10 Ways To Increase Your Targeted Web Site Traffíc - Bart The Bear SaysFreeware SEO Tools for the DIY Webmaster - Part 1 - Bart The Bear SaysSitemaps Improve Site Value - Bart The Bear SaysAdWords Campaigns? Avoiding the Mistakes

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In order to create a successful website you must have traffíc or visitors to your site. Without traffíc your perfect site is useless; it might as well not even exist.
Moreover, because traffíc is an essential element of any successful site, many novice webmasters make the mistake of believing all traffíc is created equal.

Huge mistake.

For if traffíc is King; targeted traffíc is God. All traffíc is good, but there is a great distinction between ordinary traffíc and targeted traffíc. Someone clicking on a link to your site who is looking for the exact information or product you have displayed is said to be a targeted visitor. These are the kinds of visitors or traffíc you must try to obtain in your marketing and link building.

Why?

Because targeted traffíc is often the key to building a successful site on the web. Targeted traffíc will greatly íncrease your salës conversions, bring back repeat visitors and help your site gain a prominent online presence.

So here are 10 targeted traffíc building steps you can take:

1. Google Is God!

Only half-kidding but at least where targeted traffíc is concerned, Google is still the all important being you should be worshipping online. Don't ignore the other two major demigods Yahoo! and MSN, but Google will deliver most of your traffíc. Your website stats will point this out to you daily, so you must optimize your site for Google.

As a general rule make your pages Google friendly by only using one topic per page, include your keywords in the title, meta description and url for that page. It would also be helpful to have your main keywords in the first headline on the page and most experienced webmasters try to place their keywords in the first 90 words and in the last 25 words. Sprinkle your keywords and variations throughout the copy but don't keyword sp@m, just let the engines know this is what your page is about.

2. Target The Right Keywords

You must target the right keywords in order to get useful traffíc to your site. You must first check the number of searches and amount of competition for your chosen keywords. You can use software like Keyword Elite or sites like www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/ which will give you the Overture and WordTracker monthly stats to help you pick the right keywords for your site. Instead of picking highly competitive keywords, take the middle road and milk the 'long tail keywords'!

Most webmasters create a master keyword líst for their site then branch off into sub-categories from this master líst. For example, if you have a site on laptops your sub-keyword categories could be laptop accessories, laptop batteries and so on. Similarly, most webmasters only develop their sites in a simple hierarchy with the homepage as the center with their major keywords as separate pages and then sub-categories branching out from these. Your webpages should not be more than three clicks away from your homepage as this will really displease the search engine gods!

3. Have Relevant Content

Perhaps what will appease the SE gods the most is relevant content. Your content has to be relevant to the topic of your site. Keep everything on topic and within the scope of your site.

Relevant, helpful content will also be the biggest magnet for targeted traffíc. Surfers are usually looking for information, give them what they want and your site will reap the rewards. Original, high quality, relevant content will draw in targeted traffíc to your site so make sure you have some good content to satisfy your visitors and the search engines.

4. Let The Search Engines Find You

Instead of submittíng your site to the search engines, let them find your site. One of the best ways to do this is by placing your links on high traffíc/spidered sites: on online forums matching your site's content, on social networks such as MySpace, YouTube, Squidoo... and on article directories like Ezinearticles, Goarticles, and Ideamarketers. The search engines will follow these links and index your site before you even know it.

5. Use Traffíc Modules

One of the most effective ways to bring in targeted traffíc is to create traffíc modules: whole areas of your site devoted to one sub-topic. For example, if you have a general site on cars, you could develop a whole section on a car-buying guide. Another section could be on car accessories, link all these pages together into a neat traffíc cluster on your site. The search engines will love these closely grouped pages and reward you with lots of targeted traffíc.

6. Use Articles

Don't forget article marketing, just because it has become extremely popular doesn't mean it has become any less effective. Writing short helpful informative articles on your site's topic is still one of the best ways to get targeted traffíc to your site. Place your links with your targeted keyword anchor text in the resource box.

Article marketing is an invaluable source not only of targeted traffíc but also one-way links to your site. These links will help íncrease your rankings, especially in Google which considers each link as a democratic vote for your site and ranks each page with a PageRank PR 0-10.

Articles are also extremely important for pre-selling to your potential customers. These articles warm or soften up your prospective buyers to your salespitch before they even reach your site.

