So, you’ve figured out your niche market and have a website, and now you’ve arguably reached the toughest part – how do I get traffic to my site? Paying for traffic via banners and PPC does not always make sense and may not be feasible for your business. Or maybe you just want to supplement your current traffic sources. After all, SEO traffic is typically the best you can get – targeted, high-converting, and best of all, free (nothings actually free, but we often have more time than resources).

A general rules to follow is to make things descriptive and useful to your users. And just be natural! Over-optimizing wastes time and energy and can often hurt more than help.

Doing a little search engine optimization is usually a no-brainer, as you can often do 80% of the work with little time and effort. Here’s my list of 10 quick seo tips and advice to help get you started and improve your rankings.

1. Determine a couple keyword phrases for each page on your site. Don’t just guess what users will be search for – use Google’s and Wordtracker’s keyword tools to make the final descision. You can spend all your time optimizing for “green foosball tables”, but if only 10 people search that in a month, it’s obviously a complete waste of time. Before deciding on a keyword phrase, check how competitive it is. Search for your phrase and take note of the top 10 results in Google. Could you see your site ahead of some of the current results? Do you think you offer something more relevant? Last thing you want to do is to start an endless uphill battle with little chance of success.
2. Optimize all of your page titles. Your title has the most ranking weight for keywords, so you should at least make sure every page has a title containing the keyword phrase(s) it’s targeting. Make sure your title is 70 characters or less (here’s a great tool for optimizing site titles and descriptions. Unless your brand name is extremely important and will be searched by users, put your keywords first and and your brand name last (e.g. Regulation Foosball Tables | Foosball City).
3. Make use of the heading tags (<h1>, <h2>, etc). Make sure each page has an <h1> tag containing the main keyword phrase for the page. You can line up your h1 tag with your page title if you want, although I would consider changing it up a bit to be a little more natural (e.g. “Regulation Foosball Tables for Sale”). Use <h2> tags for secondary keyword phrases, if any.
4. Make sure your images have descriptive alt tags containing your keywords. Make it natural, and don’t make everything word-for-word the same (e.g. “professional foosball table”).
5. Make use of META descriptions, and write a unique one for each page. If you do not have time to add a unique one per page, then don’t bother adding one (identical descriptions may signal duplicate content to Google and the other search engines). Keep in mind that your page description will not provide any actual ranking power, so don’t bother keyword stuffing them – make them helpful to users to improve click-thru rates.
6. Link out to high quality, related sites. Some people speculate you can improve ranking by linking out to relevant sites. Even if that’s not the case, it still provides valuable resouces to your users, and may encourage sites to link back to you. If you’re linking to a spammy, shady, or otherwise non-trusted site (maybe from user-generated content) make sure you include the rel=”nofollow” attribute.
7. Make sure every page has unique content. It shouldn’t be too hard to have at least 200 words per page. Your content should of course contain your keywords, but don’t worry how often it shows up – use slightly different phrases in different contexts, keeping with the “be natural” theme (e.g. “foosball tables”, “regulation foosball table”, etc.).
8. Link to your own pages from within your content. This is especially important for blogs, as older posts get shoved into the archives or moved to page 3+ of your category pages. Look for terms that relate to other pages on your site and make them links. Ideally every page on your site will be within 2 clicks from your home page. You can also accomplish this by creating a sitemap page, linked to from your home page, that links to every page on your site (with appropriate anchor text for each page).
9. Sign up with Google Webmaster Tools. It’s completely free, and is a great resource for SEO. You can find out which of your pages are having issues, what pages are missing, what search terms your site is ranking for, and many other great things. You can also manually submit an xml sitemap, which can help Google index your pages faster and find new content. If you run a WordPress blog, there are several great plugins for automatically generating the sitemap.
10. Build backlinks, but make sure they look natural. If possible, have links to your site contain your keywords, although make sure to change them up a little bit. And have links pointing to pages other than your home page. You can do a few reciprocal links between sites, but try not to go overboard. Don’t waste too much time with link directories besides Yahoo! and DMOZ. If you really are a quality resource, you should be able to get at least a few relevant sites to link to you. And experiment with social networking sites like Digg and Stumbleupon to promote your site.

