By Mitch Bettis (contributing editor) for Practical eCommerce
Are you looking for ways to increase traffic to your web site? Before you begin investing money in a pay-per-click advertising campaign, make sure you take care of the basics. There are five important things you can do to increase traffic to your web site and each one will cost you very little money.
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
SEO can be defined as a set of methodologies aimed at improving the visibility of a web site in the listings after someone does a search at a search engine — commonly called the organic listings. Why is it important? On the Internet, the most common way for users to find web sites is through search engines and the higher your site appears in the organic listings the more likely your site is to be seen and selected. The title tag is critical for a search engine to understand and rank a page. Make sure each page of your web site includes a unique, keyword-rich, descriptive and readable title tag of 8–10 words. Getting a high rank on a search engine's listings isn't easy, so it may be important to solicit help from a consultant that that specializes in SEO. To find out about IPOWER’s SEO program and how it can benefit you, email seo@ipower.com.
• Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing can be a useful tool for an ecommerce site looking to boost its sales as its commission-only structure helps business owners amass an army of commission-only sales agents. You don't pay the affiliate unless you get a sale at your site. Commission percentages paid by merchants to affiliates vary. Typically, products with relatively higher prices receive smaller percentages, and, conversely, lower priced items receive higher percentages.
• Blogs
A blog is really just an easy-to-use web-based content management system. A blog could be used for any kind of information update, whether it is a press release, product update, news or more personal commentary. Blogs beg to be written in an informal, punchy and "authentic" voice. A well-written blog reflects the passions, bias, thoughts and judgments of the writer.
How does this help your business? Blogs enable dialog between you and a customer or prospect, making the cultivation of a long-term relationship more plausible. Blogs give you an increased presence on major search engines. Blogs enable you to articulate your viewpoints, knowledge and expertise on matters pertaining to your industry. Blogs are inexpensive to set up, operate and maintain. Ongoing marketing costs are minimal. They do require an investment of time in terms of blog posting, but it can pay big returns for the time spent.
• Forums
A forum is a place where people of like interests can post questions, provide answers and have an online dialog about topics in their niche. Software can be added to web site to host a forum and such a feature allows a web site to create a "community" around a particular product or niche. Not only are forums great places for consumers of a product to interact, the content is written by users of the forum. In addition, forums are search-engine friendly and that will help a site improve its position on a search-engine listing.
• Writing articles for other sites
A key factor in creating a successful online business is to become a specialist in a niche. As you become known in a certain "community," you and your site benefit from that notoriety. Writing articles for trade publications, newsletters, ezines or popular sites within your niche helps broaden your name recognition. In addition, the more your name and web site address are published, the more search engines recognize it and that helps improve your listings on a search engine.
This article is used with permission from Practical eCommerce magazine, copyright 2006. Practical eCommerce is a printed an online resource for ecommerce businesses. For tips, tools and advice to improve your ecommerce business, click here.
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