Probably the biggest question most entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, and work-at-home people have about social media is how to make money from it. Everyone is aware of the popularity of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn to name some, but very few know how to convert that into more traffic, leads or sales. The thing is that people are spending thousands of hours in social media, but aren’t making thousands of dollars from it.

These days you can’t escape hearing about how wonderful and cheap social media is. That’s great – I use it regularly. As a businessperson, I’m always looking for the best possible return on my investment of time and money. Most people understand the key role of social media but don’t know how to monetize it. Unless you have a good handle on that, investing more in social media isn’t a wise long-term strategy.

I have something that might help.

I recently came across this new training program, “From Platform to Profit” which focuses on teaching a specific system of content syndication to help improve search engine ranking, build expert status, send more traffic to your website, and help you generate more leads for your business.

Two well-known online marketing coaches, Denise Wakeman of the Blog Squad, and Dr. Rachna Jain of The Mindshare Corporation are teaching it. The focus of this 4-week training is to help people create a content syndication strategy that works.

You are probably spending several hours a week on Facebook and Twitter, but ignoring the other 10 kinds of social media sites you could be using.

This means that you’re not using social media to its maximum potential.

And don’t worry, even if you’re not technical or an Internet geek, the training is designed to be easy to follow and easy to apply.

In just a few weeks, you’ll learn how to convert your text content to multiple formats, and, just as importantly, how to efficiently send your content around the Internet. Done correctly, content syndication has the possibility to move your business to a completely new level in terms of recognition and opportunities.

Learn more about From Platform to Profit (FP2P) here: http://diymarketingcoach.com/recommends/fp2p.php.

Link building plays a vital role in every organic SEO strategy. And as things stand today, off-page SEO tactics carry the bulk of the weight as compared to on-page optimization techniques of the past. Link building is the primary weapon used in outranking your competition in search engines.

However, not all backlinks or inbound links are created equal. Google and other major search engines no longer consider simple reciprocal links valuable. As a matter of fact, the relevance and quality can significantly affect your page rank. Hang around bad backlink neighborhoods and you could be penalized. Focusing on high-quality and relevant one-way links is the name of the game now.

Link building strategies

There are several methods for one-way link building, they are:

• Directory submissions
• Article marketing and syndication
• Forum posting
• Guest blogging
• Press releases
• Paid links (see my recommendation at the end)
• Social bookmarking

This post focuses on the powerful technique of social bookmarking for link building.

Popular social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Yahoo! Buzz, Reddit, Twitter and a whole bunch of others allow their registered users to add links to sites and blog posts. Such links are great for building quality one-way links and driving targeted traffic.

Obviously, you need to use this powerful 1-2 SEO punch of link building and social bookmarking wisely to get the most out of it. If all you are doing is adding links to hyped up sales pages, you are not going to get much link love.

On the other hand, if you add links to newsworthy posts, they may catch the attention of other like-minded bloggers and they’ll vote your entries up. Imagine the amount of free traffic you can get if you happen to make it to the first page of one of these popular social bookmarking sites.

Let me give you an example to illustrate my point. Let’s say you have a blog on clean and alternative energy, you write an article about generating your own electricity for your home and post a video about the new bloom box. The bloom box has been featured on 60 minutes and the search engines are buzzing with news items about it. You now have a very newsworthy link to bookmark, one that has a good chance of being bookmarked by others and going viral.

Link building game plan

Here are the basic steps involved if you are just starting out with social bookmarking for building links:

1. Drip your links slowly and naturally – don’t go wild at first by adding hundreds of links in one day. You are most likely to be viewed as a spammer and quickly banned from social bookmarking sites. Start by adding 5 to 7 per day, skip a few days and then add some more.
2. Focus on your home page – concentrate on adding links to your home page at the beginning. If you have a blog, so much the better because you probably have the 10 most recent posts excerpted on that page. Later on, you can start adding URLs to inner pages and direct posts.
3. Become part of the community – just like everything else on the Internet, you first have to give before you can take. Remember to bookmark other interesting sites you see that you don’t necessarily own yourself. Build your online credibility and visibility before people will trust you to share your links.
4. Create a good profile – here’s your chance to share a little bit about who you are as a person and your beliefs to connect with others. Do take the time to add a photo instead of using a generic avatar.
5. Start building a friends/ followers/fans list – retweet interesting tweets or bookmark URLs posted by other people, especially if they have a following of their own..
6. Vote on stories – don’t be shy, be heard by voting on stories that you see on the first page of your favorite social bookmarking site.

