Archive for 'web traffic'

More Keys to Driving Traffic to Your Website – Part 7

Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 12:29 pm  
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Part 7 – Press Release Marketing

Press release marketing is not dissimilar from Article marketing.  Essentially, you issue a press release to online press release sites about an event that is happening in your business.   This could be a new offering, the launch of a new website, or some event that could substantially impact the interest in your website.    There are optimal ways to write press releases, and guidance on that can be obtained from the various internet press release services like:

PR Web Press Release Newswire -   Paid Service
Express Press Release Network -  Free Service
Free Press Release -  Free Service

If you are introducing something of real value, the use of a paid service like PRWeb  is much more likely to get your press release read, or actually picked up by another media company.   If so, this can result on substantial direct traffic back to your website

The free sites do give you some exposure, but the primary value is in establishing ‘backlinks’  to your site from various places on the web.  By using some of the larger and higher authority PR sites, you’ll get much better “link juice” back to your site to improve SEO and site ranking.

Just as for Article Marketing, it is important to do a bit of keyword research to find those that are specifically related to your website, but which don’t have excessive competion.  Write your release around those selected keyword phrases, and your release can show up on the web with very high rankings.

As said before, you need to use a specialized format for press releases.  Here are a few tips:

  • Just as for articles, include the keywords in the title, as well as in the body of the text.
  • The press release needs to be in a ‘newsworthy’ format much like you’d seed in the “News” section of a corporate website.   Typically, you want to be ‘announcing’ something that has happened or is about to happen.   For example: ” XYX company or person has just  launched…. etc.”
  • Include your ‘anchor text’ links in the body of the release to the extent you are allowed by the PR service.

Press release marketing can be a very effective way to attract traffic to your site, as well has to establish relatively high quality backlinks for SEO purposes.

Drive Traffic to Your Website – Part 5

Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 11:46 am  
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Now let’s move on to our of next lesson for driving traffic to your website.

Part 5 – Ezine Marketing

An Ezine is basically an ‘electronic magazine’ to which people subscribe and receive online via e-mail.  These  online magazines or newsletters are typically sent out once or twice per month and can often have readership in the tens of thousands.  Ezines are directed at specific niches which will enable you to send ads to very targeted audiences.

Ezine marketing involves the placement of ads in these online magazines or newsletters.  This is a paid advertising method and to use it you must first have the funds and second,  be pretty clear about the effectiveness of your ad copy, and thirdly, the strength of the online magazine or newsletter distribution.  There are basically four types of e-zine advertising:  Solo ads, sponsor ads, classified ads, and banner ads

  • Classified ads are  typically one of 60 to 65 characters, or 3-5 lines, placed within the text of e-zine. This is the least expensive option, but it can be effective if your brief ad copy is exceptional.
  • The next most expensive is the sponsored ad, which usually appears at the front and or beginning of the ezine articles and is seen immediately upon opening  the newsletter by the reader.  While the cost is higher than for a classified ad, it’s typically more effective.
  • Another option is banner ads.  These are usually placed at the beginning or middle of the newsletter by the publisher.  Banner ads can be effective if you take care in selecting the newsletter that has a an audience particularly well targeted to what you’re banner ad is offering.
  • The Solo ad, as the name implies, is an ad that is sent out alone without other copy to the mailing list of the publisher.  Essentially, by placing a Solo ad with a publisher having a good readership, you can quickly get your ‘sales letter’  copy in front of a large number of subscribers.  It’s important that you take care to ensure that the particular newsletter you use is well targeted to readership that is like to be interested in your offering.  As you can guess, this is the most effective way to use e-zine marketing, but it is also by far the most expensive.

My recommendation is to use only  Solo ads for the Ezine marketing as they are far and away the most targeted.  But before start, you need to make sure that your sales copy is very effective and your ezine is well targeted in order to achieve satisfactory ROI.

Why is Ezine Advertising So Effective?

The use of Solo ads to online newsletters can be very effective simply because they can be extremely well targeted.  Typically, Ezines are targeted to a fairly specific customer base:

  • An e-zine on golf, for example, is typically read only by golfers.
  • Online  newsletters on real estate are typically read only by those interested in investing in or marketing real estate.
  • The people who are interested in making money online are typically interested in business opportunities and new tools and training for Internet marketing.
  • Those with interest in health and nutrition will be specifically looking for new information on that subject.

If you wish to pursue this means of online advertising, you should start by looking at the Directory of Ezines to find  the particular e-zines, which target your niche.  Here’s a brief list of e-zines that target the Internet marketing niche:

The BizWeb E-Gazette
EvieB.Com
The Network Marketing Success Ezine
Foundation of Success
Direct Profits Ezine
Netpreneur Now
Successful Marketing
UltimateTrafficSystem.Com

Again, this is a method of paid advertising and can be expensive with low return, if not done properly.  I recommend that you do careful due diligence on the particular e-zine that you are selecting to clearly understand the readership and their needs.  In addition, you do need to be sure that your sales copy is compelling and includes a very clear call to action.

You should try to test multiple alternative ads to determine the most effective copy.  Then select the best and branch out to post ads in multiple e-zines.  In time, you’ll learn the best ad copy to use, and the right ezines  to target.

To reiterate, market testing is the key.  Refer to  the Directory of Ezines to find the right Ezines to place your ads.