The best Way To Drive Targeted Traffic To Your Site For Free

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The best Way To Drive Targeted Traffic To Your Site For Free

by Mark Flavin

Welcome to the first edition of The Online Business Packs Newsletter. Lets get straight to it. Today we are going to look at Traffic generating Techniques for your website. If you don't have a website or product yet you can get them at http://www.nicetodobusiness.com (You Can Also Sign Up For this news letter there)

Today's Lesson...

One of the best ways to attract quality traffic and also improve your search engine ranking is LINKING.

Today you will learn:
• Why links are important
• What links will bring the most traffic to your site
• How to get the best sites to link to you

Today's lesson is going to be a bit shorter
than your lessons Keywords, PPC and Search
Engine Optimization. But, don’t think that
linking is not as important as the other
traffic creation techniques - it's just not
as complicated.

Why links are important Because:
1) Google's PageRank
2) They are how people find your site

The other day we talked about Google and how to
get listed. Today I will tell you why Google
is the #1 free search engine. Relevance.

Relevance is the concept that when you type
in a term, Google finds the pages that you
want to see and lists them first. The pages
that Google returns are "relevant" to what
you were looking for.

The reason why Google can get the most
relevant results is their PageRank.

The inventors of Google reasoned that if
someone puts a link from their site to
yours, they are essentially "voting" for
the quality of content on your site. The
idea is based on the fact that people will
most likely link to sites that they want
their visitors to see - so they are not
going to link to junk. The PageRank is a
measurement of the links you have coming
to your site. But here is the brilliance,
PageRank not only measures quantity, but
it also measures the quality of the links.

Google uses the PageRank as a significant
factor when ranking your website. So the
better PageRank you have, the higher
position you will have for any keyword.
Again, there are many other factors involved
in determining your exact rank, but the
PageRank is a big one. It does not take
Shirlock Holmes to deduce that the more
quality links you have to your site, the
better you will rank for your keywords, and
the more traf'fic you will get from Google.

But, you can't get just any link - you
have to get quality links. Quality links
are defined as links from sites that have
a PageRank of 3/4 or higher - otherwise the
link is fairly meaningless.

To find a website's PageRank download & install the Google Toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com/).

Now every time you visit a website you will see a green horizontal bar. Place your cursor over this and Google will tell you the PageRank of that page on a scale of 0 - 10. The real PageRank is much more accurate than 0-10, but for the sake of simplicity they provide this tool.

Another reason why links are important is that links are how people find your website. This may seem obvious - but it is really one of the most powerful ways to draw targeted traf'fic to your site.

Look at it this way- there are billions of other websites. There are many other sites about the topic that your site covers - and they all have visitors who are interested in your topic. So, it would be very beneficial for you to have a link on those sites - then you can get some of their traffic to come to you.

For example - say that you sell flower seeds - maybe Gerber Daisy seeds. There are already many sites that provide information on flowers and some specifically about Gerber Daisies. They already have visitors who are interested in Gerber Daisies - and I am sure some of them want to b'uy seeds and grow their own. So it would be great if they had a link to your page that sells Gerber Daisy seeds.

Does that make sense to you?

So how do I find sites that will link to me?

Simple:
1) Find sites that have visitors that will want to purchase your product or service
2) Email or Call the webmaster and ask for a link exchange

To find the best sites just type your keywords into Google and see what sites are ranked highest. If you have picked the "best keywords" (covered in lesson 2) then the people visiting these sites will be the same ones that want to purchase your product. Just contact them and ask for a link exchange. Some will & some won't - but it only took 1 minute of your time.

Is there a better way?

Yes, there are a lot of better ways. Some are f'ree and some are not. The basic idea behind the better ways is to find the people who are already linking to your competition, then encourage them to link to you.

To find the people who are linking to your competition
1) Go to www.alexa.com and type in their URL.
2) C'lick on the link on the right hand side titled "Sites Linking In"

This will provide a list of the sites who link to your competition. (You could also use Google - but I find they are missing a lot of links.)

Now to get the contact info for each site linking to your competition:
1) C'lick the "site info" link for each
2) Scroll down to where alexa.com tells you the phone number & email address for each site

Lastly, visit the site and see what the site is about. If you sell Gerber Daisies and they are talking about how great Gerber Daisies are - then contact them and ask for a link exchange. Since they are already linking to your competition - then they are more likely to want to link to you also.

Now I know how to find the best sites…But, how do I get them to link to me?

As I said before - the first option is to just ask. I know…this is just like cold calling and every'one hates cold calling. But if you do it with email or you already know what the site is about, then it is much easier.

One thing you can do is have a reason for calling other than asking for a link.

One of the things that I am good at is finding problems with other websites. I don’t really do this on purpose - but as a web developer, these things just seem to jump out at me. When I am visiting a site and I find a link that does not work - I shoot a quick email off to the webmaster and tell them. Normally they appreciate the fact that you are helping them - they want their site to work and are usually losing money if it does not.

Sometimes when doing this I also ask a question. For example I may ask how they did some effect on their site or what things they are doing to improve conversion. You can use this same technique to ask for a link exchange.

The point is not to complain or find a problem - the point is to provide the person some information that is valuable to them. For webmasters - they want their site to work. If I see something that does not work, they are usually happy to know about it. As for Gerber Daisy fanatics, they may be interested in some other good sites - or some nice pictures or some interesting information that you know about Gerber Daisies.

You will know a lot of good information about your product, so I am sure you can find something to start a conversation - even if it is nothing more than how much you like their site.

What else can I do to get people to link to me?

Well, there is a whole list of techniques - but they all are based on the same thing. Providing the other person a benefit for linking.

For example:
• You could set up an affiliate program and give them a commission on every sale they referred to you.
• You can share with them what you learned in Trafficology and help them get more visitors.
• You can write an article on the topic of the site and give it to them in exchange for a link.
• You can create an eBook or something else that they can give away to their visitors
• You can of'fer them a special discount on all purchases
• You can send them some samples of your product to try for themselves

This is only limited by your-own imagination.

Thats It For Now, in the next issue we will look at adcopy/sales copy so keep a close eye on your mailbox!

Remember you can get all this information plus thousands of dollars worth of resources and products you can sell online and keep every penny of the profit from http://www.nicetodobusiness.com

Till Next Time,
Mark Flavin
www.nicetodobusiness.com

About the Author

Mark Flavin Creator of http://nicetodobusiness.com &
http://nicetodobusiness.com/freetraffictips2.htm