Follow this simple plan for using social bookmarking and watch your link building go through the roof.

In a hurry to build links? Check out this all-in-one link building package where you get the backlinks, the tools, the know-how and the action plans for a one-time investment. Developed by two highly respected marketers, Lynn and Paul Short.

Have you used other methods that have been successful for you in building links? Share your comments and thoughts here.

There are two components to optimizing your site for search engines. On-site SEO tactics like the proper use of Title and Description MetaTags, using keywords with appropriate density, adding key phrases in H1, H2 tags and in bulleted text and a whole host of other techniques. The second being off-site SEO tactics. More on this later.

As most people know, on-site SEO takes time to take effect. If you rely solely on these tactics, you may be waiting months before Google and other search engines index your site or blog.

Is there a way faster way to get Google to index your site? You betcha! Using some proven off-site SEO tactics can get your site indexed in a matter of days or less than two weeks. There are documented success stories out there where Google indexed a new site in as little as a few hours after launch.

Let’s define off-site SEO first. It pretty much revolves around building in-coming links to your site. Gone are the days when you could just buy thousands of links from link farms. Search engines have become too smart for that. You need to get high-quality backlinks in order move up in the search engine ranks. That usually means getting links to your site from other sites that have a high PageRank, or sites that are updated often and are crawled frequently by search engine spiders.

The good news is that there are plenty of ways to get these types of quality links to your site without paying a penny. Here are seven off-site SEO tips you can implement today at no cost:

1. Pinging: One of the easiest ways to get indexed quickly is to ping your site. Two most popular pinging sites are pingoat.com and pingomatic.com.

Just add your site’s name and URL, and leave the RSS feed link blank. (It’s not necessary.) Sometimes this technique alone can get you indexed in a day or two. Next, you should submit your link to various social bookmarking sites.

If you use Wordpress for your blog, log into your admin panel and go to Settings > Writing. Scroll down until you see Update Services. Add the following to your list:

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/ping

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://coreblog.org/ping/

http://ping.bitacoras.com

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc

http://ping.feedburner.com/

http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

2. Social bookmarking: Popular social media sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, del.ico.us, and Slashdot are crawled several times a day. So they can be a very good way to get your own site crawled and indexed quickly. You should get an account at all of the major bookmarking sites. If you use Wordpress, add a plugin like Sociable to bookmark all your posts.

3. Blog commenting: This can be a very good way to get indexed quickly. You’ll need to find blogs that don’t have the “nofollow” tag, because blogs that have “nofollow” won’t let search engines crawl the links anyway. SEO experts are split over this – some say the “nofollow” tag doesn’t matter, since some search engine spiders ignore them anyway. Others claim you may get a small amount of traffic from the blogs themselves, but “nofollow” blogs will do nothing to help you get indexed faster.

4. Forums: Popular forums have had posts on their site show up on Google just minutes after they’re posted. It’s very common for posts on very popular forums to be in Google in less than 24 hours. Posting a small link in your signature on some of these forums can help you get your site indexed quickly. (See my earlier post, “Use Your John Hancock For Free Traffic.”)

5. Link exchange: Exchange links with other webmasters in your niche. Not only is this a great way to build backlinks, but if their sites are crawled often, chances of your site being crawled and indexed quickly go up too. Link exchanges won’t penalize your site, either – unless you build too many, too quickly. Stick with a natural growth pattern (a few a day) and it won’t raise any red flags with the search engines.

6. Press releases (PR): PR can be very helpful in getting your site crawled and indexed quickly. Most of the popular press release sites have very good Page Rank and are crawled often. They can even get your press release posted on a number of different sites that pull news from the PR directories. Sometimes it can be worth submitting a press release simply for the speed and the ease of getting your site indexed. (See Writing Press Releases for Web 2.0.)

