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NEW:
10 Tips For Getting More Traffic From Your Articles |
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by Michael Southon |
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Here's a disturbing fact if you sell anything on the web:
the #1 reason people go online is not to buy things but to
find free information.
But that's great news - if you write free articles. It
means you have a technique you can plug in and use whenever
you need more traffic.
Writing articles is still one of the quickest and easiest
ways of bringing targeted traffic to your website. Articles
will bring you traffic from three sources:
=> Newsletters - very few ezine publishers write their own
content. They need free articles from people like you.
=> Websites - webmasters want content-rich websites. They
also need your articles.
=> Search Engines - the URL in your resource box increases
your link popularity, resulting in higher search engine
rankings for your website
Here are some tips for getting more traffic from your
articles:
1. Start your article with a sentence that grabs your
reader's attention. People are bombarded with information
on the Internet - they'll decide whether to read your
article in the first sentence. If it intrigues them, if it
startles them, if it excites them, if it engages them, if
it challenges them, they'll keep reading.
2. Submit your articles to the article announcement lists.
Here are the lists I submit to:
http://www.ezine-writer.com/article-lists.html
3. Submit your articles to the online article banks. Here
are the top 10 article banks:
http://www.ezine-writer.com/top10.html
4. Create a 'New Articles' list for people who want to
receive your latest articles. Put a sign-up form on your
website and invite your visitors to join. When you submit
articles to the article announcement lists, include the
email address for joining your 'New Articles' list.
5. Don't put a date in your article copyright - articles
you wrote 2 years ago may still be relevant but if the
copyright says 2001, publishers will assume the
information is out-of-date.
6. Create a zip file containing all your previous articles
as text files - include the download link on your website,
in your sig file, in your autoresponders, and in your
Ezine 'Welcome Message'.
7. Check your articles with SpamAssassin and include a note
that says "this article was checked by SpamAssassin and is
spam-safe".
8. Write your Resource Box in the third person and not in
the form an ad - Ezine Publishers may like your article but
object to your Resource Box.
9. When you submit your articles to the article lists,
include URLs for your article and your photo:
http://www.ezine-writer.com/article62.html
http://www.ezine-writer.com/photo-ms.jpg
10. Likewise, include your article's autoresponder address:
article62@ezine-writer.com
Well, that's it - all the info you need to get more traffic
from your articles!
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How To Create a Perpetual Traffic Generator |
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by Michael Southon |
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What runs through your mind when you hear that ezine
articles will bring you masses of free traffic, get
you higher listings in the search engines, and raise
your profile on the web?
For many people, their reaction is this: "But I'm not
an expert - how can I write an article?"
Well, you don't have to be an expert and you don't
even have to write the article - at least not much of
it.
Interviewing internet experts is one of the easiest
ways of coming up with new articles - all you do is
ask the questions!
Here are some tips on how to interview internet
experts:
1. Ask them to introduce themselves to your readers -
how did they get started in eCommerce? What products
or services do they market and what are their domain
names?
2. What is their main promotion technique? Why does it
work so well?
3. Did they have a mentor? How important was their
mentor in getting where they are today?
4. What is the biggest mistake they made in their
online career?
5. What projects are they working on right now?
6. What is the one program or software they couldn't
do without?
7. What single piece of advice would they give to
someone starting out in online business?
Once you get their answers, you'll immediately come up
with half-a-dozen follow-on questions. Write back to
them with your extra questions. You'll quickly have
more material than you can fit in your article.
To make your article flow properly, use chatty phrases
like: "that's interesting, Joe..." or "that's a really
good tip, Mary". Give the reader the feeling that you
were having a real conversation.
The amazing thing about this technique is you'll never
run out of new articles - there are enough experts on
the web to keep you going for years to come.
Which is why I call this system The Perpetual Traffic
Generator.
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'An eBook Publisher's Dilemma: Should I Use PDF or Exe Format?' |
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by Michael Southon |
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If you write and publish eBooks, sooner or later you
will probably be faced with a dilemma - should you
create your eBooks as .exe files or .pdf files?
