Recently I’ve been getting a lot of questions related to getting traffic to a website, search engine optimization (SEO) and building backlinks to a site. My email and Facebook inboxes have been flooded with all kinds of questions, so I thought it would be great to post them here in case you had similar questions.

The topic I’m going to cover in this post will have everything to do with getting traffic to a site, for the most part. Some questions may stray a little into the other areas I mentioned, but for the most part they deal with traffic.

I’ll quote the questions and answers, and if I have anything to add, I’ll post it below that to keep Q&A’s separate from my afterthoughts.  Confused? You’ll see what I mean.

Traffic Q&A’s

Question: My site for the main keyword is #1 on Google. The local searches Google shows 6000, the webmaster tool as well. So I suppose it would be 6000 divided by 30 (month days) = 200 visitors per day. However, with Google Analytics I see that my site visiting only 70 unique visitors per day? My webmaster tool shows Search queries – Impressions – 6,600, Clicks – 1,000. Is this some kind a rule that if Google shows some number of searches you will never get all visitors to your site and must be divided by two?

Few times I have tried to change the description, but nothing happened.

Answer: When using Google’s keyword tool, those monthly search numbers are only estimates. So, sometimes they may be accurate, sometimes they may not be. The only thing to do at that point is to start ranking for other related search terms which will increase your overall traffic.

Afterthought: Another thing you want to remember is that just because your website may be in the number one spot, you still have the Sponsored Listings to compete with along with the other natural search results. Granted, being number one is going to bring in the majority of that traffic, but not all of it.

So, as I recommend, start trying to rank for other terms as well to increase your overall traffic.

Question: Maybe you could advise what should I do to fix this problem.

On my Google Webmasters account, I see that on my site, which is on #2 spot, have a very small amount of clicks – 73, but impressions – 1900. I’m wondering that here should be something not right, I understand that Google shows my website’s link – 1900 times, but visitors clicking on it only 73 times, am I right Alan?

What should I do to get most of those clicks from those 1,900 impressions?

Answer: My first reaction would be that the ads being displayed on your website aren’t targeted to the content on your site. Or, the people coming to your site aren’t targeted for the content on your site, assuming the ads are relevant. That would be where I would start.

Afterthought: You could also try Adsense Section Targeting so that more relevant ads show up on your site. I recommend reading through what it is and note the caution if you do implement it.

Question: Hey, do you know much about buying traffic to your website? Is that a bad idea, or do you recommend it?

Answer: I have nothing against it. However, make sure you do some homework and have a budget for it. You can easily lose money if you don’t know what you’re doing it. I’ve done it in the past… made some money, lost some money.

I’ve heard Yahoo and MSN are pretty good, so those are possibilities too. I’ve never used them, though, only Adwords.

Afterthought: Yahoo is pretty much non-existent now, and MSN is now Bing. So, I’m not sure where the PPC side of things stand for either as I haven’t looked into it since these happenings. The majority of people do use Google Adwords, though.

Question: Hey, I was wondering if you would be able to help me improve my Google ranking? I know it wont be easy, but I would LOVE to get my page to appear on Google page 1 at some point within the next 6 months. Is that at all possible, under such a competitive keyword phrase like ‘keyword‘?

Answer: Sure, I’d be happy to help. That term is going to be very tough after looking at the sites currently on page one. Perhaps there is a long-tail keyword you could shoot for? This would help you rank faster and at the same time position your site to be in a better position to rank for your main keyword. That’s just my thoughts.

Afterthought: I always recommend going after long-tail terms especially if your niche is very competitive. For instance, my niche is the ‘work from home’ niche, which is SUPER competitive. It could take you months or years to be ranking well and earning money for that exact phrase, unless you targeted a long-tail phrase instead. FYI, my site is on page 2 of Google for the ‘work from home’ keyword.

Question: Yeah I thought something as common as “keyword” would be too tough to compete with, but I do like your idea of using a long-tail keyword phrase. Do you have any suggestions as to what I could go for? I was thinking terms like “keyword1“, or “keyword2” etc… would you think it is possible to appear on page 1 under those kind of search terms?

