Use an RSS feed

8. Use an RSS feed 

 Another way to build returning traffic to your site is to provide an RSS feed. In its current form, RSS stand for “Really Simple Syndication”. RSS allows someone to place a link on their homepage, website, or RSS reader that sends an update every time you update the information on your site. This is especially popular with news sites and blogs. If you are posting to your blog every week day, your readers will get an update 5 times a week. That means 5 times a week they will be reminded of your name and your website. This can really work to your advantage because they are getting that reminder because they asked to be reminded, not because you are forcing yourself on them. Every day they have a chance to read your message, and have the opportunity to visit the main part of your site. The more traffic that comes to your site on a regular basis, the more sales and advertising revenue you can generate. Another way to use RSS feeds is to bring news or information about your niche that will add value to your site. By putting fresh, up to date information on your websites main page, you give visitors a reason to come back to your site on a continuing basis. If they are interested in your topic, the will return to your site to get updates. Both uses of RSS are designed to keep your customers coming back. The more often they come back and get new, useful, or entertaining material, the more likely they are of spreading the word to their friends and family, and that is the first step of going viral.

Use Social Bookmark Sites

7. Use Social Bookmark Sites 

 Something that has really flourished in recent years is the popularity of social bookmark sites like Digg, Stumble Upon, and del.ico.us. These sites allow users to search, set bookmarks, organize, read, and rate anything on the internet. If something you have written is posted to one of these sites, other readers get a chance to vote on whether or not they like it. If someone thinks it is good, and worth sharing, they can vote for it. The more people vote for it, the higher up in the rankings it moves. The higher it goes, more people see it. The more people see it, the more opportunities there are for someone else to vote on it, which helps it to rank even higher. The good part for you is, even if a reader doesn.t vote on your article, they still might go to your site to see if there is anything else there that they might like. One important thing to note is, these social bookmark sites do not like you to vote for your own articles. In fact, if you do vote for your own, it could cause it to move lower in the rankings. You have to have something that other people find interesting enough that they feel compelled to vote for it. These sites attract hundreds of thousands of visitors every day. If you are fortunate enough to have your message ranked toward the top on one or more of these sites for even one day, the flood of traffic to your site could be tremendous.

Create a Brand able E-Book

5. Create a Brand able E-Book 

-Have you noticed the number of sites that offer free e-books to subscribers? Give your email address, click the link and you have instant access to an eBook full of useful information. The reason so many sites use this method of advertising is because it works, and here is how you can make it work for you. Write a short eBook on a topic that relates to your business. In that book you include a little information about your business, and at a couple of key places include a link that will drive traffic from the book to your website. Now post it on your website and let anyone interested download a free copy. However, it does not stop there. Encourage anyone who likes your eBook to offer it as a free gift on their website as well. If the information is useful, and the book is well written, the number of websites that are offering your book will begin to grow, Soon 50 or 100, or even 1,000 other sites will be helping you spread the word about your business. A successful campaign with timely information could keep driving traffic to your site for months or years to come. Be careful not to overdo the information about yourself, or include too many links back to your site. The more about yourself you include, the less likely others will be willing to give your book away for you. Another advantage of having your eBook before thousands of people.s eyes is it establishes your credibility. People give more credence to a published “expert” than they do to someone who has not written a book, even if the book is very short. You begin to build name recognition, and when people see your name associated with something in the future, they will be more likely to check it out. Internet marketer David Meerman Scott used this successfully when he released an eBook titled The New Rules of PR. He posted a link to the book on his blog, and sent link by email to friends and colleagues. Within 3 days his eBook had been downloaded over 1,000 times. At that point it caught the attention of a couple of internet marketing gurus who talked about it on their own blogs. In the 3 days following those blogs Scott.s eBook had been downloaded over 15,000 times. To date, the eBook has been downloaded over 60,000 times, and it has resulted in a continuing flow of traffic, and several speaking arrangements. He is now considered an expert in the field of internet marketing, largely because of his eBook. Do a search for eBook compilers to find a program to create your eBook, or find a program that will allow you to save a document as a PDF. Whichever program you decide to use, make sure it allows you to include active, clickable links. If the person reading the eBook has to copy and paste the link into a browser, many of them will not. Make it as easy as possible for them to get to your site. Also, make sure the program you use will not let anyone change the information in your eBook. There are less than honest people who will remove references to you and the links to your site, and include their own information into your eBook. Many programs will allow you to safeguard your information, so take advantage of them. PDF Brandable is an good piece of software that allows you to create brandable eBooks.

