Five Strategies for Return Traffic
Guest Post by James Martell.
With over a decade’s experience in the online marketing business, I can tell you that things have changed. Just a few years ago, the best way to have success online was to get a high volume of unique visitors on a regular basis. To an extent, this is still important, but the key to success today is to have your visitors come back to your site on a regular basis.
Websites with a devoted following of users are among the most successful today, with a prominent example being daily deal sites such Woot or Groupon.
The significance of return traffic
In a recent interview I did for my Coffee Talk series with Ryan Allis, co-founder and CEO of iContact, a leading provider of email marketing software boasting more than 700,000 users, he told me that you will never see a whopping 70% of your traffic ever again if you don’t get them on your list. In other words, your time and effort would be best spent on getting your visitors to return to your website on a regular basis.
In general, if a product or service is expensive or complicated, a consumer must be exposed time and time again to the product or service before they will truly consider purchasing it. If a visitor to your website never comes back, they will not likely result in a sale or increased advertising revenue for you.
Search engines also play a very large part in this equation. Google and other search engines continue to monitor information about your website’s visitors, including how many times they return. Ranking highly in search engines for topics such as car insurance quotes, lift chairs, inflatable boats, wood routers, or doll houses requires you to get your users to come back.
In this article, I will discuss the five best strategies for creating effective return traffic.
1) Make use of RSS to Email
This is a fantastic piece of email automation software that can inform members on your list about the new content that you post. Best of all, you never have to lift a finger, with many options for automation.
Creating a weekly or monthly newsletter or sending email auto-responders can be incredibly difficult and time-consuming.
Fortunately, RSS to Email allows you to send out newsletters and auto-responders, but in a much simpler and easier way. Their automated service can allow you to notify your list members every single time you add new content to your website. This is a fantastic way to get your readers to return to your website and check out the new content you have posted.
My favorite feature on this program, however, is the scheduling tool. This allows you to send out a regular newsletter automatically with little to no work on your part. The scheduling tool can run as little or as often as you want, and it can crawl a number of websites, effectively combining different pages of content into one handy newsletter. It can even send out a newsletter to your list automatically, but you can also have it send you a preview newsletter so that you can approve its content yourself.
2) Release podcast updates
Considering the amount of people with online businesses today, very few marketers are making use of podcasts. However, they are easily one of the best ways to engage your visitors and have them return to your website.
Currently, I am the host of one of the longest running podcasts about affiliate marketing (The Affiliate Buzz) as well as my own series (Coffee Talk with James Martell). I use these podcasts to pique my visitor’s interest and convert them into devoted followers.
You could put together a 30-minute podcast in under an hour fairly easily. However, shorter podcasts (5 to 10 minutes) are becoming more and more popular. It is also very easy to automate your podcast publishing, allowing you to update your list members with very little work on your part.
3) Comment on your own blog
Users that are involved in your website will return regularly. One of the best ways to get your users involved on your website is to reply to comments on your own blog.
Thousands of visitors might read a post on your blog, but it’s typically quite rare for a reader to get involved and post a comment. For this reason, it’s important to write out thoughtful replies when someone takes the time to write a comment on your blog.
If you’re having trouble keeping track of comments on your blog, I would recommend WordPress plug-in called “Subscribe To Comments“. This plug-in can notify your website’s visitors when someone responds to their comment. It doesn’t cost anything, and it can be a fantastic way to deepen your website’s sense of community and get your visitors involved.
4) Utilize chat forums
Bulletin boards and chat forums have played a large role online since the birth of the internet. However, many online marketers tend to neglect internet forums. However, they remain one of the most effective tools for building a community on your website and getting your visitors invested. They also allow you to communicate with your visitors and have your visitors interact with each other, giving them valid reasons for returning on a regular basis.
My wife Arlene and I have had great success in building online communities with chat forums. Arlene’s website, EpilepsyMoms.com, has thousands of chat forum members that regularly participate in discussions about parenting children with epilepsy. These are the type of invested returning visitors that I consider to be the most valuable type of traffic.
5) Provide useful information
In today’s world, content is king. However, it is important to provide your users with well-written, informative content.
Try to remain open and interested to your community members, and provide useful information to all of your visitors. Through various forms of media, such as video, audio, or simple written articles, you can provide helpful advice, useful information, and fun, interesting content to your users, prompting them to come back on a regular basis.