PDF, which stands for Portable Document Format, is the
file extension for files created with Adobe Acrobat.
Exe, which stands for 'executable', is the extension
for files created by eBook compilers.
PDF is widely considered to be the 'industry standard'
for eBook publishing, and for good reason. Here are
some of the advantages of PDF files over exe files:
(1) With most eBook compilers you have to set up each
page of your eBook as a separate web page. With Adobe
Acrobat you can use a single MS Word file as the
source document.
(2) PDF files automatically number each page - exe
files don't.
(3) PDF files are very easy to edit - you can insert
pages, replace pages and delete pages (and the page
numbering is automatically adjusted).
(4) Printing from a PDF file is much easier than
printing from an .exe file.
(5) The 'bookmark' column on the left side of a PDF
file makes navigation very easy - much easier than in
an exe file.
(6) PDF files compress better than exe files, so you
end up with a smaller, more manageable file.
(7) It's virtually impossible to transmit a virus
through a PDF file - exe files are susceptible to
virus transmission and can become corrupted during
download.
(8) Finally, by using PDF you automatically expand
your potential market because PDF files can be read on
both a PC and a Mac (exe files can only be read on a
PC). Over 8 percent of the online population in the
U.S. are currently Mac users
(www.nielsen-netratings.com) - not a huge increase in
your market, but nevertheless significant.
But exe files do have some advantages over PDF files.
Until recently, one of the most important of these was
price - most eBook compilers are a fraction of the
cost of Adobe Acrobat.
However, a number of PDF creators have recently
appeared on the market with price tags similar to those
of eBook compilers. Here are some of them:
http://pdfcreator.com/
http://www.jawspdf.com/
http://www.win2pdf.com/
Another advantage of exe files over PDF is the
rebranding feature. The following eBook compilers all
have a built-in rebranding function:
http://www.ebookcompiler.com/
http://www.ebookgenerator.com/
http://www.ebookedit.com/
http://www.ebookpaper.com/
If you use free eBooks as a viral marketing tool,
rebranding is the key to success, because people are
much more likely to promote your free eBook if they
can customize it with their own affiliate links.
(c) 2002 by Michael Southon
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Ten Tips for Getting More Sales From Your Website |
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by Michael Southon |
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(1) Create a Direct Response Website, with the
minimum number of pages possible (e.g. an Index Page,
a Contact Page, and an Order Page).
(2) Make sure your sales copy is positive and
inspiring - people buy things because they want to
improve their lives.
(3) Identify a problem and show people how and why
your product or service solves the problem.
(4) Keep your paragraphs short - no more than 2
sentences per paragraph.
(5) Use bold headings to break up your sales copy
into short chunks of text.
(6) Use a bulleted list to itemize the benefits of
your product or service. Start each benefit with an
action word: "turn", "make", "triple", "grab",
"create", "build", "convert", "start", "change",
"drive", "organize", "promote", "develop", "learn",
"compel", "fill", "attract", "get", "earn", "take",
"discover", "produce", "find", "generate", "acquire".
"inspire", "send", "blast".
(7) Give your visitors at least 3 order links (e.g.
1/3rd of the way down your page, 2/3rds the way down,
and at the bottom). But don't stop there - turn some
of your key phrases into hyperlinks that go to your
order page. Here are some examples of phrases that you
could link to your order page: "increase your sales",
"take advantage of this offer", "try it risk-free for
30 days", "get the following 5 bonuses", "the
competitive edge you need", "this risk-free offer".
(8) Use purple (#990099, R=153 G=0 B=153) text - the
color purple (used sparingly) has been shown to
increase sales.
(9) Give a time limit - most people are
procrastinators.
(10) At the end of your sales copy make a call to
action: "Act now - don't let this opportunity pass by"
© 2002 by Michael Southon
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'5 Power Tips To Double Your Online Sales' |
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by Michael Southon |
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"How Can I Double My Sales?" - that must be the
silent prayer of thousands of webmasters.