Give Something Away

2. Give Something Away 

 

 One of the best early examples of building a business by giving something away is Hotmail. Hotmail gave away free email services and email addresses free to anyone who signed up for one, and a lot of people did (and still do). Today millions of users have Hotmail addresses. What made hotmail successful was one of the early successes of viral traffic building on the internet. At the bottom of every email that was sent through one of the free Hotmail accounts was a message telling others how they could get a free Hotmail account. Every time a  Hotmail user sent a message, they were helping spread the name of Hotmail. How did Hotmail make any money off of free accounts? They did it by offering premium services to their customers such as additional storage space, and the ability to send emails without any advertising attached. Hotmail became successful enough that in 1997, less than 2 years after it was created, it boasted over 8 million users and was purchased by Microsoft. It is still one of the top web based email services in the world. While you may not be able to achieve the same amount of buzz that Hotmail was able to generate, it does demonstrate the power of getting your message out be attaching it to something that people are willing to share with their friends, family, and co-workers. Do not discount the fact that people love to get things for free. If it looks interesting, and it is free, people are more than happy to give it a try. While it is easy to get them to try your offer initially, it is a different challenge to get them to continue using it once the novelty has worn off. Repeated use is critical for your success because multiple exposures will cement your companies name in your customer’s minds. People are more likely to buy something from a company they have heard of than from one they have not heard of. They might not even know how or why they know the name, but that sense of familiarity will make them more susceptible to your message. What ever you are offering has to be functional, easy to use, and add value to the user. You customers have to feel that it is worth their time and effort to pass the information along. Then, and only then, will they be willing to tell their friends and family what they have found.

Provide Quality Content, Products, Or Services

1. Provide Quality Content, Products, Or Services   

 Providing quality content, products, or service is by far the best way to build your reputation, and build repeat traffic to your site. Research has shown that on average, when someone has a positive experience they will tell two other people about that experience. On the other hand, if they have had a bad experience, they will tell seven other people. That act of telling others is how the viral traffic generation techniques start. If your customers never tell anyone else about you and your site, you are back to doing all of the marketing on your own. To build returning customers to your site, you need to establish a reputation as an expert in your field, very entertaining, or someone who has unique insights. That does not happen if all you are offering is cheap, recycled drivel that you found on someone else’s website. Make sure that what you offer is your own work, and something that is different from what can be found on every other website. As your reputation as an expert increases, other websites and bloggers will start to pay attention to your website. They will begin to talk about what you are doing, and will even give links from their website to yours. Suddenly every one of their readers becomes a potential customer. The higher the quality of material you produce, the more often your site will be linked to. Each link to your site is an avenue for new visitors to your business. If you do not think you have the ability to create something that will touch people like it needs to, you may have to spend the money and hire someone else to do it for you. Fortunately for you, there are a lot of service that will put you in touch with freelance writers, site designers, and program designers. If you have an idea about what you want, chances are there is someone available to do it for you. If you are willing to take a chance on a freelancer who has not yet established themselves, you can often find one that will work for a low wage in exchange for the experience the job will give them. Be careful though; often times you get what you pay for. Make sure the work you get is up to the standards necessary to appeal to your audience.

21 Viral Traffic Generation Techniques

Below are 21 techniques that you can use to bring traffic to your website. Whether there is a flood or a trickle really depends on your ability to give your visitors something they can use or enjoy. It is important to remember that your customers are not stupid. They will know whether what you are offering is something they want, or if it is a cheap advertising ploy. If it is, they will pass the word along. If it is not useful, they will leave your site and say nothing to others about you. The key to all of these techniques is to give something that adds to the user.s experience. This can be by offering useful information, telling them about something new and exciting, or something that is entertaining or humorous, but the key is to make it the highest quality possible. With so much information on the internet that is just a click away, what you are offering has to be unique. This can mean being completely new, or it could mean looking at something old from a different and unique point of view. If your message does not touch them in some way, your message will not go viral. You may still get some traffic out of it, but that traffic will come the old fashioned way,  through hard work, search engine optimization, and daily on-going marketing efforts. While for many people, going viral is a one-time accomplishment, others manage to see repeated success. When one of your messages goes viral, not only does it drive a flood of traffic to your site on a short term, but many of those people will become subscribers, which increases your daily traffic. If you can continue to write unique, compelling material, those people will be more than likely to return to your site, and to tell others. The more eyes that see you message, the better your chances of repeating your viral success. Viral traffic generation should not be used as a stand alone technique. It needs to be a part of a larger marketing strategy. Many of the techniques by themselves may only send a small stream of traffic to your site. That is why you need to use more than one marketing method. One stream may not amount to much traffic, but several streams could be significant. As your message starts to go viral, these several streams could quickly become a flood. Look though the list of items listed and think about which ones will work for you. Chances are, not all of them will work for everyone. Some of them will naturally go together, others will not. The list is not meant to be a comprehensive list of everything possible. It is meant to be a tool; an example of things that have worked for others. As you read through the different techniques, keep thinking about your own business. It may help you to come up with other ideas on your own. Be creative. Modify some of the ideas listed and come up  with something new that is unique to you and your business. The only limit to what is possible is your imagination.