Keep the visitors you have
If you wish to increase the traffic of your website and rank high in search engines for topics like car insurance quotes, Pride lift chairs, inflatable boats, wood routers, doll houses, and arc welders, it is likely a good idea to shift your focus from new visitors to return traffic.
—
James Martell is a successful author, podcaster, and speaker. He’s a leading expert in affiliate marketing and outsourcing as well as a specialist in SEO. James is host of the Affiliate Buzz podcast on WebmasterRadio.FM (the first ever and longest running podcast about the affiliate industry), and creator of the Affiliate Marketers SUPER BootCamp where he teaches others how to make money with affiliate marketing. He lives in White Rock BC, a seaside suburb of Vancouver on west coast of Canada with his wife, Arlene.
Read MoreHow to Add Twitter Followers Every Day…And for Free!
Guest post by James Martell.
If you have a Twitter account but are clueless about how to get more Twitter followers, then you’ve come to the right place! I’m going to share with you three very useful strategies that will enable you to get free Twitter followers, guaranteed.
Be Careful:
Even if, for some reason, you decide not to use my strategies, I do want to caution you about using software programs supposedly designed to increase your Twitter following. Most of these programs don’t work, and they certainly don’t teach you how to get more Twitter followers.
What’s worst of all is that they are almost always against Twitter’s term of service. This means that they can actually cause you to lose your Twitter account, leaving you even worse off than when you started. So stay away from these programs, and instead follow my steps for how to increase Twitter followers.
What’s Twitter?
I have to tell you that I was once in your shoes – maybe even worse. Just a few years ago, I didn’t get the “Twitter” thing at all. But I decided it would be a good idea to at least try it out.
Now, it’s a huge part of my business. I might not have millions of followers like all the major celebrities, but I do have 5,403 loyal followers to date. Also, since I’ve started using the three strategies we’re going to discuss, I’ve watched my following grow a little each and every day!
I can promise you that no matter what you’re promoting with twitter- whether it be kids rocking chairs, dental services, or joovy caboose reviews – my strategies can and will work for you.
Strategy 1: Syndicate an Online Newspaper
So, let’s get going with Strategy 1! For this strategy, all you have to do is syndicate your own online newspaper based on a Twitter list, user, or a keyword. Then, you publish the newspaper to your Twitter followers each day.
My newspaper, The Guest Blogging Daily, was created using paper.li, my Twitter account, and a Twitter list. You can check it out here: http://paper.li/JamesMartell/1308523225.
I absolutely love paper.li, and I can’t recommend it highly enough!
Not only does the site create a lovely paper, but it’s so very easy! Everything, and I mean everything, is 100% automated, so you barely do any work at all. The site posts to your Twitter when each daily paper is released, and it even tweets to your followers.
Plus, contributing authors are tweeted as well. These writers will often follow you and –best of all- retweet the newspaper. This means that not only will you gain the writers as followers, but some of their followers as well!
It doesn’t get any better than this. So, start out with strategy 1 today! Simply pick an interesting and informative topic for your paper and then use paper.li to get your idea up and running!
Strategy 2: Become a Guest Writer
There are a lot of sites out there – this one included – that are always on the lookout for guest writers. Also known as guest blogging, writing for such a site is an excellent way to gain positive publicity and, best of all, more Twitter followers.
When acting as a guest writer, make sure that you are a good communicator and that you provide worthwhile information to your readers. Take the time to respond to their comments and/or emails. The more they feel they know and can trust you, the more likely they will be to follow you on Twitter.
Of course, it’s up to you to ask them to do just that! A great place to include the invitation is in your author bio. I guarantee if you follow these steps, this will gain you more followers, so get started today!
Strategy 3: Using Your “Thank You” Page
The easiest and most effective strategy is the last one. Once you hear it, you’ll wonder why you didn’t think of it yourself- it’s really that simple. I can’t take the credit either, though. It was my friend, Joshua Sloan, the former Director of Online Marketing for the world’s largest and fastest growing hosting company, 1&1 hosting, who shared the idea with me.
To carry it out, you simply set it up so that visitors who fill out your option form, either to request more information or sign up for a newsletter, are redirected to a “thank you” page.
On this page, you then invite them to follow you on Twitter. Remember that these visitors went the extra step to find out more or request more information, and they gave up their contact information in order to do so. This makes it very likely that they will follow you on Twitter if you only ask.