Answer: I haven’t checked Google page one to see what all sites come up, but it’s something to start with. I use this tool: https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer.

This tool is very handy to find the number of searches per month. Make sure to check “[Exact]” match type. Then, go to Google and type in the search terms you want to see the competing sites for. That should give you an idea of what you’re up against. Also look at the total number of sites that come up. The less the better.

Afterthought: Some people will tell you to search for the keyword with quotes when looking up your competition. This is fine; however, no one searching for that keyword is going to put it in quotes, so make sure to also do the search without quotes to get a total number of competing sites. The numbers will be significantly different from each other.

Note: I don’t proclaim to be in expert in any field, including how to get website traffic. I only speak from personal experience and what I’ve done and am doing to get traffic to the sites I have, including this one.

If you seek professional advice or the wisdom of a “guru”, you won’t find it here. Search Google.

Final Thoughts

These questions covered a wide variety of traffic techniques and strategies, but I realize there are so many other topics that could be discussed regarding traffic.

Ask Your Question

I’m turning the floor over to you now…

What do you want to know about getting traffic to your website? What question/s do you have that weren’t covered in this post?

Leave a comment below with your question/s or you can contact me directly.

I look forward to answering your questions!

A problem that many new bloggers and website owners face is building up traffic and readership right from the start. So, what can one do to get traffic and gain readers early on? The simple answer is that there are numerous ways to drive traffic to a new site or blog, and there are many things you can and should be doing to gain exposure.

I’ve been talking lately about writing reviews to earn affiliate commissions or directly getting paid to write reviews. But, what if you simply reverse the idea and now think of yourself as the advertiser paying a blogger to write a review about your website, blog, etc?

You’re basically paying a blogger to write a review about your site. There are a lot of people that pay for reviews, whether it is for a new product, service, or a new website or blog to get exposure.

Is this method of advertising ideal? Is it worth spending that kind of money ($500 is a lot)?

Here are what some other bloggers have to say about paying for reviews:

Jason Pereira at TUK states that “You Are a Moron if You Pay for Reviews.”

Fabien at Small Fish Big Money reports that “Paid reviews are good for exposure and publicity…nothing more, I repeat, nothing more.” Check out Fabien’s Shocking Revelations post to read more.

Disadvantages of Paying for Review Posts

The most obvious disadvantage is actually forking over all of your hard-earned money for a review.  The amount differs depending on the blogger you plan to have write the review. For high authority blogs, you can expect to pay $300 and up, or if you want a review on John Chow’s website, you’ll have to hand out a whopping $500. For small to medium sized blogs, $50 is around normal.

The other disadvantage as pointed out by Fabien is that the amount of exposure is actually very dismal. Not only that, any exposure you do get will be gone within 24 to 48 hours. Buzz only lasts as long as the subject is still being talked about. Since the review is a one-time thing, as soon as the review is written and published, any buzz created will be gone soon after it’s read.

All in all, I think if done right (promoting the review yourself and building buzz about your new site/blog), and you choose the right blog, this can be beneficial to gain traffic and readers right from the start. You’ll have to weigh the pros and cons and see if the money you’re about to spend will justify the amount of exposure you think you’ll get.

Something else to consider is that there are sites out there that will review your site, blog, etc. for free. Anthony Dinh of Diaries Of A Blogger asked the question, “Why Pay for Reviews When You Can Get Them FREE? In his post he shares a list of sites that will write reviews about your blog for free.

I urge you to check it out these other blog posts before you pay for reviews. A better method, in my opinion, and something Jason touched on, was writing guest blog posts. I’ll talk about guest blog posting in an upcoming post and explain how you can get much better exposure than paying for reviews, all for free.

What do you think about paid reviews? Is it worth spending the money? Leave your comments below and let’s discuss it.

If you know anything about SEO, then you’ll know that keyword research is so important in attracting the right kind of traffic to your website. I consider the right kind of traffic as being people who are looking to buy something, assuming you’re wanting to sell something.

If you’re doing business online, then obviously you want to sell stuff. So, wouldn’t it make sense to target ‘paying’ keywords?