What Is Viral Traffic Generation?

In recent years there has been more and more written about Viral Marketing and why you should be using it to drive traffic to your site. So, what is viral marketing, and why should you care? Is this just another fad that will soon fade away? In short, viral marketing involves getting other people to willingly spread your message for you. People who like what you have done tell other people, and the message spreads from person to person like a virus. When that happens, it is referred to as your message “going viral.” It relies heavily on word of mouth advertising; someone sees or reads what you have to offer and tells a couple of their friends. Their friends see or read your message and they tell a couple of their friends, and they tell a couple of their friends, and so on. The number of people who are aware of you and your message increases exponentially. The more people hear about your site, the faster your traffic grows. How large will it grow? There is really no way to tell. The only real limit to the amount of traffic possible is how many people your site host can handle. Just think about how quickly it could spread. If one person saw your message and told 2 people, who told 2 people, who told 2 people, and it continued, your message would very quickly be in front of thousands of people. If each person just told two other people, look how quickly it can grow.

1 x2 = 2

2 x2 = 4

4 x2 = 8

8 x 2 = 16

16 x 2 = 32

32 x 2 = 64

64 x 2 = 128

128 x 2 = 256

256 x 2 = 512

512 x 2 = 1024

Now just imagine if you started with 100 people spreading your message, or 1,000 people. You can see that it doesn.t take long before hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people are aware of who you are, and better still, are visiting your web site and buying your products or services. Viral marketing effectively taps into pre-existing social networks that your customers are already using. By creating something that is worth talking about and passing along, you create a “buzz” that spreads across the internet, and traffic floods to your site to see what the buzz is about. Once they are there, if they like what they see, they pass the information along, and the buzz continues to grow. Word of mouth marketing is by far the most effective way to get word out about your site. People will listen to others that they already know and trust much more readily than they will listen to you. These people do not know you, so why should they trust what you are telling them? After all, you might be likely to say anything in order to make a sale. However, they will listen to a friend or family member, especially if the person spreading the word does not have anything to gain by telling them. It is just a friend passing along a great deal they found, or some useful or interesting information.

Donations

Another thing you can consider to make money from your blog is to ask for donations. This method is not for everyone, but if your blog provides information to readers, especially if this information is not readily available in a free format, readers will not have a problem donating.  If your blog is opinion based, you may not get as much of a response, but it can still be worth a shot. Likewise, if your blog is monetized with many other advertising and affiliate opportunities, readers will be less inclined to make donations.   You may want to consider giving readers a way to donate if your blog is just starting out and you offer information of value to your readers. If you do not have a huge readership, donations may be a good way to make enough income to continue your blog until you can utilize other monetization methods that require more traffic.  You may have dismissed donations on your blog because it seems tacky or dishonest, but many bloggers rely on donations for all or part of their income. Your time is valuable, and unless you are happy to write simply as a hobby and not get paid, you have to start somewhere.   Not everyone will donate, but those who do will do so from their own free will because they enjoy reading your blog and wish to see it continue. Most readers will not be put off by a donation button, those who do not wish to donate will not and those who do will. Very few blogs end up loosing traffic as a result of adding a donation button.  There are a few places you can go to set up an account to take donation. Companies such as Pay Pal and Amazon make collecting donations easy and only take a few minutes to set up.  If you already have a Pay Pal account, you can go to their website and look into setting up a donation request. It doesn’t take long and you simply insert a button into your blog that users can click and then make donations via Pay Pal. Amazon also has a similar donation program called the Honor System where bloggers can sign up and insert a button in their blog to accept donations. You can get the information you need from amazon.com by clicking the Honor System link at the bottom of the home page.  Remember, like any monetization method having a good amount of traffic and offering quality content is the key to being successful. You will not collect many donations if you do not have many readers or offer them something of value. This is why your blogs content and traffic are important.   Make sure you give your readers a reason to come back and a reason to donate, so they do not miss the next installment of your blog. If readers value what you write they will not hesitate to donate to keep your blog going. 