7. Article marketing: Not one of the faster ways of getting your site indexed but is another way to get high-quality backlinks. Submitting an article or two can also help you get targeted traffic to your site. Many article directories have very good PageRank, so it definitely has benefits other than just quick indexing.

Try these seven off-site SEO tactics to get your site indexed faster than just using on-site SEO strategies.

Most coaches, consultants and work-at-home entrepreneurs take the first step of creating their online presence by starting a business blog. Unfortunately, for many, the initial enthusiasm is short-lived because they suffer from what I call  “launch and hope syndrome.”

That’s when you wait with baited breath for the world to discover your blog and beat a path to your home page. However, weeks later, you are still waiting for the traffic to roll in. What happened? Nothing, zip, nada, all you’ve got are stray visitors who have spent very little time on your blog.

How do you overcome this problem? Chalk out a strategic plan to grow your business blog and stick to it. Fine-tune your strategies if necessary but don’t abandon your game plan because of a few set backs.

Here are three strategies for profitable business blogging:

1. Post content regularly and often – your readers and search engines love fresh content. At the early stages of your business blog, I recommend you post at least 2 times a week, three to four would be even better.

Set up a posting schedule that you can follow given everything else you need to get done in your busy day.

If writing is not one of your strong suits, outsource this task and/or join a PLR (Private Label Rights) membership site in your niche. Make sure you do some basic editing to your PLR materials in order to stand out from the rest.

Automate the process as much as possible. Say you have some spare time, write 5 to 6 blog posts but don’t publish them all at once. Use the built-in publishing schedule to post automatically with a few days gap between each blog post.

2. Raise your visibility within your niche — become active in the blogging community within your niche by posting comments on relevant blogs. Add your signature with a link back to your blog site.

Don’t go overboard initially by proclaiming yourself as the “guru” in your niche. Just your name, a short description of your blog’s main focus and the link, that’s all you need. Wait until you gain some traction before trying to sell anything to your community.

Become a guest blogger on other popular blogs within your niche. Every business or blog owner needs help from time to time with content. Don’t be afraid to approach your competition as long as you are open and honest about it. You may just find yourself a profitable joint venture partner for the future.

Become active on social networking sites. This is another powerful way to brand yourself in your niche.

3. Track, review and analyze – this doesn’t have to be some complicated web analytics. Just look at your posts that are receiving the most views (you can track this easily by using Google’s free Analytics).

Another way to track popularity of your topic is by monitoring the comments you receive.

Spend a little time every week to review the data from your blog instead of guessing. It will help you gather invaluable information about your readers, their pressing issues and solutions they are willing to pay for.

You will see a measureable improvement in traffic and profitability of your business blog if you implement the above three steps.

To learn more about how to make your business blog a hub for attracting quality traffic, building deeper relationships and converting more, look at my eBook “Business Blogging Handbook.”

What strategies are you using to improve your business blog? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

One keyword rich article can bring you hundreds of visitors for years to come. I admit it is not easy if you are new to Internet marketing, but once you write your first article and get it published, it starts to gain a life of its own. You will see a steady stream of traffic to you site.

Here are three reasons why article marketing can be better than SEO.

1. Articles don’t have mysterious and changing algorithms like search engines

While Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the best method for getting free traffic, you have to be a SEO expert to gain and remain at the top of search rankings. The search engines are constantly changing and updating their algorithm, making it more difficult to maintain top positions.

With article marketing, you don’t have to worry about any algorithms or learning closely guarded secret techniques to gain attention. All you have to focus on is keyword rich content and quality information that readers will be happy to get their hands on.

2. You don’t have to exchange links to increase your ranking

Would you believe me if I told you that your ranking will actually increase with all the back links you get from one top article? Yes, it’s true. If you can get one hot article online, you will be amazed by how many article directories post this article on high PR pages (yes, pages with PR6 or higher). All these links will be pointing back to your site, giving you a boost in your ranking.

For SEO, you will have to come up with a great marketing strategy to get high PR sites to add your link to their sites.

3. A good resource box is all you need

This is often over looked by many new article publishers. You’ve written a great article but your resource box is weak or has no direct link back to your site. Without a good resource box, you may gain fame but will not get the traffic that you want.