There are two ways to do it: you can either double
your traffic or you can double your conversion rate.
Let's say you have a conversion rate of 2% (1 sale for
every 50 visitors) and you get 100 visitors a day -
you're getting 2 sales a day. You could get 4 sales a
day by increasing your traffic to 200 visitors a day.
But you can get the same result - with your existing
traffic - by doubling your conversion rate (2 sales
for every 50 visitors).
Here are 5 ways to double your conversion rate:
(1) Direct Response: Make sure your website is a
'Direct Response Website'. A DRW is a site where the
only options are to Buy, Bookmark, or Leave. The more
options you give your visitor, the less likely they
are to buy.
(2) Free E-Books: Include Free E-Books as bonus
gifts with your product. This can easily double your
sales - especially if the Free E-Books are genuinely
useful. Here are some places you can find Free
E-Books:
http://www.free-ebooks.net/
http://www.ebookdirectory.com/
http://www.ebooksnbytes.com/download.html
(3) Testimonials: Make sure you have plenty of
testimonials on your website. Preferably, they should
be from customers who have achieved results from your
product (e.g. more traffic, more sales, saved time
etc).
(4) Follow Up: You've probably heard this over and
over again but it's worth repeating - people have to
see you your message about 7 times before they buy.
The biggest mistake you can make is to try and sell
your product on the first contact alone.
It just doesn't work, and the statistics bear this
out: the 1st contact produces 2% of sales, the 5th to
12th contact produce 80% of sales.
So in your ezine ads and at your website, offer
something free in exchange for an email address. And
then follow up with sequential (or follow-up)
autoresponders.
Here are some sites that offer free follow-up
autoresponders:
http://www.auto-responders.net
http://www.informationbyemail.com
http://www.getresponse.com/orderfree.html
http://www.rapidreply.net/free_features.htm
(5) Backend Sales: It's no secret that successful
businesses make up to 80% of their sales from previous
customers. Why? Because people who have bought from
you before are much more likely to buy from you again
(they know you, they trust you, they were happy with
your product).
The hard work in marketing is getting a customer. Once
you have a customer, they'll buy from you over and
over again.
Contact your previous customers and let them know
about another product that compliments the product or
service they bought from you. Experts reckon that the
value of 'a lifetime customer' lasts about 3 years -
make use if it.
If you follow these 5 tips, you may well find that
you can double your online sales with the traffic you
already have.
To your success!
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'Eight Tips for Ezine Writers' |
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by Michael Southon |
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Have you ever wondered why Ezine Articles have become
one of the most effective marketing techniques on the
Web?
The reason is quite simple.
People very rarely go online looking for something to
buy. They go online looking for information - free
information.
They want to be educated, entertained and informed.
And the best way to do that is to write free Articles
for Newsletters.
At the bottom of your Article is your 4- or 5-line
Resource Box. That's what turns your Article into one
of the most powerful marketing techniques on the Web.
Here are eight tips to help you write your Articles
and get them published.
(1) Never allow yourself to think that you've run out
of ideas. Instead, have the opposite thought: that
there are more ideas than you could possibly write
about. I heard someone saying recently (with regard to
Ezine Articles) that everything that could possibly be
written about has already been written about.
Nonsense! The Internet is evolving so fast that even
if you wrote a new Article every day, you still
couldn't keep up.
(2) The Golden Rule of Five. Keep your Article titles
short - no more than five words. Ezine Editors love
short titles (they fit into the subject field of an
email).
(3) Keep your paragraphs short - no more than 3
sentences. It's much harder to read a computer screen
than a printed page - so make it easy for your
readers.
(4) Make sure your Article flows properly. The easiest
way to do this is to write down the opening and
closing sentences of each of your paragraphs, then
read what you have. If it makes sense and moves along
nicely, you have an Article that is well organized and
flows properly.