Create A Newsletter

If you have a successful blog with a large readership, you can consider branching out with a newsletter or email campaign to make some extra cash. Creating this type of campaign will require extra work, but if done correctly can ultimately leads to more profit.  Chances are if you have dedicated readers who enjoy your blogs, you can profit from giving them an interesting opt in newsletter or email campaign. This list can then be used for other marketing promotions or you can monetize your newsletter.  If your blogs offer something of value to your readers, chances are they will expect your newsletter or email campaign to do the same. This is a good thing because you will attract subscribers, but if you don’t deliver you will find that many of your readers end up unsubscribing. Add value to your email correspondences in the same way you make your blogs interesting to retain and attract subscribers.   Make sure you give readers something of value in these emails and give them a reason to read them so that your advertising methods have the greatest chances of being successful. If you promise little known tips or hard to find information, you better deliver or readers will unsubscribe. A good way to drive subscriptions is to include extra information in your newsletter or to conclude a blog entry in an email for subscribers only. Readers will be eager to get the whole story and will be more likely to subscribe to your newsletter if you give them a reason. Sign up systems that include free incentives are also a good way to get subscribers, it doesn’t have to be something fancy, a free e-book or list of tips is all you need.  Monetizing a newsletter or email campaign is similar to monetizing your blog. While you cannot use AdSense and other similar advertising methods, you can directly sell ad space, and depending on the size of your subscriber list you can charge a hefty sum.   You can also use affiliate marketing in your newsletter, just be sure to have the bulk of your newsletter contains relevant content and not just ads or else your readership will fall. Make sure your affiliate marketing is related to the content of your newsletter or email and that your audience will be interested in what you are promoting.  You can also sell your own merchandise through your newsletter. If you have created merchandise with your blog logo or related slogans, adding a link in your news letter asking readers to check out your store or merchandise won’t hurt, just make sure it is paired with good content.  If you build up a large subscriber base, you can also use it to send other email campaigns and promotions for your merchandise, book, or affiliate products. A word of caution, however, no one likes unsolicited emails so you should be sure that you have permission to send additional emails and that they offer something of value and are not just viewed as annoyances.

Join a Blogging Network

If you are just starting a blog, you should consider blogging on an established network. Most of the time, joining a network is free or low cost and can help greatly in driving traffic to your blog and with setting up advertising opportunities.  There are many blogging networks, some are more popular than others and depending on what your needs are, some may be better suited for you. Some of the most popular blogging networks are:

Weblogs, Inc  – Weblogs is one of the most popular blogging networks. Sign up is free although you do have to apply for an account by submitting a few sample entries to make sure they are suitable for the site.

Blogger  – Blogger is easy to use and free, and allows you to create your blog in a few easy steps. You can customize the look of your blog easily from the Blogger website and gain traffic from being a part of the Blogger network. 

451 Press  –  Although they are still in Beta, 451 Press accepts bloggers who want to gain exposure and write about their passions. You can make money right from the site with your blog and there are plenty of blogging categories to choose from.

Joining a Blogging Network may be the best thing for you, especially if you are just starting out with your blog. You should consider all the benefits of joining a blogging network, with the drawbacks before starting your blog. If you already have a blog, but it is not receiving much traffic, you can consider sw itching to a blogging network where your blog will receive more attention. If you are just starting out, a blogging network will help you to gain traffic but it may limit you in the long run if you want to make changes to your blog or if your blog becomes wildly popular.  f you already have a successful blog, then joining a blogging networks is probably not a good idea for you. You will be limited by the bandwidth your blog can receive and may not be able to carry over your existing design elements.

 

Review Products

Some bloggers do not participate in paid reviews and product inclusion  because it can be misleading if you do not state that you are being paid for your testimonial or recommendation. If you feel as though reviewing products or recommending them to your readers without disclosing that you are being paid is dishonest, then the practice is not for you.  On the other hand, if you think the products you review are worthwhile and are worthy of mention in your blog, what better way to make money then sharing these products with your readers.   There are a few different websites that will connect you with companies that will pay you to include their product or service in your blog. The pay ranges per assignment and you may be required to write a few sentences about a specific product or a few paragraphs, or even a whole blog entry. Generally your blog has to receive a good deal of traffic to get accepted by these websites, and depending on how much work you do for them payment can be slight or substantial. If you want to try your hand at reviewing products for payment, check out these sites:

Creamaid  – While this site is not solely dedicated to reviewing products, many of their opportunities are for posting your opinion in your blog for payment. Different “conversations” are started on the site and you pick the ones that look interesting to you. Some require you to review a product or website in your blog and other require you to post comments elsewhere; of course you can always include a link to your blog which will bring it more traffic.

Reviewme  – This site is dedicated to connecting bloggers with companies who want reviews written. You submit your blog and if it is accepted, companies will request that you write a review for them depending on the content of your blog.  Reviewme states that you get paid between $20 and $200 per review. Your blog does have to have a minimum number of readers to qualify but you can always resubmit if it does not meet the criteria the first time. 

Pay Per Post  – Pay Per Post is similar to Reviewme. You submit your blog for approval and when it is approved you can start reviewing products and websites in your blog for cash.  Pay Per Post has a market place where you can pick which opportunities you want to write about and payment varies according to the assignment you choose. 