Your author’s resource box should contain a compelling reason for people to visit your website. You may talk a little about yourself, but it really has to be more about the reader and his/her wants.

For example, if your website is offering natural cures for people suffering from acne, you need to let them know that you have the answer they are looking for in order to get them to visit your website.

A huge part of creating a great resource box is including one or more links to your website. Different directories have different rules about this, but the general rule of thumb is to allow two links. You want to surround at least one these in what is called “anchor text.” It allows search engines determine the main topic of the web page that this link leads to.

Here is an example of an anchor text within a link:

Grab a copy of my FREE report on natural cures for acne.

If you want the search engines to know this page is about natural cures for acne, the HTML code would like this:

<a href=http://acnesite.com/free_report.htm>natural cures for acne</a>

The anchor text would help to boost your rankings for the keyword phrase “natural cures for acne.”

Studies have shown that sometimes people ignore in context links like the one above. To play it safe, make the second link in your resource box something like this:

Visit my site at http://acnesite.com.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you don’t need SEO. Article marketing and organic SEO do go hand-in-hand. You need both to drive a steady stream of traffic to your website.

You can get more valuable traffic generation tips from my small report “10 Proven Ways To Get More Traffic With Article Marketing.”

Getting traffic is the key to survival for every online business. There are many ways of attracting traffic to your site.

In this post, I will show you three simple things that you can do yourself to improve your search engine ranking to get more organic traffic. These are not difficult, they do require basic HTML skills but nothing that will need you to buy expensive software or spend weeks to learn.

1. Title Tags

The <title> tag is the single most important element on any webpage. Here’s an example of my title tag as it shows up in Google:

The reason a title tag is so important is because it tells the search engines what your page is all about. Make sure the content on the page is relevant to the title you have used.

Look at the source code of your HTML pages. Somewhere at the top, after the opening <head> tag, you’ll see the code for the <title> tag that looks like this:

<title>Enter Your Title Here</title>

That’s where you need to enter a keyword or phrase that describes your site or that page. Don’t just put your domain or company name unless it happens to be a keyword you are targeting.

If you are using WordPress, you won’t be able to directly edit the title of each page. Download the free plugin, All in One SEO plugin, it allows you to enter the title right on the page where you write your posts.

2. Use Header Tags (h1-h3)

Include your targeted keywords or phrases in your header tags. Use the h1 tag once at the top of the page, that’s your main headline containing your primary keyword(s) and then use h2 and h3 tags as subheads throughout the page. These can be variations of your primary keyword or phrase.

Header tags are useful not just for search engines. Site visitors tend to skip read Web pages. Using powerful headlines and subheads that are related to their search term will help to capture their attention and persuade them to read your copy.

Shown here is a screen shot of a post in WordPress:

3. Create a site map

This is another important element of search engine optimization. A site map helps search engine spiders navigate their way through your site and find inside or sub pages and categories. It is literally a roadmap of your entire site.

Also create an HTML version of the site map and add a link to it from the footer of your site. This is especially helpful for static HTML sites where some visitors may use this option to quickly navigate to a specific page or area within the site.

It is not difficult to create a site map in the correct format. Use a free service like XML-SiteMap.com to quickly generate a site map in XML format that is required by Google. Here’ a screen shot of the process:

Download the file and upload it into your public_html folder.

Next, create a free Google Webmaster account at: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/siteoverview and add your sitemap’s URL. You’ll now be able to monitor traffic statistics for your entire website.

You will want to update your sitemap each time you add new pages to your website, so that it is kept up to date and search engine spiders can re-visit your site to index the new pages.

This post is not meant to be a crash course in do-it-yourself search engine optimization. That would take much more than a few short blog posts. Use these three tips to tweak your site yourself and you’ll see a measurable increase in your traffic.

Many books have been written and you can find several courses that will teach you everything you need to know about traffic generation.

Of course, the one I recommend is my own “The Easy Guide to Unlimited Traffic.”

Get my FREE traffic eCourse and list marketing eBook. Plus, receive regular updates packed with practical and actionable expert advice on making money online. Just fill in your name and email address in the form below for instant access.