7. Build Opt-ín Lists

Most marketers and webmasters use opt-ín lists to bring targeted visitors back to their sites. Instead of just receiving that visitor once, you can get repeat visits by using a simple follow-up system with an autoresponder. Studies have consistently shown it might take 6 or 7 follow-ups before a potential customer buys.

Building a subscríber líst will also be helpful in creating a web community around your site. These community members may become your most targeted of all your visitors. Likewise, you should have a bookmark feature on all your pages, any repeat visitor is a targeted visitor!

8. Have Blogs & RSS Feeds

Make sure you have a blog and RSS feed attached to your site. This will not only bring in targeted traffíc but your visitors can also subscribe to your RSS feed. This will bring targeted visitors back to your site. Use a free site like Google's own www.blogger.com or better yet create your own blog using free software such as WordPress.

9. Use Social Media

Build links and contacts in all the important social media networks such as MySpace, YouTube and Flickr. These social networks are a great source of very targeted traffíc.

10. Use Multimedia

Perhaps the biggest opportuníty to build targeted traffíc is using video and audio media on your site. These will help personalize your message or content and build trust with your visitors. Video clips also have a great viral potential which will bring in traffíc.

Of course, there are many more ways of getting targeted traffíc to your site. But just using one or two of these techniques should íncrease your targeted traffíc in the coming months. Appease the traffíc gods by putting these steps into practice and see for yourself.

About The Author
The author is a full-time online marketer. For the latest and most effective web marketing tools try: Internet Marketing Software Or for the most powerful marketing software try: Internet Marketing Tools Copyright © 2007 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

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Labels: article marketing, keyword, link building, opt-in lists, search engines, target, targeted mailing list, targeted traffic building

From SitePro News 4/13/2007

One of the fun things about publishing a newsletter like SiteProNews is the research that goes into each issue. For more than 6 years, we have been finding and highlighting freeware tools and applications that can make the DIY (do-it-yourself) webmaster's job a little easier. If you've been fixated on the articles in SPN and missed our App of the Day selections, you can find the 900+, mostly freeware programs, filed in 12 major categories at our WebMaster Tools Directory.

The focus of this article, however, will be on some of the freeware tools that are available to you to use for SEO purposes. There are a fairly large number of these type of tools out there so Part 1 of this article will líst keyword, sitemap and ranking tools and Part 2 will look at meta tag generators, link popularity apps, link checkers and general SEO tools.

Keyword Tools

1. Good Keywords v2.01 (595 KB) finds the best keywords for your web pages. Features include Keyword Suggestions, Phrase Builder, Keyword Organizer, Misspelled Words, and Site and Link Popularity Finder. For Windows 95/ 98/ 2000/ NT/ XP.

2. Golden Phrases 1.0.3 (391 KB) is a analyzing utility that scans specified log files to retrieve all search phrases used by your visitors to find your website through search engines. It gathers search phrase statistics and determines the position of your site on search engines for every phrase. Its unique "Perspectivity rating" technology also allows you to find which keyphrases were not used. For Windows Windows 95/ 98/ Me/ NT/ 2000/ XP/ 2003.

3. PPC Keyword Generator (1.1 MB) is a powerful keyphrase permutator/generator. Generate 100s of keyphrases in seconds, remove duplicate keyphrases automatically, define per-keyphrase custom CPC/URLs and import/export. For Windows 98 and above.

4. Hixus Keyword Inventor 1.0 (679 KB) is a SEO and keyword popularity analysis front-end for the the Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool. Speeds up the process of finding popular keywords. For Windows 98/ ME/ NT4.x/ XP/ 2000.

5. e3KWDCheck 2.5b (920 KB) is a lightweight and fast SEO tool for analyzing keyword density within text documents. It can also retrieve and analyze online web documents using the built-in address bar. For Windows 95/ 98/ 2000/ NT/ ME/ XP.

6. Get Keywords 1.0 (289 KB) is a small program that finds keywords in files and then creates an optimized web page using selected keywords. Features include automatic words search, add/remove keywords options, web page creation and preview, etc. For Windows 98 and above.

7. Keyword Digger 1.0 (50 KB) is a simple tool designed to search Overture for all keywords people entered during the previous month. Provides the number of times a keyword was searched and up to 100 different variations for that term. For Windows 9x/ Me/ NT/ 2000/ XP.