Yes, I made that name up.

I go into all the details in my guest post and provide a video which I previously posted on my blog.

To check out the article, head to David Leonhardt’s SEO Writer blog where I had the pleasure of writing, Target Paying Keywords to Maximize Your Online Sales.

This neat little tool will help you pump out more sales by targeting the right kind of keywords for your website.

Feel free to browse David’s blog as you’ll find other helpful articles on SEO, which I know can be rather bothersome to some people.

This is a problem that all bloggers have to face, including myself. There’s a million different reasons why someone doesn’t like your blog or doesn’t like what you write. And, these reasons could even be causing some loyal readers to unsubscribe from your blog’s RSS Feed.

However, this post isn’t going to cover any of that stuff. Yes, that happens a lot, but there’s another reason why you may be losing blog readers. In fact, this problem could be hindering people from even reading your blog in the first place. And, I know for a fact that you want as many people to read your blog. Afterall, I feel the same way.

So, what could this problem be?

You may be l0sing blog readers because your blog simply takes too long to load. In this day and age, people are more impatient than ever. I happen to be one of those people, so if a page takes forever to load, I’ll just move on to something else. Well, good chances are there’s more people out there that do the same.

If your blog takes more than five seconds to load, you may want to look into speeding it up a bit.

This idea hadn’t even dawned on me until I read Sid Savara’s guest blog post on ProBlogger’s blog about 5 Plugins To Make Your WordPress Blog Blazing Fast.

The post covers 5 amazing WordPress plugins you can use to speed up the load time of your blog. I highly recommend you check out the post, especially if you’re having problems with your blog loading slow.

This could be due to images and other factors, including the popularity of your blog and how much traffic it receives on a daily basis.

One plugin that is recommend is WP Super Cache, which I’ve installed on this blog. It’s only been a day so far, so I haven’t noticed a huge difference yet. But then, my blog doesn’t get 1,000′s of visitors a day.

This is something that all bloggers need to be aware of and take into consideration. You don’t want to be losing blog readers before they even have a chance to read your blog.

After reading the title you’re probably thinking there’s no way that keyword research can be easy, let alone free. I think that too many people make keyword research a lot harder than it has to be. And, while paid tools are great when researching keywords, I think that for the majority of people they’re not needed.

What IS needed though is knowing how to do some basic keyword research when you’re looking to rank your articles, blog posts, and web pages on the first page of Google.

Keyword research is essential, and it’s a lot easier than you might think. I put together a video explaining how you can use a free tool to find “golden nuggets” that are going to provide the traffic you need. Follow that up with a little research on your competition, and you’ll be well on your way to getting a top 10 listing.

Once you find the keywords you want to use, remember to include those keywords when building backlinks to that article, blog post or web page. That’s how you’re going to build up your rankings in the search engines.

And, speaking of backlinks, the two methods of backlink building I recommend to get the fastest results is using Angela and Paul’s backlink building services. They are worth every penny and can produce massive results.

I hope with this little tip you’ll be able to bring in more traffic and sales for your online business.

The 2nd annual summer PPG contest comes to an end on the 15th. If you’ve noticed I haven’t been updating my blog near as much as I would like. I wish this was due to me working hard doing everything I can to win the contest, but it’s not.

I’ve been busy with offline commitments as of late. As the contest comes to an end, my time online here and other parts of the internet should be coming close to full swing again. At least that’s the plan. It’s hard to juggle everything and commit my time to what I enjoy most, but I will do my best.

I have also devoted my online time to other ventures as well, something I will post about in the very near future. It’s been an exciting time for me, and I want to share with all of you about what I’m doing. So, keep your inboxes open and stay tuned for my next few posts.

As far as the PPG contest, I’m curious to see how well I’ve progressed. Here are some stats to give you an idea of how my online business has been moving forward. The winner is based on how many new backlinks have been achieved, as well as the current Alexa Rank.