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A business blog is very different from a personal journal or blog. Your family and friends are more willing to listen to your opinions and rants in a personal blog. Readers of a business blog have very different expectations.

The two keys to successful business blogging, at least in my opinion are 1) Consistency and 2) Focus.

Let’s take a closer look at both these keys.

CONSISTENCY – is very important for the success of your business blog. Don’t equate consistency with boring. There are many components to consistency.

Content – stick with topics that are of interest to your readers. If you go off topic too often, you may lose some followers who rely on you for their information fix. Nothing wrong in taking a controversial stand or a contrarian view, it can actually stimulate the conversation on your blog.

Branding – from the very first impression of your business blog, people are going to form their opinion about you and your business. Being consistent with the look and feel of your blog will stamp that brand in their minds. Don’t go changing the color scheme, fonts and layout as and when it takes your fancy. It can be distracting to your visitors if they have to get used to a new look every time they come to your business blog.

Frequency – how often you post to your blog is important to your readers. Get a feel for what your readers expect from you and stick with it. Sure, experiment until you find a sweet spot but do deliver on a schedule that satisfies your readers. Another thing you can do is email your list a weekly summary of new posts on your business blog. Encourage them to forward your emails to their colleagues and you’ll see your traffic grow exponentially from viral marketing.

Style – be consistent with your style of writing. It may take some time to find your own voice that makes you comfortable while keeping your audience informed and entertained. It’s okay to show some of your personal side but don’t go overboard. After all this is a business blog and you want to come across as professional without being aloof.

FOCUS – whether your business blog is part of your website or a separate entity, it is important to know how to focus your blog to help drive traffic to it. That’s where you can convert them into customers.

Most business owners find the thought of a do-it-yourself marketing effort a daunting task. Don’t let that fear hold you back. Put the focus on the customers’ needs and the solutions or products you can offer to satisfy them.

Here are three ways of achieving a customer focus on your business blog:

1. Don’t sell, educate instead – online consumers are suspicious and many are fed up with outright sales pitches. Imagine watching your favorite TV show and you are probably wired by now to just tune out the commercials. In the same way, your blog visitors will tune you out if all they read are blatant sales pitches for your products and services.

Instead, focus on educating them about the problems you can solve and what results they can expect to achieve by buying your product or hiring you as a coach. That’s how you can build a trusting relationship and make your readers receptive to your recommendations, be it your own eBook or an affiliate program that you are promoting.

2. Interact with your readers – treat your business blog as a medium of conversation and not as a monolog (monologue). Ask questions, get their feedback and encourage comments from them. When people leave comments on your blog, it creates “social proof,” otherwise known as informational social influence. It is similar to when you are walking outside and see a crowd of people looking up, you can’t help but look up yourself.

3. Listen when they speak – allow your readers to dictate the focus of your business blog. Don’t just post topics that are of interest only to you but give them what they want. Show them that you care about their concerns and are ready to provide answers to their challenges. The idea is to strike a balance between your interests and topics that can help your business make more money. Try to find profitable passions.

As you continue to build your business blog, you will be helping your business grow as well. By being consistent and focused, you’ll soon be driving hordes of traffic to your business blog, people who are interested in what you have to offer.

The Business Blogging Handbook will teach you how to maximize the benefits from a business blog and the included free report will show you how to avoid the common mistakes that can kill a blog.

As a business owner, whether online or off, you want to reach your ideal prospects and customers, i.e. your target audience. A business blog is the perfect tool to accomplish that online.

Assuming you already know the benefits of a business blog (P.S. see end of this post if you need help), here are the basic steps to using it to zero in on your target audience.

1. Define your target audience – Are you trying to reach work-at-home moms and dads (WHAMs/WADs)? Or is it solo coaches and consultants? Narrow it further by choosing popular interests or topics. This will make your blog a lot more focused and help it to stand out from the crowd.

2. Next, develop content that will appeal to your defined target audience. Some experts suggest that you pick topics that are popular search terms/phrases used by your audience. Others recommend writing about things that you are passionate about. I say you need a good balance. Without passion, you will have a hard time sustaining your business blog over the long haul. On the other hand you are not likely to develop a following if all you write about are topics that are of little interest to your audience.