8. AnalogX Keyword Extractor v1.03 (214 KB) extracts keywords from a webpage, and then sorts and indexes them based on their usage and position. Once indexed, you can adjust search-engine specific weighting factors and keyword criteria to get the best possible view of how a search engine sees your site. An older program but still useful. For Windows 95/ 98/ 2000/ NT/ XP.

SiteMap Generators

1. eXactMapper Lite 1.2 (1.1 MB) automates the process of creating professional site maps. It offers three different customizable html/dhtml site map styles, including a UL líst, static tree and an index page. For Windows 95/ 98/ ME/ NT/ 2000.

2. SiteMapBuilder.NET 1.5 (1.4 MB) allows you to create a Google XML SiteMap or text based sitemap. It also checks for URL errors. For Windows XP/ 2000/ 2003. Also requires .NET Framework.

3. Sitemap Creator (783 KB) is a sitemap creator that exports a directory structure to an html file. Does not read websites online. For all Windows versions.

4. Sitemap 4 traffíc (360 KB) can build a Google or html sitemap. It also checks for broken links and backs up website files. For Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista. Requires .Net Framework 1.1 or higher and Internet Explorer 6+. Nice program but might have some bugs.

Ranking Tools

1. Rank Tracker 1.4.2 (5.0 MB) is a useful tool for checking the keyword rank of websites, using search engine results from Google, Yahoo and MSN. You can create multiple projects with unlimited keywords and track changes and progress over time. Supports Google and Yahoo API login, if needed. For Windows 98/ Me/ NT/ 2000/ XP/ Mac/ Linux. Java Runtime Environment (JRE) Version 1.4.

2. WebCEO 6.5 (22 MB) is a comprehensive SEO program that provides much more than search engine rankings. This is the freeware edition. Requires a learning curve but is worth the effort. For Windows NT4/ 2000/ XP.

3. PaRaMeter 1.2 (1.0 MB) is a bulk Google PageRank™ checking and monitoring tool. Easily find the page rank of many pages with one clíck. For Windows 9X/ 2000/ XP.

4. M6.net PageRank Checker (515 KB) is another simple, bulk Google PageRank™ checker. For Windows 98/ ME/ NT/ XP/ 2000.

The various freeware tools listed above are the best that we have come across in the last 6 years. If you are aware of similar tools that are as good or better, let us know and we'll do a follow-up article with your recommendations.

About The Author
Mel Strocen is CEO of the Jayde Online Network of websites and founder of the Independent Search Engine & Directory Network. The Jayde network is comprised of more than 20 websites, including ExactSeek.com, SiteProNews.com, SEO-News.com,and GoArticles.com.

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Getting your pages indexed. It is your most important SEO goal and perhaps the one most vital in determining the success of your SEO campaign. However, many search engines have trouble finding links buried deep within the structure of your site. So how do you make sure your pages are easy for the search engines to find? With a sitemap. Creating a sitemap provides the search engines with a one-stop-shop for all of the pages on your site. And if designed correctly, your sitemap can also be a valuable resource to lost visitors looking to understand your site structure.

What is a Sitemap?

A sitemap displays the inner framework and organization of your site's content to the search engines. Your sitemap should reflect the way visitors would intuitively work through your site. Years ago sitemaps existed only as a boring series of links in líst förm. Today, they are thought of as an extension of your site. You should use your sitemap as a tool to provide your visitor and the search engines with more content. Create details for each section and sub-section through descriptive text placed under the sitemap link. This will help your visitors understand and navigate through your site, and will also give you more food for the search engines. You can even go crazy and add Flash to your sitemap like we did with the interactive Bruce Clay sitemap! Of course, if you do include a Flash sitemap for your visitor, you will also need to include a text map so that the robots can read it.

A good site map will:

Show a quick, easy to follow overview of your site.
Provide a pathway for the search engine robots to follow.
Provide text links to every page of your site.
Quickly show visitors how to get where they need to go.
Give visitors a short description of what they can expect to find on each page.
Utilize important keyword phrases.

Why They Are Important?

Sitemaps are very important for two main reasons. First, your sitemap provides food for the search engine spiders that crawl your site. The sitemap will give the spider links to all the major pages of your site, allowing every page included on your sitemap to be indexed by the spider. This is a very good thing! Having all of your major pages included in the search engine database will make your site more likely to come up in the search engine results when a user performs a query. Your sitemap pushes the search engine toward the individual pages of your site instead of making them hunt around for links. A well planned site map can ensure your Web site is fully indexed by search engines. Sitemaps are also very valuable for you human visitors. They help them to understand your site structure and layout, while giving them quick access to your entire site. It is also helpful for lost users in need of a lifeline. Often if a visitor finds themselves lost or stuck inside your page, he will begin to look for a way out of his hole. Having a detailed sitemap will show him how to get back on track and find what he was looking for. Without it, your visitor would have just closed the browser or headed back over to the search engines. Conversion lost.