The Choice is Yours:
I’ve laid out my three proven strategies, and they couldn’t be any more simple! Now it’s up to you to put them to work and to make them work for you. I personally guarantee that no matter what you’re promoting – and I mean anything from a Bumbleride indie twin stroller to dental services to bar stools – these strategies will work!
—
James Martell is well know for his podcasts and affiliate marketing trainings, as well as outsourcing and a specialist in SEO. James is host of the Affiliate Buzz podcast on WebmasterRadio.FM (the first ever and longest running podcast about the affiliate industry), and creator of the Affiliate Marketers SUPER BootCamp. He lives in White Rock BC, a seaside suburb of Vancouver on west coast of Canada with his wife, Arlene.
Read More12 Steps to Becoming an SEO Expert
Guest Post by Amber McDougon .
If you dream of becoming a successful freelance SEO consultant, or joining or creating a robust SEO Services company, this 12-step program details the path to success.
1. Know Your Basics
This step is simple for those familiar with SEO, like bloggers and web developers. For those unfamiliar with the intricacies SEO, do a search for phrases like “SEO techniques.” The links will uncover articles about respected techniques, as well as so-called black hat tactics that should be avoided. There are books on the topic abound, but honestly, most of the information can be found online.
2. Going Live
Start an SEO-related website once you have a command of the basics. Begin with an unambiguous plan. Clearly detail the site through a complete development life cycle: Initial capital and time investment, the right hosting plan, simple setup and administration, the best CMS for you, required optimizations, and monitoring of important metrics and dimensions.
3. Optimize and Thrive
Double and triple check that you are utilizing every optimization tactic in your newly-acquired arsenal: Effective keyword research, optimized tags, metas and headers, a properly configured robots.txt, compelling content, keyword-to-content ratio, etc. These will become first nature before long.
Take the time and the steps necessary to build your own page rank. Social media is immensely useful to this end. Prove to potential clients that you understand the finer points of SEO by building a quality site that gets results.
4. Establish a Base of Satisfied Clientele
Good references are a prerequisite to landing that big project, more often than not. Friends and family can play an important role in your success. Help build websites for them. Do to their sites what you did to yours.
Search in the beginning for the smaller fish in the pond. Once your portfolio boasts satisfied clients, many will personally vouch for the results they had due to your expertise.
5. Do the Legwork: Network
Standard business marketing applies; Word of mouth, business cards, cold calls, make bids for jobs, and so on. With enough legwork, projects are sure to flow your direction.
6. Have an Open Door Policy
Inform potential clients about the process you will implement. Be an open book when it comes to details. When a homeowner hires a renovation company, the homeowner wants specific details of the work to be done. A simple “We do it all!” doesn’t pass muster. Undisclosed changes made without the owner’s permission could end badly.
7. Research, Work, Research, Work
Search algorithms change with lightning speed. Follow closely the blogs of search engineers. Remember the basics that brought you this far. Distractions can cause simple oversights, so always double check your work. Update XML sitemaps after even minor changes so that spiders index those updates.
8. Silence is Not Always Golden
Do not tell a client some new feature will appear on their site in three days, then neglect to update them for two days. A quick phone call or e-mail will suffice. During these points of contact, elaborate on how well the feature works. Use screenshots or uploaded files to backup your claims.
9. A Good Name Equals More Sales
Up-selling is easier for those with reputations for honest work and full disclosure. Up-sell every chance you get.
10. Reach Out and Touch…Everyone
Satisfied clients almost always allow blurbs about how well you improved their business. Note on your site about what you did for them.
11. Entrepreneur or Team Player?
You have built a fine reputation and strong skills. Should you freelance some more, or join or start an SEO firm? Pros and cons are part of each choice. Weigh this decision with the same care you exercised in both yours and your clients’ businesses.
12. “Kaizen”
“Kaizen” is Japanese for “continuous improvement” and “change for the better.” It’s a business philosophy advocating the tweaking of any aspect that could be enhanced or streamlined, down to the smallest detail.
—
Amber McDougon who is a professional writer and blogger with a particular interest in the open source Joomla platform. She has been helping companies build and maintain their online relationships with customers since 2005.
Read MoreChango Expands Search Retargeting
April 12th, 2011 (San Francisco @ Ad:Tech). Having successfully delivered fully managed search retargeting campaigns at scale for agencies and brands, Chango is now providing direct access to its technology for self-serve marketers and partners. As of May 2nd, clients will be able to harness the power of Chango’s Intent Marketing Platform to launch and optimize campaigns with the same level of control as they have with a SEM campaign. Clients already on board with Chango’s solutions include iCrossing, Booyah, AKQA and Clickable.
