This post is going to contain the simple, yet effective techniques I have learned during my time online to generate targeted traffic and generate sales. These are strategies I’m using for my own online business and have found to be working well and improving over time.

If you’ve been following along with us, my last post was about a struggling internet marketer who is reaching out in a desperate attempt to generate sales with his affiliate marketing website.

One of the questions asked was, “How do I drive traffic to my site that can generate sales?”

This is going to be the topic of this post, and I’ll be going very in-depth, starting with the basics and moving towards the more advanced strategies.

I apologize in advance if this turns into a very lengthy post, but please bare with me as it will be well worth your time to read through everything.

So let’s begin, shall we?

The very first thing you must understand is that everything revolves around keywords. Keywords are the life-blood of websites and how they become seen by internet users using search engines.

SEO (search engine optimization) is the foundation of using keywords effectively, and this is how you’re going to target specific internet users to generate sales online.

Rather than going in-depth on the subject of SEO on this post, I have a few previous posts that should cover this subject thoroughly enough for you to understand. Please check them out, and if you have questions use the comment section:

• Web Page Optimization
• Easy Free Keyword Research
• Discover Commercial Intention of Keyword Phrases

Optimizing your web page for specific keywords is critical and is the foundation for which you’ll build the rest of your marketing efforts upon. Seriously, nothing else matters until you’ve done this. Don’t ignore it!

One thing I’ve learned is that backlinks are KING. Okay, so content is still KING, but backlinks are a very close second, and here’s why. Backlinks to your website or web pages are what helps to drive your site or pages higher in search engine results pages when someone searches for a specific keyword phrase. See how this is coming together?

Without building backlinks to your site, you won’t generate enough traffic to your site to generate sales. Now I know what you’re thinking here. There are other ways to generate traffic without building backlinks, and that’s true. However, the best traffic is free search engine traffic, and the only way to get it is to rank on the first page in Google, or Yahoo and Bing. I’d focus on Google as it produces over 70% of search traffic across the entire web.

Now that you understand the importance of building backlinks and getting your site or web pages to the top of search engines, you now need to start the backlink building process. There are numerous ways to go about this, and luckily for you, I’ve written many posts on the subject. Here they are:

• Improve Search Engine Rankings the Easy Way
• Get 80 High PR One Way Backlinks Each Month
• Build Long-Term Traffic to Your Work From Home Site with Article Marketing
• Build Your Online Business with Article Marketing
• Forum Signatures
• Free Traffic System

Remember when building backlinks that you want to use your keywords for the web page you’re linking to. This is the only way that your backlinks are going to be effective in boosting your search engine rankings.

Okay, so you now have  a great start in getting backlinks; however, I’m not done just yet.

Well… sorta. I have a post planned that will discuss another very effect backlink building strategy and will be posted soon, so stay tuned for that.

Hopefully right now you have a solid understanding of doing keyword research and web page optimization, and how it all ties in to building backlinks. This is all part of building targeted website traffic that will result in sales.

As always, if you have any questions about anything discussed here, leave a comment below.

My next post will discuss the second question asked by a struggling internet marketer, but in the meantime, start applying the tips I mentioned today to your website, and you’ll soon see an increase in traffic and internet income.

December was a low month, which was to be expected with holiday shopping and such. At least that was my experience.

However, I was pleased to meet my Alexa Ranking goal of 250,000, which I surpassed. And, I’m on path to reach my new goal of 200,000 for the end of this month.

Here’s my income from last month for my ReplaceYourSalary.com site:

• ClickBank: $63.71
• Angela’s Backlinks: $11.25
• Paul’s Backlinks: $4
• Yarie: $37.25
• Google Adsense: $18.78
• SFI: $6.03
• Free Traffic System: $10
• Project Payday: $1.50 (commissions earned from promoting the program, not actually using it)
• Responsive Data: $4.50
• MaxBounty: $3.18

Traffic to my site has been increasing thanks to my marketing efforts. There is still a lot more I need to do and have already planned out. It’s just a matter of implementing the strategies now.

My site is still on the 2nd and 3rd page of Google search results pages for my two main keyword phrases. They’re both competitive, so it’ll take a little extra work to reach the first page. Getting more backlinks will help me achieve that.

Another bright note is that the Google Page Rank for this Work From Home Blog has increased to a PR 3. This is due to heavy link building the past couple of months.

That’s all for now. I expect big things to happen in 2010!

I’m back from Virginia after visiting with family for my cousin’s college graduation. My fiance and I had a great time, although it didn’t last long. Here’s a picture taken atop Afton Mountain, Virginia, along I64.

