Connecting businesses with customers
Write and reap rewards of increased website traffic
WW - The Magazine for Working Women , Spring 2006, Page 60
Article by
Melissa Norfolk
Accredited professional speaker
Fact: Most new small business websites take months to average just a few hundred visitors per week. Many sites stall indefinitely at this level. Unfortunately, income generation is very limited with these numbers.
Why so little traffic?
Most small business owners simply do not have a marketing budget big enough to properly "kick off" a new website. What's more, web promotion is getting more and more difficult as the net is saturated with new sites daily.
One of the best ways to promote your website is by writing articles you can place on your site, in your e-zine (email newsletter), in other e-zines and submit to sites that provide free content to e-zine publishers. This will help you develop credibility and build both your traffic and email database.
So exactly what do you need to do?
Simply write about what you do. That's it. Nothing more. Plan to write a new article every week. Then do two things:
1. Email best articles to other publishers and webmasters
(check ezinesearch.com and ezinearticles.com)
A few tips to maximise effectiveness:
- Keep articles short and to the point. Must act as a free sample that entices your reader to visit your website for more.
- Present article as a tip, a solution to a problem.
- Write in easy to understand "layman's" terms.
- Whenever possible, write from personal experience. People love to hear other's experiences. This approach also tends to hold their attention longer.
- Be extra careful to avoid spelling and grammatical errors. They make you lose credibility.
- Articles should not be a sales pitch; offer honest, value-adding advice.
- Don't forget the most important part, always include a 'byline' at the end of your article. This is a small paragraph (no longer than six lines) with your name, the name of your business, a short tagline, and that all-important link to your website.
2. Post each article as stand alone web page on your site (With reprint rights).
This allows more website owners easy access to your articles and attracts more traffic through the search engines.
Here's how.
- Every article should be keyword rich and contains a fresh set of META tags. This helps with search engine ranking and targeted traffic.
- Next, carefully choose the "title" of each article web page.
Examples:
Articles for your ezine - Ezine articles for your website or newsletter
Email Marketing - Use email marketing to keep in touch with your database
Notice important components:
- Alphabetically strategic first word
- Most important words repeated
- Catchy, interesting titles
- Popular keywords
If you are careful to employ ALL these features, they add up to better placement.
The last thing to check is to place a link to your home page on every article. Readers who find your articles and want more information, can always simply click to your site! Starting to get the picture?
Every week build another page. Different keyword rich pages, different subjects, and all linked to your home page.
Internet expert, Melissa Norfolk, speaks to business, school and community groups about effective use of the internet, finding what you need online, internet safety and online marketing.
For more information phone (03) 9816 3488.
Download Article in PDF Format (~489Kb)
