 People
always seem to be looking for new ways to make money online. There is
nothing wrong with being innovative and trying new methods to make
money online. The problem comes up when people, seeking new methods,
forget to pay attention to the proven methods of making money online.
What has worked in the past for successful webmasters is still working
today, and will likely continue to work into the foreseeable future.
There are 4 primary areas that a Webmaster must focus on to be
successful. These four areas are important regardless of the type of
website you run or the product or service that you sell.
Conversions
Conversions are critical. You can get a million visitors to your
site, but that means nothing if none of them make a purchase at your
site. Conversions are calculated as the percentage of people that make
a purchase at your site, compared to the number of total visitors. The
higher your conversion rate, the less traffic that you need to your
site. Many webmasters struggle with getting that all-important traffic
to their site. So instead of exclusively chasing traffic, also work on
increasing the amount of traffic that you can convert into sales.
There are a number of ways that you can do this with your online
business. Many webmasters understand that having a compelling sales
letter, or sales pitch, is crucial. If you do not have the best
possible sales letter, then you are losing potential customers. If you
do not feel comfortable writing your own sales letter, consider hiring
a copywriter to do it for you. You could also ask the copywriter to
develop a few sales letters for your business, and you can do a
comparative analysis to see which ones bring the best conversion
results for your business. You can also improve your conversion ratio
by paying attention to the layout of your web pages. There are a lot
of different opinions on the best layouts for selling your products or
services. For me there are a couple of easy ways to determine web page
layouts. The first thing that I consider is what I like and dislike
about other websites. Is it hard to find the product on the page? Is
the price hidden? Is a description of the product easy to find? Is the
ordering information easy to find? The other factor that I look at is
what successful webmasters before me have done with their layout.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel here. Instead of spending weeks
trying to develop my own perfect layout, I will start with a template
similar to those that are known for making high conversions.
 Linking
For Traffic
Now that we have covered conversions, we can talk about linking
for traffic. While your conversions may be very good, it will never be
100 percent. So what this means is that the more of that precious
traffic you get (at whatever conversion rate you are getting) will
result in more sales and more money. It is known that the more links
you have to your website, the more traffic that you will get. The
links to your site are critical in driving traffic. First of all,
people click those links. I value a link from a high traffic website
as much or more than a link from a high Page Rank site, because actual
humans are likely to be clicking the link to my website. I also place
a very high value on having articles published in ezines and
newsletters, because it always results in a nice boost in my website's
traffic. The amount of traffic that comes as a result of having an
article published in an ezine or newsletter will of course vary
depending on the number of subscribers on the list. A certain
percentage of readers will always click the links that I have in a
webpage or an ezine. And, a certain percentage of those who visit my
website will convert to sales. Having my link appear in some ezines or
newsletters can literally translate to thousands or tens of thousands
of visitors to my website in a single day! If you utilize article
distributions, you can often get your articles published on a variety
of websites and ezines. These articles will have your link in the
author box, and you will also have the opportunity to discuss your web
site and the products or services that you offer in your author box.
This being said, the more effort you put into writing a good article
and author box, the more likely you are to get some traffic as a
result.
Linking Popularity
Building links for search engine placement purposes is just as
important as linking for traffic. The more relevant back links that
you have coming into your site, the higher your website will rank in
the major search engines for your keywords. Back links are one of the
best ways that you can get your online business to rank near the top
of the search engines for your niche. Be sure to use an anchor text on
those links that is the same or similar to the keywords that you are
targeting. Also, try to get those back links from relevant sites as
much as possible. By this, I mean try to get those links from sites
and webpages that have something in common with your site. A link from
a webpage about bird watching will have little in common with your
website about automobiles. To illustrate the importance of back links,
look at Digg. They have a whopping 263,000 back links, which is why
they are one of the most popular social book marking sites on the
Internet.
Link Baiting
Link baiting is a great way to get those important back links,
both for traffic and for link popularity. But, what is link baiting?
It is when you have something so interesting / amusing / informative /
useful that people will want to link to you, without you asking them
to do so. Having something on your site that people will blog about,
tell their friends about, or to send emails to their contacts about,
is what constitutes link baiting. Your bait is so powerful that the
fish will basically jump into the boat, without you ever needing to
ask! What kind of things work as link bait? This will depend a lot on
the audience that you are trying to reach. In the SEO world, good link
bait is placing free webmaster tools on your site. This means that
people will bookmark the site; refer to it on forums, and possibly
blog about what they learned by using your free webmaster tools. If
you are able to grow a reputation among your niche market as an
expert, people will cite you and your website because of the quality
information that you offer. If you run a humor site, people will
forward the URL to their friends and tell them to check out a certain
page. Link baiting is also why the social book marking is exploding in
popularity. If you have an article that gets onto the front page of
Digg.com via link baiting, you will have an explosion in traffic. The
same can be said for all of the major social bookmarking sites. Link
baiting is all about offering something unique that people will want
to tell their friends about and that they will want to talk about.
Spend some serious time thinking about what you can offer to your
customer base that will result in successful link baiting for your
website.
In Conclusion...
If you spend your time focusing on these 4 ways to make money with
your online business, you are sure to be well ahead of most of your
competitors. Optimize your site for conversions, build links for
traffic, create links for popularity, and dangle some link bait for
others to share, and you will find your customer base beginning to
grow, and you will see your sales will start to improve.
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