Tips for Creating a Sitemap

Your sitemap should be linked from your homepage. Linking it this way will force search engines to find it that way and then follow it all the way through the site. If it's linked from other pages it is likely the spider will find a dead end along the way and just quit. Small sites can place every page on their sitemap, but largër sites should not. You do not want the search engines to see a never-ending líst of links and assume you are a link farm. Most SEO experts believe you should have no more than 25 to 40 links on your sitemap. This will also make it easier to read for your human visitors. Remember, your sitemap is there to assist your visitors, not confuse them. The title of each link should contain a keyword whenever possible and should link to the original page. We recommend writing a short description (10-25) words under each link to help visitors learn what the page is about. Having short descriptions will also contribute to your depth of content with the search engines. Once created, go back and make sure that all of your links are correct. If you have 15 pages on your sitemap, then all 15 pages need to link to every other sitemap page. Otherwise both visitors and search engine spiders will find broken links and löse interest.

Remember to Update!

Just like you can't leave your website to fend for itself, the same applies to your sitemap. When your site changes, make sure your sitemap is updated to reflect that. What good are directions to a place that's been torn down? Keeping your sitemap current will make you an ínstant visitor and search engine favorite.

About The Author
Lisa Barone lbarone@bruceclay.com is a senior writer at Bruce Clay, Inc.

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Labels: keyword, search engine, search engine spiders, seo campaign, sitemap, website

There can be no good commerce without proper marketing. Marketing campaigns are a must for businesses wishing to boost their salës. Online marketing has become more and more a distinctive and important aspect in the development and evolution of any company, big or small, which aims at reaching a specific range of potential customers.

With the emergence of Google's AdWords service, online marketing has changed. It is now possible to target potential customers more accurately than ever, taking into account that Web search is the second most used online application after e-mail.

Google search results: Organic vs. Sponsored links (Google results for "sell software online")

What is AdWords?

AdWords is Google's tool, meant to help you advertise your business. It can be used to create simple, yet effective ads that will be displayed to people performing online searches for information related to businesses such as yours. Basically, a Google AdWords campaign is one way of doing online keyword-based advertising.

At the core of any pay-per-click campaign lays the commercial links (the ads) associated to keywords, displayed on the right side of the result page when a Google search is performed. What Google offers is actually placing certain Web sites on top of all the results for a specific search (i.e. keywords). Against a fee, naturally. These sites are placed systematically on the right side of the result screen and marked as "commercial links" so that the user is not mislead, since Google's goal is, above all, to maintain the credibility of its search engine.

The AdWords ads are very simple. They come in a variety of formats, amongst which the most common are the text format and the image format. There can also be animated ads, video ads, mobile ads, etc. The text ads usually consist of:

An ad title (up to 25 characters, including spaces): must attract users that may have an interest in your products or services

Two description lines (up to 35 characters each, including spaces): should be clear and compelling enough to convince the user to visit your site

The display URL (up to 35 characters, including spaces): this is where the user will be directed when clicking on the ad.

15 Most Common Errors in an AdWords Campaign

Don't assume that this is an easy task. It's not. Remember that Google is a tough nut to crack, but with the right set of tools and a lot of hard work and dedication, it can be done. Therefore, it is good that before creating a pay per clíck campaign, you have a clearly established goal. According to this goal, begin creating your AdWords campaign.

As with Search Engine Optimization, AdWords campaign management is a must and must be done properly. There are many aspects that can be overlooked. Some of the most common AdWords campaign mistakes come from superficiality or insufficient knowledge about the targeted market and the way the Web works.

Among the worst mistakes being made in such cases are:

1. Bidding too much in order to be placed on the top position
Even if this seems like the best choice, being "Number One" in this case is not necessarily the best. Keep in mind that Web users are accustomed to searching, and they usually don't stop at the first ad. And, since they are first prospecting the market, it is highly possible that you only get an unqualified clíck. It seems that being no. 3 in paid search is one of the best (i.e. profitable) positions.

2. No geo-targeting
Try to relate to the potential customers in your area first. They are more likely to take their business to a local company. Add, for example, the name of the town or of the area where your company is in your ad and the effects will be noticeable.