3. Work out a posting schedule that you feel comfortable following. Try to post new material at least twice a week, may be more often initially. Whatever you decide, stick to it because consistency is very important in setting expectations and loyalty with your target audience.

4. Start directing traffic to your business blog by various means. Research keywords and phrases used by your prospects and write blog posts that are rich in those. A good rule of thumb is 2-3% keyword density but don’t be afraid to experiment. Probably the most important elements are the headline and the first one or two paragraphs. Use other marketing tactics like article marketing, press releases, forum commenting, social bookmarking and networking, press releases and advertisements to generate high quality traffic to your business blog.

5. Create a strong and easily identifiable look and feel to your business blog. Even though content is king on the Internet, aesthetics or branding do matter. The color scheme, the fonts, graphics and your tag line should all work together to separate you from your competition and be a true reflection of who you are and your business.

Don’t fall in love with eye candy, it can be distracting. Navigation and your calls to action play a major role in how your visitors interact with your blog. Pay attention to those details otherwise you will see a high number of people leaving your blog after visiting your home page, otherwise known as bounce rate. You probably will have to work on the design of your blog before posting but I’m a firm believer of “form follows function.”

6. Implement a method to capture leads from your business blog. Do not expect your visitors to bookmark your blog or take action like buying something on their very first visit. A large percentage of your first-time visitors will do nothing other than read your post. Install some kind of a sign up form to entice them to continue receiving regular communications from you. Offering a free report, eBook or eCourse can be very effective for this. Take a look at my right-hand column for an example or the splash screen that comes up on exit. BTW, if you haven’t already, do sign up!

Reaching your target market doesn’t have to be difficult. By using the basic steps outlined here, you will begin to see measureable results. It does take time to build a loyal readership and it doesn’t happen overnight, but it will happen if you stick with it.

There’s a lot more a blog can do for your business. You’ll find more in-depth information in my new eBook, “The Business Blogging Handbook” that will help you develop a focused plan to make your business blog the hub of your online presence.

You will learn how to how to make your business blog a hub for attracting quality traffic, building deeper relationships and converting more visitors into customers. Go to “The Business Blogging Handbook” for more information.

You’ve worked long and hard developing your brand new site. You are excited after a successful launch. You wait with baited breath for the world to discover your website and beat a path to your home page.

Weeks later, you are still waiting for the traffic to roll in. What happened? Nothing, zip, nada, all you’ve got are stray visitors who have spent very little time on your site.

You are now suffering from a classic case of Launch and Hope syndrome.

You’ve read up on all the killer tips and followed the strategies from every Internet marketing guru out there but you still don’t have traffic. You seek advice and receive hundreds of different opinions. But there is one opinion we can all agree on and it is this: traffic is the lifeblood for any website to be successful.

Without a steady stream of targeted traffic, your website will starve and your Internet venture will die a slow death. There is just no way around it. You simply must have a flood of targeted traffic coming to your site in order to thrive.

Now that we’ve diagnosed your problem, let’s find a cure for it.

There are two approaches you can take here, 1) organic search engine optimization (SEO) or 2) quick action traffic tactics. Organic SEO is something that you definitely want for long-term traffic but it does take time and may require you to hire a company or consultant who specializes in SEO.

Let’s focus here on what you can do yourself to generate traffic quickly and easily. I call this my “Easy Traffic Action Plan.” These are some of the easiest methods of generating instant traffic to your website, absolutely free. Easy traffic tactics include:

Social marketing - this involves directly interacting and engaging with your target audience. You set up webpages on community sites such as squidoo.com and hubpages.com. Squidoo calls them “lenses” which are like flyers or overview articles and puts the focus on the topic of interest. Hubpages.com on the other hand calls them hubs which they define as “…just like web pages. Each one contains an article you write that’s filled with insight, advice, information – whatever you’d like to say on your favorite topic.”

Press releases – when you submit a press release to various online newswires, they can spread like wildfire. They are picked up by other websites – and very frequently Google News and About.com, resulting in a flood of traffic to your site. A well-written press release can be more valuable than paid advertisement because of higher credibility. Another great thing about a press release campaign is that it is very affordable even for the small business owner or the solopreneur.