Sponsored Revie ws  – This site lets you submit your blog and then pick from a listing of review opportunities or lets companies contact you directly and request a review. Payment varies by assignment.

Smorty  – Smorty is all about providing your opinion in your blog about an available advertiser’s campaign. you may not be reviewing a product per say, but you will be giving your opinion. Your blog has to be indexed by google, older than three months, and have at least two new posts per week. Posting your opinion or review for advertisers is a good way to make cash from your blog. You should remember, however, that like affiliate marketing blatant attempts to advertise to readers does not usually work as well as naturally including a review or opinion in your blog.

Affiliate Marketing

If you do not want to run ads on your blog, or you are looking for an additional way to monetize your blog, affiliate marketing is a good way to make money provided you have plenty of readers to market to.   Affiliate marketing does not have to be blatant “hey buy this” advertising, rather bloggers can subtly slip in a review or recommendation for a product and include their affiliate link in their blog.   If you can find an affiliate product that is relevant to the topic of your blog and you do a good job of slipping it in, you can stand to make some tidy profits. Affiliate marketing generally pays more per sale than you would make per click with other forms of advertising, but you have to have visitors that both click on your affiliate link and purchase the product.  The best way to make sure readers purchase the affiliate products you market is to pick products your audience will be interested in and that are relevant to your blog. If you blog about outdoor living, chances are no one will respond to your affiliate marketing attempts at selling PSP downloads.   Make sure the product you are trying sell will appeal to your readers and that you can do a good job of including it in your blog without seeming to preachy or desperate. Keep your marketing attempts natural and make sure they fit in with the flow of your blog. there are plenty of places to go to find affiliate marketing opportunities. Many websites such as Amazon and eBay have affiliate programs. Your favorite website or company may even have an affiliate program and it can’t hurt to look, especially if they are related to your blog.    You can also find affiliate marketing opportunities on websites that specialize in connecting companies with publishers. The good thing about using one of these websites is that you have a huge list of products to choose form and the website will manage your payments and track your selling statistics. Here is a list of websites you can use to find affiliate marketing opportunities. 

Clickbank  – The most popular affiliate marketing website, Clickbank offers bloggers a dizzying array of products to market as an affiliate. All of their products are digital products, such as e-books and reports.  You can find things on virtually every product, arranged by category. So no matter what you blog about, chances are that you can find an affiliate product on Clickbank. Payouts range from a few dollars per sale to fifty dollars or more.

Commission Junction  – This affiliate website operates in much the same way as Clickbank. Companies add their products to the Commission Junction  marketplace and publishers add links to these products in their blogs. Commission junction offers a wider variety of products, however, some require visitors to buy a product for you to get paid and others require visitors to sign up for newsletters or fill out a form.

Link Share  – Another affiliate website that connects affiliates with products to market. You can pick from a wide variety of products to market on your blog and like Commission Junction, you do not always have to sell something in order to get paid. Sometimes the required action is to get visitors to sign up for a newsletter or fill out a form in order to get paid. 

Affiliate marketing can be a great way to make money from your blog. Remember to keep your marketing attempts natural and try not to “sell,” rather rate or inform. Most affiliate websites that connect you with products to market will keep track of your earnings and statistics which makes them very convenient

Using AdSense In Your Blog

Using AdSense In Your Blog

Now that you know ho to make your blog popular, it is time to profit from it. One of the best ways to monetize your blog is  AdSense, and this advertising program will work with just about any blog and if you receive enough traffic, it  can be very lucrative.  AdSense puts relevant ads on your blog after you sign up and insert a few lines of code into your blog; this requires some basic HTML knowledge and a blog that allows you to modify the HTML. Don’t be intimidated, it is easy to do. The good thing about  AdSense is that the ads are displayed based on the content of your blog, so readers only see ads that will likely appeal to them, increasing the chances that they will click on them.   AdSense operates by pairing relevant ads with your content. As long as your blog has enough content to support a few text ads, you will be able to run a few non intrusive ads along the side of your blog. You will need to have a blog that allows you to add a few lines of HTML code into your blog in order to use AdSense. If your blog is hosted independently, chances are youwill be able to make the necessary modifications. If you blog on a network or on another site, you will have to check to see if it is compatible with AdSense, many are. To get started with  AdSense, go to www.adsense.com and sign up. It is free to use  AdSense and if you have an existing Google account you can use it as your  AdSense account as well. Signing up with  AdSense is free, but you must provide tax information and report your earnings.     you then choose what type of ads you want displayed on your blog. You have the choice of text ads that run along the top, side, or bottom of your blog or graphic ads that display an ad with a picture on your blog, either in a size  like a banner ad or in a smaller size.   AdSense is a cost per click advertising program, which means that every time that a visitor clicks on an ad in your blog you get paid. Google does not disclose exactly how much you make for each click before you sign up, but you can track your daily, weekly and monthly earnings once you have started running  AdSense and calculate how much you are making per click. If you do not have a large readership base, most types of monetization on your blog will probably not be successful and  AdSense is no exception. The more people you have clicking your ads, the more money you make.Earnings will vary widely depending on how many visitors you receive and if your blog is very popular you can make a good income from  AdSense alone.