If you’re still hungry for more SEO tips and discussion, be sure to check out SEOmoz! Great resource, even if you just read the blog.

Putting out a notice that you are looking for guest authors creates a buzz about your site, and welcoming submissions for content or posts creates a high level of reader participation.

Once a guest author has been approved for your site and has had his or her first post or page  posted, you can guarantee that he or she has sent notice to everyone on his or her list and told them to come and visit your site!  This introduces an entire new set of faces to look at your site – and when they see your site, they will see your product or service, too.  More eyes on your site means more money in your pocket each month.

Guest authors want to be on your site because they can also get a new audience and expand their network.   They meet your circle of readers and can greatly expand their web presence.  Make sure you encourage guest authors to want to work with you by offering things such as an author’s page and links to their website.

You want to have guest authors for reasons other than just generating more traffic.  Guest authors can provide you with fresh content – without any effort on your part.  They can expand on topics you do not know that much about – and give added value to your readers.  They help free up your time so you can work on promoting your site and other forms of marketing.

Using guest authors is truly a win-win situation for all parties – you, your guest author, and your readers.  Everyone benefits, and that means more traffic (and revenue) for you!

Co-branding can be very cost effective, particularly for small online businesses.  However, if you choose the wrong partner, or too many partners, it might be more harmful than beneficial.

Adding Partners to your Website
As a small business you need to be cautious with your marketing budget.  When you add a partner to your website you need to ensure that you’re going to see strong and positive results from the union.  These positive results can include more traffic to your website, increased online sales, or more contact with your customers.  Online branding can be costly so be sure to choose partners that can benefit your business.

Co-branding can be described as a variety of activities that include:

• Joint promotions
• Value endorsements
• Joint ventures
• Alliances

Co-branding works best when both you and your partner company each provide a related service or product to the same types of customers.

Powerful Co-branding

Studies show that most online users like the idea of co-branding because it helps them to make decisions about the hundreds of brand name products that they come into contact with on the Internet.  When top-quality brands join together in a partnership it strengthens their customer’s approval.  If you have a lesser know brand it will be to your benefit to partner up with a more well known brand so that your overall image is improved and so that you get more exposure on the Internet.  And if a popular brand partners up with a lesser known brand it won’t harm the popular brand.  Your best bet is to partner up with a company that is equal to you. A partnership needs to make sense and customers need to understand the connection.

Guidelines for Co-branding
If you have the right partner you can share the costs of marketing as well as strengthen your company brand.  You’ll also have access to a larger customer base.  Following are some important co-branding considerations:

• What does your co-brand partnership say to your customers?  Will it make your customers feel better about themselves?
• What do you and your partner have in common?  Are both of your products innovative?  Are they dependable?  You want to make sure that your image makes sense for your current customer base.  You don’t want to lose your current customer base but instead you want to build on it.
• How does your co-branding partnership benefit your customers?  Will it save them money?  Or will it save them time?  Your marketing campaign should make the benefit very clear to your customers.
• Your goal with co-branding should be to find the best solutions for your customers.
• There should be an equal value for both brands in the partnership.  You need to have an equal partnership or your marketing strategy will be uneven.
• Will your customers easily be able to see the connection and value of your partnership?
• Does the co-branding partnership bring you into contact with new customers?

The above questions need to be answered before you join in a co-branding partnership.  Joint promotions take a great deal of time and thought to be implemented correctly.  However, when done correctly and accurately, a co-branding partnership can bring you results that are far better than other traditional internet marketing methods. One of the basic rules of internet marketing is:  take your message, content, and promotions to your customers rather than focusing too much energy on the effort of trying to bring customers to your website.

Integrating Partnership Products
When it comes to co-branding partnerships you need to take the time to include the benefits of both brands into the overall design of your marketing promotions.  This way your customers will understand the connection between both products or services.

Simply putting your company logo, or a link to your website, on another company’s website will save you time and money but at the same time may cause you to lose some potential customers.  Co-branding that is successful never leaves your customers wondering exactly what website they are on.  Partnerships should improve a customer’s shopping experience by helping them to make buying decisions.  You’ll want to exchange content with your partner so that you both expand your expertise in the industry.  However, you’ll need to incorporate this content into your website so that it flows naturally and fits in with your own content.  The end result will be beneficial to both of you when you maintain professional consistency.