“While we continue to expand Chango’s fully managed solutions, the direct access we are providing to our Intent Marketing Platform satisfies a demand from marketers who are looking to get more hands-on, particularly search marketers. Using our dashboard, these marketers can now target in-market shoppers and keyword searchers right down to the keyword level” said Chris Sukornyk, founder and CEO of Chango.
Chris Wallace, SVP Media, iCrossing said “we are excited about the results we are seeing with Chango’s search retargeting offering and are looking towards a more enhanced integration. Search retargeting is positioned at the crossroads between search and display, using the best of both mediums. The use of search data as a measurement of consumer intent has already been proven in SEM and can be applied to display through this solution; enabling campaigns to successfully achieve both acquisition and brand messaging goals for clients.”
Whilst Chango’s first offering on the platform has been search retargeting, a highly targeted solution that finds those individuals who are expressing the intent to take an action in the form of a search action, other types of intent marketing include site retargeting that talks specifically to previous site visitors. The combination of both search + site retargeting in one platform makes for an intuitive and powerful combination.
Troy Lerner, President of agency Booyah commented on the performance they have been seeing for a variety of their clients. “Our clients expect us to bring them the newest and most effective methods for meeting ROI goals – Chango has been a top performer across all of our media options for the past several quarters.”
In addition to today’s announcement of self-serve access, partners can also connect directly into Chango’s platform through an API. Programmatic access allows search management platforms and other ad platforms to seamlessly launch and optimize hundreds of campaigns that use RTB (Real Time Bidding), including site and search retargeting.
“Search retargeting is not only a smart strategy on its own, it’s a great way to expand the ROI of your hard-earned and highly qualified paid traffic,” said Peter Chun, Senior Director of Solutions at Clickable. “We look forward to working with Chango to expand our retargeting solutions to search and social advertisers across our platform.”
Mazdak Rezvani (VP Engineering) elaborates. “Unlike most ad companies that rely on third party demand side platforms, our platform is directly connected to all major ad exchanges via our own proprietary RTB system and has the ability to bid on billions of ads today. This direct connection allows us to optimize media buying down to each individual, thereby efficiently optimizing campaigns. Customers of our Intent Marketing Platform can now access this power under their own terms.”
Customers interested in our self-serve dashboard should pre-register at: http://www.chango.com/.
New Liqwid Ad Unit Redefines Interactive Advertising
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, April 5, 2011 — LeftsnRights, Inc. today announced that it will debut its new liqwid ad unit at ad:tech San Francisco, April 12-13, 2011. Liqwid ads (http://www.liqwid.com/) are the first ad units to monetize today’s unused web real estate, increasing revenue opportunities for publishers, advertisers and agencies while improving the visitor experience.
Liqwid ads dynamically fill the empty space between webpages and the viewer’s browser or screen, ensuring ads are always viewed when rendered without popping up, floating or blocking website content in any way. For the first time, advertisers will pay only for ads viewed for a minimum time.
Unlike today’s online ads, liqwid ads apply the media buying model traditionally used in TV and print advertising to the Internet. The liqwid technology that powers the ad units provides sophisticated delivery, monitoring and reporting capabilities that make it possible for advertisers to specify true reach and frequency by controlling the number of viewers who see each ad and the number of times they see it.
“Who isn’t tired of pop-up ads? Even my favorite sites have succumbed to blocking valuable content in return for cash,” says Eric Kavanagh, CEO and co-founder of The Bloor Group, a new-media analyst firm. “That trade-off drives down traffic and irritates the customer. What Liqwid offers is a viable solution that honors the separation of concerns that viewers want: content in the middle, ads on the outside.”
LeftsnRights co-founders, Jim Rowan and Nikolai Mentchoukov, decided it was time to redefine the interactive advertising experience with the development of liqwid ads in 2010. Rowan has an extensive financial and technology background, while Mentchoukov is one of the leading experts worldwide in rich media content and online advertising technologies. Due to their backgrounds, both founders have an especially in-depth understanding of the challenges facing today’s online publishers and advertisers and have found a way to solve these issues using their proprietary new liqwid technology.
