREE WAY LINKS

If you are observant you will see that many websites are part of a group, sometimes owned by the same person. In many cases this has been done to push visitors, influence spiders or just for convenience. What ever the reason, if you can find this situation you can set up the perfect link scenario, three way links. I will give you only a couple examples. For these examples you are site A.

Text link from site A (your article) (PR3) linking to a similar article on site B (PR4) and a link back to site A’s index page (PR5) from site C’s index (PR5) — Or — A link from the partners page (PR3) on site A to the main page of site B (PR4) and a link from one of site C’s category pages (PR4) to an article on site A (PR3)

In each link scenario everyone gets a one way link. This can be set up in any field of interest, internet, photography, fishing, hunting, shopping, anyplace where articles or content would appear. Delivering relevant links from relevant content is the key. If you come across an opportunity like this simply send an email to the web site owner requesting a possible three way link exchange. Ask them to visit your site and read your article first before making a decision. If your site is laid out well and the article content has some quality a smart webmaster will jump at the chance.

They may like a number of your articles so make sure each article has your byline with a link pointing to your site. Make sure that the text link has your keywords in it and not your domain name and remember that good author tag lines have a maximum of two links. Associating a Creative Commons license to your work is also a good idea, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit — and only on the conditions you specify.

Summary

Increasing your search engine ranking is best accomplished by improving your web site’s link popularity. This can be achieved by using your sites content as leverage in setting up one-way links via three way link exchanges. Each exchange takes a little time and a lot of thought but the end result will benefit both parties and seeing your efforts turn into a dramatic increase in traffic will be your reward.

Michael Klasno is an Assisted SEO Marketing Specialist and CEO of Net Performance Group Inc. Net Performance specializes in fishing and outdoor website design and marketing. For more internet marketing articles by this author please visit: http://www.netperformancegroup.com/Articles/articles.htm

100,000 Guaranteed Hits, Only $69.99!

I know you’ve seen this type of advertisement or website slogan, especially if you’re new to internet or affiliate marketing. If you’re anything like me, your mouth starts to water and your mind starts spinning at the possibilites! Then, the calculator comes out…

“Let’s see, if I purchase 100,000 hits for $69.99, and my new affiliate program pays me $20.00… that means if ONLY .1% purchse the product, I’ll make $2000, which is $1930.01 in PROFIT! Woo Hoo! I’m gonna be R-I-C-H!”

Wrong. If you’re new to internet or affiliate marketing, don’t fall for the hype. You’re not going to find any successful marketers using these type of services. Oh, we’ve all been there and done that, so we don’t blame you. But if you can learn from other’s failures and wasted time, money, and shattered hopes, do it NOW.

See, affiliate or internet marketing is all about TARGETED traffic (don’t fall for the ‘targeted’ guaranteed programs either - they too don’t work). The formula is simple, send targeted traffic to a relevant, well written website with a quality product or service, and you’ll make sales.

See, with ‘guaranteed hits’ programs the traffic just isn’t targeted enough, or at all. I don’t care how many times you show me a website selling pink mini-skirts, as a 6 foot 7 inch guy weighing in at 260lbs… I’m just NEVER going to buy! You MUST give your website visitor what they want, and what they expect to see when they get to your site. Simple.

I’ll go ahead and speak for all of the internet and affiliate marketers out there and help you refrain from wasting your time and money. These ‘guaranteed hits’ programs just don’t produce. I have personally made this mistake and I have purchased over 1,000,000 (yes, One Million) ‘guaranteed hits’ from various vendors. I have spent hundereds of dollars - with not ONE sale. Nope, not even one dollar earned.

I even paid good money to become a reseller for these programs so I could purchase the hits at wholesale! Not ONE sale, ever. Let me save you the heartache and hopeful feelings. Making this mistake and wasting that money almost made me quit affiliate and internet marketing outright. I’m glad I didn’t though… I’m steadily increasing my results, and my income, with the proper techniques.

Once again, don’t waste your time or money on any kind of ‘guaranteed hits’ program or service. Instead, take your time and money and point them towards the resources that will actually work. Lead capturing, autoresponders, viral eBooks (with quality content), and joint ventures are examples of excellent methods and tools to use. But that’s for another article.

Paul D Johnson is an affiliate marketer that has tried it all. He finally decided to try what works. One of his websites - http://affiliatemoneymachine.easymktg.com - provides FREE information to help new internet and affiliate marketers in their journey to make it online.

Backlink Keywords

Before you start a backlink campaign for your website you must
decide which keywords you are chasing. Deciding on the right keywords is a complicated process but for the sake of brevity I’ll assume you know the keyword phrases you want people to use to find your site (if you don’t know what I am talking about read some of my other articles for help). This is important because each time someone links to your site it gives you a backlink vote. That vote comes with relevancy that is largely determined by what text they use to link to you. You can influence that text by carefully selecting how you title your website and article pages.

If you run a blog chances are people link to you with either your name or your blog’s title as the anchor text (the clickable link). You should very carefully select a name for your website using a phrase that you know is a popular search term for your target audience. When bloggers link to your articles they usually use the title of the article so again you must always be on your toes when deciding how to title content in your website.

Although human usability is the most important consideration when choosing titles, choosing the right keywords definitely comes a close second and should always be part of your mental thought process when naming anything on your site. If you can combine a clear title with smart use of keywords then you have a perfect match - optimizing your content both for humans and search engines.

In my article marketing campaign for my blog, Entrepreneur’s Journey (www.entrepreneurs-journey.com), I use my blog’s subheading phrase - Internet Business Blog - as an alternative link text along with my name or the blog’s title as options for linking to my site (I give these options on the page where I request link exchanges). This is good for two reasons -

1. It varies the incoming link text to my site, which is a surefire way to avoid any over-optimization penalties from Google and…




2. It gives my site ranking points in the search engines for the term “Internet Business Blog”.

You should always promote 2-3 keyphrases rather then focus 100% on only one term or spread to thin and optimize for 5 or 10 or more terms. Over time you can refine your phrases until you find the combination that brings in the most targeted traffic.

By Yaro Starak
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com

Are you interested in online marketing, Internet business, blogs and podcasts? Are you sick of “gurus” trying to sell you the latest get rich quick online deal?

Get educated, it’s the key to real online wealth.

Download and read quality how-to articles and listen to podcast audio files in mp3 - Visit my blog: Entrepreneur’s Journey.

Traffic in the Inland Empire can be at times horrible. With one lane shutdown, drivers seemed to forget how to drive and then that’s when the trouble begins. With the influx of new housing and people moving away from LA and Orange County, the roads and highways are only going to get more congested and dangerous.

There definitely needs to be something done, because at certain times the freeways and local streets are just a parking lot with angry drivers, and disgruntled drivers in the Inland Empire are a scary bunch of people. You don’t know if you are going to get shot, or ran off the road, or followed all the way to your destination and get stabbed. The sad thing is that when they finally do approve of a project to try to ease congestion, they’re usually 10 years behind. They then have to create another project to fix the project that they are currently working on. It’s so sad over the Inland Empire.

I don’t know if something like this exist, but there needs to be a message board of some sorts that the commuters can talk online with the people who are in charge of these type things. The commuters are the ones who actually drive the roads and know where the trouble spots are. They can tell city planning or whoever is at the top, and tell them some valuable information they can use to help them plan for their next fiasco. I believe this Inland Empire web design company can develop a site like what was mentioned above.