Article marketing – this is one of the most popular methods of generating relevant back links from authority websites and maximizing your traffic generation efforts. The more articles you have in circulation, the more exposure you will receive. However, concentrate on quality content over just quantity. Getting curious clicks to your site is not you want. You want your content to be interesting and useful for the casual visitor to become a regular one, subscribe to your newsletter and/or comment on your blog. Over and above the exposure you receive by having your articles showcased within popular article directories such as www.EzineArticles.com, you will also benefit from search engines finding your site by crawling article directories.

Forum marketing – this is a great technique for getting more traffic. Forums, or message boards, are communities of people with common interests or niches. By actively participating and interacting with the members, you are introducing yourself to a captive audience, the very people you want as visitors to your site. Make sure you don’t blatantly promote yourself or you’ll be booted out quickly.

Word-of-mouth marketing – is an excellent way to gain more traffic to your website. The basic idea is to create a campaign that’s designed to get people to pass along your information, website URL, and other content you produce. This often means giving away things free or speaking about controversial or important topics. Sometimes it is referred to as “viral marketing” especially when it comes to the Internet.

Blogging – is an easy way to get more visitors to your website. If your site is already a blog, then you are ahead of the game. If you have a standard, static HTML site, consider adding a blog to it. The search engines tend to rank blogs very highly and it’s easy for you to update the content regularly. Visitors leaving comments on your blog is considered “social proof” which is like an implied recommendation. People are more apt to comment if they see someone else has made one.

Run contests – people love to win things. If you run contests on your website, you are likely to draw a crowd of people who will stop by to see if they can win. You want to impress them with your content and make them into permanent visitors. A side benefit is that it could viral. If your contest is fun and unique, people are likely to tell their family and friends about your site. Your contests can include product giveaways, free links on your blog or site, and more.

To learn more about website traffic, take a look at my new “The Easy Guide to Unlimited Traffic.”

Is the good old press release (PR) dead? I don’t think so. PR as we know it has certainly evolved in today’s Web 2.0 world with the phenomenal growth of social media.

The modern PR has to change to remain effective. David Meerman Scott in his best-selling book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR wrote, “The Internet has made public relations public again, after years of almost exclusive focus on media. Blogs, online news releases, and other forms of web content let organizations communicate directly with buyers.”

There is no doubt that the rules of the game have changed but are PRs dead? Not so fast says Michael Cherenson, chairman of The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). “I don’t think we should be negating the importance of the press release,” he says.

Brian Solis, principal of FutureWorks had this to say on his blog, “The practice of blindly broadcasting messages through poorly written press releases at audiences is dead. PR is NOT necessarily dead, but without the application of a social tourniquet, it is bleeding to death.” How do you modernize a PR so it is still relevant today?

The fundamental principles of a good PR have not changed, you still need to answer the important questions – Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. However, your PR must now engage the reader in a variety of ways instead of just informing journalists.

Let’s look at the different parts of a Web 2.0 PR. I’ll use a screenshot of an actual release from prweb.com to illustrate.

Here are some tips for making your releases more effective:

• Write an attention-grabbing, strong headline of about 60 ~ 80 characters including spaces (Tweeting skills can be handy)
• Use keywords or phrases within the headline
• Try to use action oriented words and tie it to your body copy
• The optimal length for a press release should be between 500 and 700 words
• Add new angles and twists to your story to make it newsworthy
• Limit the number of hyperlinks per the published guidelines (varies)
• Include full contact information and be available for follow up calls or interviews by journalists
• Use online newswires to distribute your release
• Build a contact list of journalists in your industry and email them directly
• Contact influential bloggers in your niche and ask them to spread the word
• Comment on high-traffic forums and sites relevant to your product or service
• Post your video to YouTube and other video distribution services
• Post to your own site and/or blog

When you submit press releases to various online newswires, they can spread like wildfire. They are picked up by other websites – and very frequently Google News & About.com leading to a steady stream of Website traffic. Make press releases an ongoing part of your marketing not just when news happens. Use them to engage your customers throughout the buying cycle and reach them directly via social media.

Want to learn more about writing and marketing with press releases? Take a look at my new small report “The Solopreneur’s Guide to Marketing with Press Releases.”