Here are my stats:

Alexa Rank prior to the start of the contest – 356,884

Backlinks prior to the start of the contest – 19,867

Current Alexa Rank – 265,084

Current number of Backlinks – 24,363

Surprisingly my Alexa rank has jumped up almost 100,000. Not surprisingly my backlinks have increased by almost 4,500. These results will have to be weighed with everyone else participating in the contest. The winner will be picked based on the biggest jump in numbers.

The purpose behind the contest isn’t to win prizes, it’s to encourage us to keep moving our internet businesses forward. Building quality backlinks and getting traffic to your site should be your primary goal. Do this, and you’ll be well on your way to working from home.

If you own a website then I’m sure you know the importance of obtaining backlinks from high PR sites. If you’re not aware of this, then listen up. It’s important to get as much free organic traffic from the search engines as possible. One indirect way to do this is through free directory submission.

There are literally thousands of web directories available for you to submit your site to. Some are obviously better than others, and you’ll want to focus on the high PR directories. Getting backlinks from high PR directories will not only increase your PR (Page Rank), but also increase your search engine rankings.

This means more traffic to your site. I’m always searching for ways to get more traffic from the search engines. It’s the lifeblood of any website or internet based business. As I was searching I came across a site with a huge list of high PR web directories to submit my site to. Some I have heard of and already have my site listed there, and others I haven’t.

I’ve been going through this list the last couple of days and making use of the free directory submission. Some directories require a payment, and others require a reciprocal link. I’ll settle for a reciprocal if I have to, but I opt not to when possible. I also don’t pay to be listed. There’s plenty of free directories to go around.

You can view this list by going to High PR Directory List. Now the point here is not to get traffic from the directories, although you might get some. The point here is to build backlinks to your site from high PR sites. When it comes to traffic and ranking well in the search engines, especially Google, it’s all about the backlinks. The more the better.

So do your website a favor and make good use of free directory submissions. Once approved, you’ll have built more high PR backlinks to your site and should see your site slowly moving up in the search engines. Remember to use your keywords in the Title of your submissions.

Was this article helpful? Leave your comments below…

Article marketing is one form of marketing that I think will never lose ground. It’s been around for a long time and still remains a proven method of promotion and link building. If I had to choose just one marketing method, it would be article marketing.

Here’s my list of sites that I submit my articles to, some are more important than others, but I have found all to be quality sites that bring in traffic or at least get exposure.

My top 31 Article Directory List:

1. The Free Library
2. Hot Article Directory
3. Hubpages – Must be unique
4. Qassia – Must submit here before anywhere else
5. Scribd
6. eHow
7. Helium
8. Google Knol
9. Associated Content
10. Ezine Articles
11. Go Articles
12. Article Archives
13. Free Articles Directory
14. Article Dashboard Directory
15. Article City
16. Article Cube
17. Article Alley
18. Buzzle – Must be unique
19. Isnare
20. Amazines
21. Articles Base
22. Article Marketer
23. Article Rich
24. Articles Factory
25. Drop Jack
26. eArticles Online
27. Get Your Content
28. Idea Marketers
29. Best Syndication
30. Niche Article Directory
31. Google Base

Which article directories do you get the best results from? Do you use any not listed?… Add them in your comments below.

I’m not a huge Twitter user, personally, as I don’t spend hours at a time chatting with my fellow tweets. I guess you could say I don’t use it for its intended use of socializing with others and building relationships. I make occasional updates about what I’m doing or thinking, but I don’t usually chat with anyone.

Nonetheless, I can’t ignore the fact that Twitter can bring in a lot of traffic. Twitter does have many advantages, and I continue to get more and more followers daily. Because of this, I use a service to automatically post my blog updates to my Twitter account.

As a marketer I try to capatalize on my efforts to get as much traffic with as little effort as possible. I’m sure others could agree that they strive to do the same. What better way to do this than to have others help bring you more traffic? That’s what the TweetMeMe WordPress plugin is designed to do. You may notice a little box above every post showing how many tweets that post has. There’s also a little green rectangle that says “ReTweet.”

If you find my posts useful and would like to share them with your fellow followers on Twitter, you can simply click that button at the top of the post to ReTweet it. Of course, you’ll have to have a Twitter account first. You can sign up for free here.