November was a great month for this site, mainly due to a couple of advertisers, which you’ll see below.

Here’s the total November income for my ReplaceYourSalary.com site:

• Google Adsense – $20.76
• Yarie.com – $42.76
• SFI – $14.98
• Clickbank – $44.37
• Responsive Data – $6
• Free Traffic System – $10.00
• Angela’s Backlink Building Service – $7.50
• Paul’s Backlink Building Service – $4.00

Not a bad showing at all for last month. However, my biggest earner was for two ads on my home page. Two different people contacted me about advertising on my site, and after quoting a price, they both agreed.

2 Home Page Ads (6 months) – $150 each = $300

Total November income is: $450.37

Not bad at all for just one site. I made even more with my freelancing services, which pushed me well over the $500 mark, an accomplishment I’ve been looking forward to. Overall I’m very pleased.

This is proof that you CAN make money online.

Another month gone by. I didn’t do as well as September, but still not a bad run. Let’s take a look at where things stand as far as how much income my site brought in.

• Google Adsense – $17.97
• Yarie.com – $30.40
• SFI – $6.17
• Clickbank – $139.36
• Responsive Data – $9
• Free Traffic System – $10.00
• Angela’s Backlink Building Service – $3.75

Total income for October is: $216.65

Where income lacked in some places, it made up for in others. Clickbank did very well thanks to the new addition of Adam Berry’s Flip Switch Profits course, which I highly recommend.

This income doesn’t include my proofreading, re-writing and blogging services.

This is my first ever income report, which I plan to continue for the months ahead.

I just want to show you guys what all I’m doing to make money and where my money is coming from.

I believe in having multiple streams of income, so I have quite a few sources that my money comes from each month.

These income reports will only consist of money I earn through my ReplaceYourSalary website, which includes this blog.

September Income Report: 2009

• PayDotCom – $28.17
• Host4Profit – $10.00
• HostGator – $50.00 – Thanks to JP at blogmatters.net.
• Google Adsense – $16.81
• Yarie.com – $31.62
• SFI – $28.81
• Clickbank – $6.15
• Responsive Data – $60.75 – Earned over a period of months
• Free Traffic System – $10.00

Total income is $242.31.

So there you have it. That’s how much I earned for last month. Let’s see how I do this month. So far, things are looking pretty good.

This income report doesn’t include earnings made from my re-writing, proofreading and occasional article writing freelance work.

How much money did you make from your website or blog? Share your results below…

Here’s a really cool plugin for all of you WordPress users out there. If the idea of building relevant and natural backlinks to your blog appeals to you, which it should, then this plugin is for you. It’s called the Contextual Partnership Plugin.

The basic gist behind the plugin is that you do nothing different from just blogging as you always do. For each post you have, past and present, you can build backlinks with your chosen keywords on other relevant blogs in the network.

Notice I said network. This means that there is a network of bloggers who all have this plugin. As the network grows, there will be more and more blogs available to earn backlinks from. So, this is important as you need to spread the word to everyone you know about this plugin and have them install it on their blogs.

There’s an approval process before your blog will be available in the network. It took my blog about an hour to get approved, so you shouldn’t have any trouble either. You can install this on as many blogs as you own, which I would recommend.

The only guidelines is that you have at least five posts, have contact information readily available, and provide value in your posts.

I just installed this yesterday, and it could take a few weeks before I start seeing backlinks. I’ll keep you updated on the results.

This is one very easy and automated way of building more links to your blog. Another free method that is similar to this is the Free Taffic System. I’ve been using the Free Traffic System for quite some time now and have seen excellent results. With both of these at my disposal, I’ll be able to work less to build high quality, one way backlinks.

I recommend you take a look at the Free Traffic System and also download this free plugin so that you can start to experience the same awesome results I’m getting.

Last week I made a post titled I Hate Thieves! Blogger Steals My Content! and ranted about a blogger who took one of my articles and deleted my links. I sent the owner of the blog an email via the contact page and hadn’t heard back.

Well today I received an email from the owner after two weeks of having sent the email. Here is what the blog owner said…

Thank you for your check my blog, I have already put your website link in my article with keyword “work from home online business” in my webpage http://www.getcashonline.org/work-from-home-online

Now obviously the owner doesn’t speak very good English, but you get the idea. This came as a bit of a surprise to me. Of course, I actually went to the page and made sure that he really did add my link. It’s there, along with the other million links he added of his own.

I need to correct him, though. He stated that he placed my link in “his article.” The fact is that he placed my link in MY ARTICLE. My link deserved to be there all along from the beginning when he decided to use my article.