Complementary Partners
Your website will be more legitimate and competitive when you have co-branding content that is well integrated into your own web pages.  Co-branding will only help your business if it complements the business goals you have defined for your company.  Always keep your business goals in mind no matter what internet marketing strategy you’re trying to incorporate into your business.  This means that all your website content, promotions, and activities with your co-branding partners encourages your customers to follow through with the sales action.

Joint Ventures
A joint venture is where you team up with another marketer in a compatible niche for what should be an equally rewarding promotion or project.  Often times joint ventures involve promoting each other’s products as affiliates or even working together on a mutually beneficial product launch.

Some people think “joint venture” means getting the biggest guru you can find to promote your product and make you rich.  Those people are wrong!  Most experts say that the best place to start with joint ventures is with your peers and friends, of which most are probably at a similar level as you are.  Even if you have to get out and meet some new people, there’s a good chance you aren’t going to get one of the “big time” marketers to promote your product if you don’t have previously established relationship with them.
A “joint venture” is as much about relationship building as it is about selling products.  Sometimes in the beginning you may have to “give a little” more than what you get back—and that’s OK, because it’s part of the relationship building process.

Here are some tips for finding joint venture partners:

• Search the search engines.  Find people with related products and services that you can contact and get to know.
• Go to events and seminars related to your niche or product, or general internet marketing seminars.
• Ask your customers.  Send an email out to your list to fish for prospective partners.
• Visit forums and online discussion boards, and ask around.
• If you find a potential joint venture partner, don’t be afraid to sign up for their mailing list and/or purchase one of their products.
• Consider how working with your competition could pay off for both of you.

This is by no means the ultimate, exhaustive traffic bible, but this should get you started. Good luck getting on your traffic endeavors – website traffic is really the key. If you have traffic, you can make money… it may be the most difficult game on the internet.

Enjoy!

Come back for part 5 of the 10 part series on target traffic generation.

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General Marketing Methods

One of the best ways to get leads on the Internet is by getting a product mention or a free link on another website.  Effective internet marketing is all about putting your product or service in front of potential customers at the exact time that they are looking for it.  This technique is known as “pinpoint marketing”.
Pinpoint marketing is much different than advertising on radio or television, which are known as “interruptive marketing” techniques.  Interruptive marketing costs a lot more than pinpoint marketing and is less effective for the simple reason that you’re attempting to put your product out there in front of everybody instead of pinpointing those potential customers who want to find out more about you and your business.

Pinpoint Marketing: Pinpoint marketing is the process of sending the right message at the right time so that it produces actual results.  For example, if you’re at a ball game and are eating a bag of popcorn. Just when you take a handful of popcorn the Coca-Cola logo appears on the big screen.  The next you thing you know you’re looking for the first vendor who can sell you a can of Coke.  However, if an advertisement for a new car appears on the big screen while you’re watching the game and eating popcorn, you’re less likely to be interested since it’s not something you’re looking for at that moment.  Interruptive marketing isn’t really targeted because it’s not something that you are actively looking for.  People who use the Internet are usually looking for a solution to a problem.  When you put your product in front of them at the right time you’ve reached a potential customer.

Day-part Marketing: The placement and timing of ads on the Internet has become so important to internet marketing that some companies, such as Yahoo!, are selling advertisements in “day-part”.  Day-part is something that has always been done in television advertising.  Day-part marketing works like this – specifying at which time of the day certain ads are viewed so that you can effectively target your customers.

Embedded Marketing Messages: These days, more people than ever are using the Internet to research a product before they buy.  As well, most Internet users are becoming more serious about the amount of time that they spend online.  Studies show that users are spending less time on the web and that the time they do spend surfing is focused and deliberate.  Many users bookmark their favorite websites so that they can access information fast and easily.  When people want a solution to a certain problem, such as a health issue or taking a vacation, they often look online for the answers.  This is why it’s important for you to put your product or service right in front of them whenever you can.

Come back for part 2 of the 10 part series on target traffic generation.

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