Also, be sure to follow me on Twitter at @AMater.

If you realize the true potential of social media and how sites like Twitter are gaining a foothold in the marketing world, you may want to consider adding this plugin, or a similar one, to your own blog.

All of us come across Ads that say: Work From Home, Make Money Online, Get paid for surveys, Get paid to read emails, Get paid to click, Business opportunities etc… Oh my gosh! Is it really so easy to earn money!

Please stop buying those ebooks and make money stuff. Let me tell you that all that you need to know NOW for FREE! Most of us online money seekers have lost hundreds or thousands of dollars searching for the holy-grail OR the single secret to riches!

How many have succeeded ? Very few. OK, now let’s get to the point. What makes money ? Yes, the correct answer is sales. But how do we make sales online ? Yes, using a website that sells valuable products or services. OK, the website is READY. Now what? We need traffic. Lots of it… i.e. Targeted prospects who will give at least a minute of their valuable time to read what we have offered on our website.

Now here is the catch! How to get targeted traffic ? Please don’t buy it using the guaranteed visitors/hits option. Lots of crooks make money selling guaranteed hits to dreamers like us who feel it will produce results. Sorry to say, but that 100,000 hits for $50 doesn’t work. If it was that easy, then at least half of the world would have been RICH. But that has not happened yet because it’s tough to make money till we know how to make it. One more thing to remember, a source of traffic that works for a website does not mean same traffic will work for another website. Otherwise I would have listed all traffic resources here right for you to start using and make instant profit.

These are the only things you need to Make Money Online :

1. Your own email list/ezine. Well, this is like a cash cow. You can milk it whenever you want. Just don’t over do it otherwise the cow will run away! Send emails to the members about your products/services every 3 or 7 days.

You will get sales if the emails build trust and showcase you as an expert & friend. One dollar per month per member is what you can earn on an average. So have a list of 10,000 and you will earn about 10,000 dollars per month. The more members, the more money! Join & promote email list building programs.

2. Join & promote Traffic/click-thru exchange programs.

3. Use network marketing to leverage your income. Also earn residual profits. Residual income is the one that keeps coming for a sale/activity made just once. Leveraged income is earning from other people’s efforts. The day is too short and working lot of time does not make sense. Spare more time towards your loved ones. Help your downline in the MLM earn money. They will work and you will earn. It’s as simple as that. It is better to get paid 1% of 100 people’s efforts then we doing the 100% work.

Got it? OK. Then join and promote a reliable & product driven MLM today. If you have already joined it, then promote it like crazy. But DO NOT spam! Spam is illegal and offensive. Use PPC to get instant traffic. Targeted traffic is like watering a plant. The only exception is that the plant gets drowned if we put 10,000 liters of water but an internet business doesn’t get drowned with that much of targeted traffic. An Internet business prospers. More traffic = more money. Just ensure that the visitors are really interested in what you offer.

4. Do not simply post to FFAs. Do it only after you have your OWN FFA page online. When people will post Ads to your FFA page, they will get an email from you about the confirmation. This is an opportunity for you to get the word out about your products/services.

5. Stay in touch with successful people who have made money online. Regularly communicate with your sponsors/upline in MLM programs that you join.Take their help to learn more about internet marketing.

6. Use autoresponders and lead capture pages to create a profit making funnel which accepts leads & creates downline members who act as leaders and NOT as followers.

Work From Home. Spend more time with your family. Work really hard for at least the first 2 years to live your dreams for the rest of your life. Wish you all the best!

About the Author :
Niranjan Ranade is a work-from-home dad who earns his living using simple and powerful internet marketing strategies.
Make Money Online

Summary:
Promote your lead capture page. Offer free gifts to the visitors for subscribing to your newsletter. Help the members of your email list to earn cash online. Money is in the list.  So build your own email list. Search engines love fresh and quality content.  Make sure you keep your website updated and informative to the visitors. Visit Work From Home to know more about one of the best income opportunities available today!

Get practical points of view for website traffic – this is your own tips store.