Creating A Popular Blog

Creating A Popular Blog

If you want to make money through blogging, creating a popular blog is the key to success. If your blog receives very little traffic, you will not havemuch success monetizing it. No matter which method you use to makemoney from your blog, you will find the most success if you have a largereadership. Because of this, making your blog popular and growingreadership should beone of your primary concerns. There are many ways to make your blog more popular. The first thing youshould consider is who your audience is and who you are writing for. Youshould always write about something that interests you, and that willinterest others. You may think that your new kitten is the greatest thingsince sliced bread, but there are probably not very many other people whowant to read a blog about it. It is best to find a niche audience that is largeenough to support a wide readership but not to vague. One of the

great things about blogging is that you do not have to be a professional writer to have a popular blog. You do have to obey common grammatical rules and at least be able to put together coherent sentences, but you do not have to be a highly skilled writer.  Blog readers are looking for interesting, relevant topics to read, not the next work of Shakespeare. Make sure what you write is interesting, edgy, or even controversial. Popular blogs are never boring and add value to reader’s lives either through information or entertainment. Make sure your blog adds something of value to your reader’s life otherwise you will not develop a large fan base.  Making your blog popular is a lot like  driving traffic to a website. You can use many of the same techniques to drive traffic to your blog. Finding places to link back to your blog is a good way to drive traffic. Social sites such as Myspace, Facebook, and You tube provide lots of opportunities for this. You can also use social book marking sites such as Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg to promote your blog. Blogging on a popular blog site such as Wordpress and Blogger are also good ways to make your  log more popular as these blogging sites help to bring in traffic for your blog.  Whether you blog on a blogging network or you have an independently hosted blog, you need to make sure your blog is designed well. It is true that content is king and if a blog has great content is may receive lots of traffic even though it is ugly, having a well designed blog that is not ugly or annoying will help to drive repeat traffic. You want your blog to look unique, but not too unique. Keep with internet formalities such as blue links and use large font for headings.   You should break your post up into small paragraphs each with a headline if possible as internet readers tend to scan the screen looking for relevant  information rather than reading everything word for word. Make sure your colors do not contrast too harshly and that the text is easy to read. Using good design will make your blog aesthetically pleasing and make readers more likely to come back and remain on your page.   No matter where your blog is hosted, you should try to get it indexed by all the major search engines. Some forms of blog monetization require that your blog be indexed by search engines before they will allow you to participate in your program. The higher ranked your blog is, the more visitors you will receive and the more popular your blog will become.   All forms of monetization for your blog require readers to work successfully. Before you try to implement your monetization strategies, make sure your blog has enough readers to make your efforts work. If there is no one to click your ads, visit your affiliate sites, or read your reviews, you do not stand much of a chance of making money.

disclaimer

disclaimer

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trust and expectation

Trust

Back in the days when the internet was new, you could slap up a page, offer something for sale, and someone

would buy. Things are different today.

Visitors have certain expectations of a website, and meeting those expectations helps them feel like you

are professional, helpful, and familiar.

With trust and small business relationships, familiarity is a huge thing –

if your site feels familiar and they can find things where they expect to, and the information they want is readily

accessible, then you've begun to forge a long term reciprocal relationship with them.

If your site is awkward, and your information hard to find, and the expected validation info is nowhere to

be seen, they will feel like you are shifty, inexperienced, or untrustworthy. That translates into a lost

sale.

Some common expectations of visitors to your site are:

1.

Understandable product descriptions,

which include necessary performance specs and details.

2.

About Us, and Contact Us info,

placed in an expected area (links at the top or bottom of the page, or

at the bottom of your product or service links). They want to know who you are and how to reach you.

3. Clearly posted prices.

4.

Clearly posted and reasonable support and guarantee policies.

Also, shipping policies, return

policies, and privacy policies, if they apply to your business.

5.

Easy navigation

(covered in detail in the navigation section).

6.

A professional site design, that works predictably.

It does not need to be elaborate, it DOES have to

work!

Think about how you react when you come into a site, and find things that are confusing, misplaced, or

completely missing. Do you want your customer to act that way?

Web standards and styles have changed in the last few years also.