This problem has been around forever, and it’s impossible to fight it completely. Most scraper blogs (blogs that scrape content from other sources, usually through RSS) steal content all the time with no recognition or link back to the source. I don’t think this is a scraper blog, but if you’re deleting links intentionally, then it might as well be one.

If you market your work from home business using article marketing then I’m sure you’ve been faced with this issue before. It’s not something you should get real worried about as it doesn’t happen too often, but it’s something you should be aware of. Not everyone is going to be honest. That’s just how it is.

There’s some rare cases, such as this one, where you can actually contact the owner and try to resolve the issue. This is the best case of action you can take. It really isn’t worth your time to pursue content thieves. Like I said, they’re the minority, not the majority.

Writing content for the web and marketing your online business comes with this risk. I just want you to be aware of it and realize that it’s going to happen. Fortunately for me I was able to revert this issue. If you want to eliminate this risk and get a much better reach for your articles then be sure to check out the Free Traffic System.

This also brings up another point and one I push quite heavily. If you haven’t heard of Google Alerts or don’t use it, you’re doing a disservice to you and your online business. It’s important to keep track of who’s talking about you and who’s linking to your websites. There’s no better way to do this than by setting up Alerts for your name and website domains. It’s fast and easy to do.

I hope my experiences here can help some of you. Don’t let this discourage you from writing content for marketing your work from home business. It’s an excellent way to get your name and business out there. Be sure to check out my Article Marketing Works video to see how its been helping me.

I’m a big fan of article marketing, and anyone who knows me will agree. I wouldn’t have created a whole article marketing proof video if I wasn’t 100% positive that it helps build your business for the long term. In fact, here’s my video below…

So what’s this whole Free Traffic System all about? Free Traffic System is the new age of article marketing: it has its advantages and does not have any disadvantages.

The advantages of both article marketing and Free Traffic System are obvious – Google and other search engines welcome and will always welcome the creation of new, useful, non-duplicate content and that is why search engines look favorably upon the backlinks generated this way.

Due to this “benevolent attitude” from search engines towards links built via article marketing, thousands of people have been successfully using article marketing for years to improve their positions in search engines for their targeted keywords.

BUT, unfortunately article marketing has some serious disadvantages – let’s have a look at them:

- when others republish your article they can delete your backlinks from the article

This is a huge problem! And my previous post was exactly about this topic. The owner of GetCashOnline.org decided to use one of my articles on his blog and remove MY links from MY article and insert his own self-serving links. I hate thieves!

After you have submitted your article to one of the major article directories – you lose control over your articles. Today, lots of people are using different automatic tools to “harvest” these directories for content and republish the articles on their sites. Now, probably 95% of the people that republish these articles are honest and will keep your links, but there’s always the other 5%.

The problem is that more and more people are starting to steal your content from article directories and automatically DELETE your backlinks from the resource box. OR, they steal just a tiny portion of your content (1st paragraph of your article, for example) and give a backlink to the article directory. This is great for the article directory, but not for you! This happens quite a lot to me, and I have to be honest… it PISSES me off!

With Free Traffic System you are guaranteed that pages where your content is republished will remain with YOUR backlinks. Those blogs who break this rule and touch your links (modify them/make them invisible/delete them) will be deleted from the Free Traffic System and lose access to quality content.

- duplicate content problems

You see, when one and the same article is republished, Google quickly “understands” this is duplicate content and “sees” that a big portion of your backlinks are built from duplicate content pages. This is not dangerous and Google will not punish you for doing that, but it is rumored that Google seriously lowers the SEO value of backlinks built from duplicate content pages, or just ignores them all together.

The other problem with this is that your duplicate articles will be competing against each other, and most likely Google and other search engines will just choose only one of your articles to show up in search results.

With Free Traffic System you have all the tools necessary to make each of your articles be non-duplicate, even if the article is republished on 20, 40, 100 or even more blogs. With the help of simple procedures – that will take you only an extra 5 minutes per article – you will create dozens or even hundreds of READABLE and CONCISE versions of article titles and bodies that won’t be considered duplicate. It is all in your hands: if you decide to spend 5 minutes and use the diversification tools provided by Free Traffic System, then each of the articles republished will be unique for Google and other search engines. And this will instantly increase the value of your backlinks.

Look at the comparison table to see Free Traffic System compared vs traditional article marketing.

Now I understand there are some tools available that do the same thing for your articles, like Unique Article Wizard. I also believe Submit Your Article will let you spin different versions of your article as well.

BUT… these are quite expensive, ranging from $30 – $70 per month!

Explore these advantages of building one way links with the new level of article marketing for FREE with the Free Traffic System.