(5) Include a word count at the top of your Article.
This makes it easy for an Ezine Editor to make a quick
decision on whether to use your Article. It also shows
you've been thorough in preparing your Article for
publication.
(6) Check all the links in your Article before
submitting it. Then include a note that says: 'All the
links in this Article were checked and verified on
(date)'. Again, this saves time for the Ezine Editor
and demonstrates that you've been thorough.
(7) Offer a Free Report in your Resource Box. When
someone reads your Article in an Ezine, they probably
won't be connected to the Internet. So the challenge
is this: to offer something so interesting and
exciting that they'll fire up their modem and visit
your website. The best way to do that is to offer a
Free Report.
(8) Put all your Articles on autoresponders and then
create another autoresponder that lists all your
Articles, with an autoresponder address for each
Article (e.g.: all-articles@yourdomain.com). When you
submit your Article to a List or to an Article
Archive, always include a note that says: "For a
complete list of Articles by this author please send a
blank email to: all-articles@yourdomain.com"
Remember - Ezine Articles are probably the fastest way
there is of building your presence on the Web and
getting your message in front of a targeted audience.
Happy writing!
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'What's Wrong With My Website?' |
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by Michael Southon |
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I ask myself that question about once a month.
My website looks fine to me, but what are other
people seeing? And what are the Search Engines
seeing? Here's a checklist of 10 ways to keep your
website at peak performance:
1. Browser Compatibility
The first thing is to look at your website through
other people's browsers. I do this regularly and I've
sometimes been shocked at what I saw!
ANYBROWSER
http://www.anybrowser.com
2. Broken Links
About 5% of all links on the Internet are broken. A
site that contains broken links gives a bad impression
to visitors and is a frequent cause of lost sales.
Also, the major Search Engines and Directories will not
list your page if it contains any broken links or missing
images.
Here are some free link validators:
LINK SCAN
http://www.elsop.com/linkscan/quickcheck.html
NET MECHANIC
http://www.netmechanic.com/maintain.htm
WEBSITE GARAGE DEADLINK CHECK
http://websitegarage.netscape.com/O=wsg/tuneup_plus/index.html
3. Web Safe Colors
Are the colors on your web site displaying properly on
other people's browsers? You may have a beautiful
shade of lilac on your index page but it could look
very strange on someone else's computer.
There are only 216 colors that you can safely use on
the Web. These colors display solid and consistent on
any computer monitor or web browser that is able to
display at least 8-bit color.
The Web Safe Palette contains six groups of colors
with 36 colors per group. These 216 web safe colors
can have any combination of the following RGB (Red
Green Blue) values: 0, 51, 102, 153, 204, 255 (each
RGB value must be divisible by 51).
Here's a good palette of web safe colors:
WEB-SOURCE SAFE COLORS
http://www.web-source.net/216_color_chart.htm
4. ALT Tags
ALT Tags allow you to give an alternative to people
who have the 'view images' function turned off in
their browser. Let's say the navigation system on your
website is a series of buttons that link to other
pages on your site. If you don't have ALT Tags, people
who have the 'view images' function turned off will
be unable to navigate through your site - in place
of your button they will just see an empty space.
But an ALT Tag allows you to tell those people what
that button does. For example, if the button is a link
to your 'Site Map' you could insert the following ALT
Tag: <IMG SRC=sitemap.gif BORDER=0 ALT="Click here to
view Site Map">
ALT Tags also allow you to raise your keyword density.
For every image that is not hyperlinked you could
insert your main keywords. For example: <IMG
SRC=bullet.gif BORDER=0 ALT="airfares cheap discount
flights">
5. Meta Tags
Meta Tags are so important they deserve a whole
article on their own. The most important Meta Tags are
the Title Tag, the Keywords Tag and the Description Tag.
The Title Tag should be no more than 64 characters
(longer than that and it will be cut off in some
Search Engines).