“With liqwid ads, we’re creating a paradigm shift in the online advertising industry. Liqwid ads enable publishers to preserve the integrity of their websites while generating incremental revenue,” says Mentchoukov, LeftsnRights CEO. “And advertisers can gain complete control over their ad spend to accurately calculate and increase ROI of their online investments.”
The liqwid ad unit was recently chosen as a finalist for the Utah Innovation Awards in the category of Enterprise Software and Web-enabled B-2-B Solutions. The Selection Committee, comprised of seventy professionals from Utah’s business, technology and academic communities, made their selections after a month-long evaluation process. Winners will be announced on May 3, 2011.
Liqwid Ad Feature Highlights:
- Minimum size guarantees up to three times larger than banner ads
- Content can include any type of creative or application including games, rich media, video and social media
- Viewer-directed placement enables advertisers to choose number of specific viewers who see each ad and the number of times they see it
- Virtual board technology positions ads outside of web pages, guaranteeing ads are seen whenever rendered without disrupting content
- Minimum Viewing Time tracking ensures visitors view an ad for five seconds (MVT:5) before charges are incurred
The Best Schools Online For Affiliate Marketing
Guest post is by Stella Waldorf.
Marketing has existed ever since farmers, craftsmen and even simple laborers have existed. Whether it was just saying simply, “Hey, can I work for pay?” or “Excuse me. Would you like to buy this?” it was marketing…even before the term was invented.
Over time, as with most things, marketing has become more layered and complex. And now there are a number of elements such as affiliate marketing that exist within the marketing field.
What Exactly Is Affiliate Marketing?
Basically, affiliate marketing is a concept that allows those working within it to draw the largest portion of their earnings from the profits they incur through their efforts. In other words, it is similar to many traditional commissioned sales positions in that a small (or advance against future earnings) salary exists as a base connected to a percentage of later profits.
More specifically, affiliate marketing is not unlike employment that offers little or no pay which is later deducted from an agreed upon percentage of specific overall profits. And believe it or not, this agreement typically benefits a hard-working affiliate marketing professional far more than similar efforts paid on an hourly or salaried basis.
More Specific Information
Affiliate marketing as a career is not unlike a sales job that offers, for example, $800 (or sometimes $0) a week for pay to be deducted from 10% (or whatever is agreed upon) of the customer traffic an affiliate marketer causes through their efforts; this not unlike an awards for efforts proposition.
So if you’re game to put up or shut, affiliate marketing is definitely a field you should consider.
The Most Practical Application Of Affiliate Marketing
In case you hadn’t noticed, nearly every business on planet Earth currently has a presence of some sort on the internet. So it’s important to realize this obvious fact as you pursue a career in affiliate marketing.
In the past affiliate marketing was primarily a pursuit that was employed through means of purchasing agents who secured advertising on television, radio, billboards, restroom walls, etc. And this is still true today. But the real cash cow where affiliate marketing is concerned currently is the internet.
Here’s How It Works
Affiliate marketing as an internet venture is a proposition that’s simple enough. You generate client and/or customer interest and you succeed.
For example, most clients offer commissions for original clients/customers you bring to their site through your affiliate marketing efforts. But to properly maximize your efforts and profitability in doing so you’ll need to be educated in the best approaches to employ.
How To Learn What You Need To Know About Affiliate Marketing
As with all forms of education, enrollment at a conventional college or university should be a means to an end that should be seriously considered. But often such an education proves to be impractical.
There are often issues involving cost, scheduling and campus location that make learning at a traditional college or university a near impossibility for many. So other options should be considered if you’re one of these individuals.
Additional Options For An Affiliate Marketing Education
The internet currently provides almost every educational opportunity imaginable through links to not only online schools that exist there primarily, but also through some of the world’s most respectable institutions of higher learning. And these institutions include not only marketing schools but also most every other type of education imaginable.
For example, take a look at sites mounted by familiar names in education such as these:
- Stanford University: http://www.stanford.edu/
- New York University: http://www.nyu.edu/
- Northwestern University: http://www.northwestern.edu/
- University of California: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/
Then you’ll no doubt find after research that an education through online schools is not only practical, but often preferable as you choose from the various marketing schools where you can study affiliate marketing. Afterwards you can decide on your own which are the best schools online for affiliate marketing.
—
Stella Waldorf is a marketing director in Chicago, and in her free time she loves to write freelance for onlineschools.org.
Read MoreSponsors