Business sites that looked like personal

sites used to be acceptable, but they are not now. The expectation of professionalism is a lot higher now than it

used to be, and people will assume that if you cannot afford to hire a designer – or to do a quality job yourself –

that you are not successful at business. And they like to patronize successful businesses.

The same issue holds with free web space. Someone else's ads on your product or service sales site is not

good. It makes you look desperate. Lack of a true domain also makes you look cheap –

after all, a domain

name only costs about $9 a year. Good hosting costs less than $10 a month, so if your business is

making anything at all, or if you expect it to, then it is a reasonable expense, and a necessary one.

It isn't all about money, and it isn't all about hiring someone to do it for you.

It just means that if you do it

yourself, you need to be prepared to spend a lot of time learning about it, and be willing to take criticism so you

can improve it and make it work well. Web design is now a highly complex field, with many areas of sub-

specialty. It takes years to learn, layer on layer, to develop the proficiency to build a site that functions flawlessly

all the way around.

When you hire someone, and you have a tight budget, you need to make sure they are making cost

cutting economies in areas where it won't hurt your site's ability to do what you need it to do right now.

That means they won't try to sell you on a 3 page “business card” site (which will not help your business and

may hurt it), they won't take shortcuts with the basic essential elements, and won't waste time or money on fluff

at the expense of core function.

Because it is a certainty that if they make the wrong cost containment

choices, it will affect your visitor's trust level on the site.

Web builders are not capable of leveling the playing field either, they produce templates that do not reflect the

character of your business, and which are not in any way unique. The sites are also typically slow, inflexible, and

LOOK like they were produced by a web builder.

Not all business owners will be able to quickly learn the basics – or they may feel it frustrates them so

 

badly that it is not worth it to them. For those who can learn these skills, it takes time, and good

instructions.

Sadly, most of the problems with trust issues in a site are created by web designers who charged the

site owner for the work.

Many are caused by do it yourself site owners who simply did not have the time to

learn everything at once (no criticism there!), but given the time it takes to learn the skills, it is understandable.

Web designers, though, ought to know better!

One reason we created this book is so business owners would be able to spot issues more easily

themselves,

whether they are doing it themselves, or whether they are hiring someone.

Business owners who

understand basic issues with web design are empowered, and do not need to be held hostage by

problems that they do not know how to spot.

A business owner SHOULD specialize in their business. But they need to know enough about what makes good

design to be able to insure that their site welcomes and reassures the visitor, and presents a virtual business

presence that is persuasive and effective in increasing revenue.

Common Website Mistakes to Avoid

Ok, here is the comprehensive listing of “Bad Website Ideas”, that will hopefully help you know what

design and text issues to avoid.

This is a listing of common mistakes made by first time website designers,

and do it yourself web designers (and an appallingly large number of professed commercial web designers!). It is

not meant to criticize, but to help you understand what the mistakes are, why they matter, and what to do

instead. It can also help you insure that your designer is doing a quality job if you have hired someone on a strict

budget.

Some of these issues are covered in context in other sections, this listing is just a quick reference so you can

assess a site quickly.

1.

Bad Backgrounds

– Background patterns that have high contrast will conflict with text. You can put the

image into a graphics program, and turn the contrast down, and the brightness up. You may need to

adjust the color some. Wash it out so it is very pale. If you still want it strong, then put your text into a

box with a plain colored background, and just keep the pattern around the outside of the box.

2.

Huge Images

– Compress large images, and crop and scale them so that they are faster to download.

3.

Sound Loops

– These are annoying! Set the sound to loop just two or three times, or give your visitors

the option of turning it off.

4.

Unnecessary Flash

– Make it optional, or make sure that Flash design really is an asset to 95% or

more of your site visitors. Otherwise, use a simpler development method.

5.

Useless Pages

– Each page should be there for a reason that benefits the customer. If it is not, then

take it out.

6.

Wasting Time

– Awkward functions, cumbersome shopping carts, slow pages, features that do not

work, confusing instructions, etc. Have several people review your site, and take their comments

seriously.

7.

Bad Doorways

– Home pages that say nothing but “click to enter”, or that have obscure graphics for

entering the site. Get to the point, provide options and good info on your home page!

8.

Bad Text Size

– Keep text sizes compact, but not too small – size 2 or 3 is right for most info, 1 or 2 for

less important, 4 or 5 for emphasis.

9.

Low Contrast

– Make sure your text and background color contrast well. Avoid “vibrating colors” (colors

of the same intensity which compete for attention). Avoid pale pink on white, or yellow on white, unless

you choose very intense colors. Remember, always choose a stronger contrast with text than you think

you need to, as it tends to wash out due to its small size.

10.

Bad Frames

– Do not use frames unless you have a strong reason for doing so. They are bad for

search engine indexing, and they are of no use to the visitor.

11.