The Keyword Tag should contain about 5 to 10 keywords
that appear on your page. Never include words that do
not appear on that page - in some Search Engines your website
will be penalized for this. Do not repeat the same keyword -
this is called 'keyword stuffing' and is also frowned upon by
the Search Engines.
Separate your keywords with spaces (not commas). This
allows the Search Engines to combine your keywords into phrases,
for people who do 'phrase searching'.
The Description Tag should be no more than 200 characters.
Include as many of your keywords as you can. Remember also that
your Description Tag must be enticing - it must make people
want to visit your site.
Here are some programs that will generate your Meta
Tags for you:
WEBSITE GARAGE
http://websitegarage.netscape.com/turbocharge/metatag/
META MEDIC
http://www.northernwebs.com/set/setsimjr.html
MULTI-META-MAKER
http://www.multimeta.com/tools/multimetamaker.html
6. Load Time
A slow-loading index page is one of the main reasons
for lost sales. The generally accepted maximum time
for a page to load is around 15 seconds. Here is a
free service that tells you how long your web page
takes to load:
NetMechanic
http://www.netmechanic.com/cobrands/FutureQuest/load_check.htm
Your pages should be no more than about 30Kb in size.
To calculate the size of your web page, highlight the
HTML document and then click on 'File' and
'Properties' and note down the file size. Then do the
same for any graphics you have on that page. Then add
those figures together to get your page size.
If your page is less than 30Kb and takes more than 15
seconds to load, the problem is most likely with your
web host. The solution is to change web host. Here are
2 services that will check the speed of your web host's
server and compare it with other web hosts:
HOST COMPARE
http://www.hostcompare.com/testtools.htm
CNET WEBSERVICES
http://webservices.cnet.com/ping/
7. GIF (or JPEG) Cruncher
Shrinking the size of your images is one of the best
ways to get a faster-loading web page. You can usually
reduce a GIF or JPEG image by 40% to 50% without
losing any significant definition or sharpness.
SPINWAVE
http://www.spinwave.com/crunchers.html
8. HTML Optimizer
Another way to make your page load faster is to
compress (or optimize) your HTML code. An HTML
Optimizer removes all blank spaces in your HTML code
and also removes certain unnecessary tags.
On average, an HTML optimizer will reduce the size of
your page by 15% to 20%. That percentage may not seem
much, but the saving in load time is much higher, as
your visitor's browser will parse your page much more
efficiently.
A word of caution: in most HTML Optimizers you will
find an 'Options' menu that tells the program to
ignore certain parts of your code. Make sure your
Optimizer does not compress embedded script tags - if
they get compressed, the script will usually not work.
ADVANCED HTML OPTIMIZER
http://www.pcbit.com/htmlopt/
9. WIDTH, HEIGHT and BORDER Tags
The WIDTH, HEIGHT and BORDER attributes are essential
for each image that you have on your website. When you
hyperlink an image, always make sure that the BORDER
attribute is set to zero (BORDER=0). If you don't do
this, your hyperlinked image will have an ugly blue
border around it.
The WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes allow your page to
load faster, as the browser knows in advance how
much space the image requires. To find out the width
and height of any image, just double click on the
image file. This will automatically open 'Microsoft
Photo Editor' - your image will appear, with the width
and height of your image (in pixels) displayed on the
tool bar.
10. HTML Validator
Always check the validity of your HTML. Some Search
Engines give lower rankings to pages that have poor
quality HTML (such as incorrect nesting of elements).
Here are some free online validators:
HTML HELP
http://www.htmlhelp.org/tools/validator/
SITE INSPECTOR
http://www.siteinspector.com/
BOBBY
http://www.cast.org/bobby/
WATSON
http://watson.addy.com/
(c) by Michael Southon
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the Author:
Michael Southon is the author
of the popular new E-Book, 'Ezine Writer!'
He shows webmasters how use Ezine Marketing to get
more Traffic and more Sales:
http://www.ezine-writer.com/
E-mail this Author: msouthon@freezineweb.com |