3. Bidding on broad keywords
Broad keywords are very likely to take your CPC (cost-per-click) to a very high level. Therefore, try to brush the keyword líst that you wish to use for your PPC campaign and retain only highly searched-for keywords. Those are worth bidding for.
4. Boring content
Don't say what others have already said. Be creative. Be fresh.

5. Non-relevant landing pages
Make sure that when the Web user clicks on the URL in the ad, it will take him/her to a relevant page. You don't want the user to get frustrated by not finding the desired product/service advertised in the ad.

6. Directing users only to the home page
Unless you have a really cool Web site that captivates users and makes them browse through it for endless minutes, they will get frustrated if they have to search throughout the site for what they need. You should send them directly to where they will find what was advertised.

7. No keywords in the ad text
Do insert your keywords in the title and description of the ad. Nevertheless, remember to keep an eye on the clarity and relevance of the ad. Visitors must understand exactly what they will get when clicking on it.

8. Not tracking the results
You should monitor the keywords that you use in your Google AdWords marketing campaigns. The most at-hand tool is Google Analytics, built into the AdWords interface. You should be able to see and rule out the keywords that are not helping you get the desired ROI (return on investment).

9. Same bids for the content network
AdWords gives you the possibility to have two separate campaigns, one for the content network and the other for the search network. You should set different bids for the content network. Otherwise, the CPC will be much higher than anticipated.

10. Suggesting that what you offër is frëe
Don't try to lure visitors with false statements. All you'll get is irrelevant traffíc and no conversion (or not significant enough).

11. Not identifying the uniqueness of your product/service
Identify what makes you and your product/service unique, what makes you stand out from the large crowd of competitors. Find the keyword(s) that supports this uniqueness.

12. Failure to create multiple ad groups and ad campaigns
Don't fall into that trap. Unorganized campaigns will fail to produce the expected results. Group all the single ads that target related keywords. If you're advertising more than one product/service, it's best to have the ads grouped by category.

Also, don't use just one campaign. Split your ads into separate campaigns. You will be able to see which of them gives you more satisfaction in terms of conversion rate.

13. Failure to test with more that one ad
Don't limit your advertising campaign to just one ad. It may not contain the best keywords. Create more ads and see which one works best.

14. Not using targeting options for keywords
Broad matches may or may not improve your conversion rate. But if you use the keyword targeting options, you may notice significant improvements. The targeting options are the square brackets - [blue tulip] - and the quotation marks - "blue tulip".

Also, you can use the negative character (minus sign) in order to specify certain keywords for which you don't want your ads to be shown: -tulip. This will also prevent you from paying for such words. A penny saved is a penny earned, they say.

15. Not using company/brand name keywords
Don't leave out the name of your company or of a brand you've created. You wouldn't want the competition to make profitable use of it, would you?

So, when you plan on creating an AdWords campaign, try to keep an eye on the aspects mentioned above. There is too much at stake to afford bad internet marketing campaigns.

What's In It For You?

To make it short (taking into account that your Google AdWords campaign is a good one): an improved conversion rate. After all, this is what you were aiming for. If you only take a look at the possible AdWords campaign mistakes mentioned above, it is easy to figure out the disastrous consequences of a poorly managed advertising campaign.

Ultimately, it can put you out of business. On the other hand, a well-directed and properly instrumented pay-per-click campaign can go a long way. You gain notoriety and make a profit.

There are so many ways in which you can save monëy when creating an AdWords campaign. If you manage to avoid the above-mentioned mistakes, you will surely notice an íncrease in your salës or amount of contracts for your services.

Editorial Note: Drop by the SiteProNews Blog to read regular posts by two of the Web's top SEO writers, Jim Hedger and Jerry Bader, or listen to The Alternative on WebMaster Radio, the new weekly, hour-long live broadcast hosted by Jim Hedger, covering the world of independent search engine alternatives and, of course, developments at the Big 3.

About The Author

Adriana Iordan is a Web Marketing Specialist at Avangate B.V.. She has in depth knowledge of internet marketing services and website analysis applied to the software industry and e-commerce development. Avangate is an eCommerce platform for electronic software distribution incorporating an easy to use and secure online payment system plus additional marketing and salës tools.

Webmaster's note: Visit http://www.moxie-drive.com/google-adwords-made-easy to learn more about finding profitable keywords.

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