Overlapping Items

– Check your site in several browsers. Some HTML editing programs produce items

that do not stay in the same place all the time, and this can cause embarrassing problems.

12.

Horizontal Scroll

– Avoid making a site so big that most of your visitors have to scroll sideways to see it

all. 1000 pixels wide is the largest you want to make a site currently.

13.

No Scroll

– NEVER set a page to No Scroll. All it does is permanently remove the scroll bars – maybe

you think that looks nice, but it means that your visitors cannot even SEE the parts that are hidden,

because they cannot scroll to get at them. It is rude.

14.

MS Word Pages

– PLEASE, PLEASE do not create pages in MS Word, Open Office, Publisher, Excel,

or other programs that were not designed to create web pages as their primary function! They do it

badly! Try out NVU (a free HTML editor) – it is not perfect but at least it does better than secondary

programs. MS Office programs are the worst, they produce bloated code, and pages that do not function

predictably. NO professional designer worth paying will use that kind of program!

15.

Form Problems

– Make sure your forms function, or put an email address on the page. Remember,

when a form does not function, the visitor has no way of telling you that it did not function!

16.

No Contact

– No contact means “possible scam”. Make sure you have clear contact information posted

– on every page, or on a Contact page that is accessible from every page.

17.

Popups

– Don't use popups. They annoy people. Do not use dhtml “windows” either – they STILL annoy

people! Annoying your site visitors is not good. Half of all visitors have them turned off anyway, so they

won't even see it long enough to BE annoyed.

18.

Typos

– Clean up your text. A typo or two is not going to be a big deal. A page riddled with them is

unprofessional, and deadly to a business.

 

19.

Purely Ugly

– Lack of aesthetic balance, bad graphics, ugly color combinations, etc. Ask your neighbor

– the one with the nicely decorated house, for a site review. Then listen.

20.

Bad Animations

– Too fast, too many, or unmeaningful animations need to be corrected. Slower frame

rates are more effective, and no more than ONE animation per screen view.

21.

Bad Navigation

– Confusing, illogical, or tangled navigation needs to be corrected. Logical link names,

logical categories and organization of pages, and no more than three clicks to get to what you want (in

general – there are a few exceptions to this).

22.

Flashing or Scrolling Text

– Avoid it except for a single word or two at most – attention getters only,

NEVER use it for key content or important titles. Keep it slow enough to actually READ, or it is useless.

23.

Poor Information

– Talking about it but never getting to the point, lack of unique content, inaccurate

information, badly written information, etc. Clean it up and give it genuine value.

24.

No Consistency

– Message, design, navigation, and function should coordinate throughout the entire

site. If it doesn't, it confuses your visitor and makes them think your business is unreliable.

25.

No Marketing

– You have to register your site with the search engines, but you also have to market it in

effective ways. If you don't, it won't grow.

26.

Overcomplexity

– Keep It Simple Silly! Simple sites that work well are the goal. Do not make anything

more complex than it needs to be to perform essential functions.

27.

No Differentiation

– Your site needs something valuable and unique about it.

28.

All Links, No Info

– A page of links is not information. If you provide a directory, give commentary on

the links.

29.

Browser Specific

– It is rude to tell your visitors that they have to use a certain browser to visit your

site. This is a sure way to lose customers.

30.

Requires Plugins

– Don't require plug-ins unless you have a compelling reason (which benefits the

customer).

31.

Under Construction

– Avoid “under construction” signs. They stop search engine indexing, and they

make people think you are unprepared. Use a more helpful notice, such as, “We are not completely

finished adding information or products to this site, if you need something that is not available yet,

please email us and we'll be happy to help you personally.” This provides something of value.

32.

5 Pages or Less

– You cannot showcase a business well enough to compete when using only a 5 page

website. You need certain standard pages (About, Contact, Policies, etc), to maintain credibility, and you

need well thought out information pages which answer the questions that the visitor is most likely to

have. A “one page website” REALLY hurts your credibility! The dirty secret of web design is that it takes

very little more effort to create a 10 page website (which will be sufficient to either showcase a simple

business well, or to provide a solid foundation for a larger site) for very little more than a 5 page one.

The design and structure process is the most complicated aspect of a simple site, and adding pages is

easy after that. If they can provide a 5 page website for $400 or $500, they can give you a 10 page one

for $500 or $700, because all they have to do is use the same template, and put in additional content (if

they tell you it will cost you $100 a page to add pages, RUN, don't walk, and find a more reasonable

designer!).

That was a long list, but it includes the most common issues. Notice, they are not things like “failure to comply

with W3C coding standards” or anything else that is technical. They are identifiable, and correctable things.

This list doesn't cover every reason why a business site does not make money, but it does cover the most

common reasons why people leave a site instantly.