Archive for the ‘Web Traffic Tip’ Category

Many local business owners overlook one of the best forms of advertising today and that is a website.  If you want to attract customers, then there’s no question that having a website for your local business is your best weapon.

It doesn’t matter what kind of business you have whether you’re a retailer, dentist, lawyer,  accountant or dog groomer. Every business needs a website.  Do you realize that more and more people each day turn to the internet to look up businesses than the yellow pages?  If you aren’t online, they can’t find you.

Here is a brief list of the reasons why you should have an online presence:

• You can better serve your existing customer base.
• Your customers can have their questions answered 24/7.
• Your customers can set appointments with you online.
• It provides instant credibility.
• You can display customer testimonials for more interest and credibility.
• You will be able to target your market of choice using built-in advertising tools.
• You can showcase your work to prospective clients.
• You can offer specials, hot deals and online coupons.
• You will have a second storefront, virtually speaking, where you can display your products or services.
• You can sell your products online and it’s like having a 24 hour salesperson working for you.
• You can capture customer leads and email them anytime with special offers and information.
• Best of all you’ll stay ahead of the competition.

As you can see the benefits of having a website far outweigh the traditional yellow pages.  Your customers are online and they are looking for you.  Will you be there?

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When you join a social networking site for the first time, there are a couple of unwritten ( or maybe written in some places) rules that you need to take into consideration.

Now these rules or tips may not make you a Millionaire overnight, but what they do is help build credibility and your good reputation online as someone people can trust and who knows his/her area of expertise well.

And here they are:

1. Don’t try to be funny

Some people will start to think business and start promoting their businesses or products on the spot. Wrong move. The purpose of sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. is to socialize, and you should just stick to that. This means no hard selling, no direct sales pitch, nada, zilch. It’s an environment where work and play has must go hand in hand.

2. Go where the traffic is

Sounds like common sense? You’d be surprised how many people actually over look this. If you see a huge community of people on Facebook talking about dog training for example, there’s your obvious pot of gold.

3. Give as much as possible

Yea, it is better to give than to receive. When offering people tips, advice, videos, files and other freebies, you are actually adding value to whatever you offer them in future and building up a credible reputation. Although it seems you might be on the losing end now, in the near future, you will reap untold profits from this once little action.

Of course there’s more to leveraging on the power of social media but right now, apply these tips and see your stock rise online!

Would you like more social media tips like this? Check out Social Marketing Superstar.

It’s no secret that Twitter has grown into an Internet mega monster that is globally known and talked about everyday. Many new users of Twitter are constantly asking how they can use the site more effectively to grow their business. Let’s face the fact…Twitter is a fantastic tool for offline and online marketing.  There are just thousands of success stories floating around about local and online businesses  who have harnessed the power of Twitter to grow their business to great heights.

So how can you become the next success story? It’s very simple…just follow these proven success strategies on Twitter starting today:

1. Make sure to fully set up your Twitter profile. Add your picture, a short 160 character bio and a twitter background.  People are more inclined to follow someone that has a picture and some information about them.   Because this is what people will read before they decide whether or not they want to follow you. You will only have 160 characters to describe who you are and what you do, so you have to make it good! So don’t slack off and leave these areas unattended.

2. Tweet 5 to 10 times before following people on Twitter. If you are just getting started, do not start following people until you have a few tweets.  It may seem strange at first to tweet to nobody but you want to provide enough useful tweets on your page before people will consider following you. Show value and personality in your tweets.  For example, you may want to share a favorite quote, something funny, or an interesting news article. It’s about giving your followers something interesting to read about and keeping them entertained or informed. The following sites are helpful in finding useful information you can ‘tweet’ to your followers.

• http://www.alltop.com
• http://www.popurls.com
• http://www.digg.com
• http://www.Youtube.com

3. Gain More Followers by Being Highly Complimentary to People. People love compliments. Try to find something to compliment or encourage with some of your followers. Comment on people’s videos, articles, blog posts, pictures, aspirations or goals. This will begin to set you up as a leader in the Twitter community.

4. Retweet Content from other People. Retweeting content gives you more credibility but you must give credit to original author. Retweeting someone else’s content is an act of kindness, and for the most part bloggers like to return the favor. You shouldn’t expect someone to retweet your content just because you retweet theirs. Just keep in mind that your chance of being on the other end of a retweet increases as you retweet. Retweeting is all about providing value to your followers so if you want others to retweet your post then you want to make sure that you are providing them with quality content worth tweeting about.

5. Follow People To Build Your List. Use http://search.twitter.com to search for people based on keywords. You can follow people in your same industry, same interest or in your local area. For example, you can search for people in your local area by typing something like “live in Atlanta” and it will bring back search results of people in that area. Try to follow at least a 100 people a day. Do not be overly aggressive in following or you can get your account banned.

6. Integrate Twitter with Your Facebook Profile. If you have a Facebook profile, make sure to add the Twitter application on your profile so that your Facebook status is updated with your Twitter status automatically. This will cover your friends/followers in both places which comes in handy so you don’t have to post your status manually twice.

7. Best Time To Tweet is Between 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. and 6 p.m to 10pm

• Tweeting at the times above is considered peak times for Twitter use. It’s when you’ll get the most interaction from your followers.
• Friday evenings has less interaction.
• Tweet Saturday anytime before night.
• Tweet Sunday evening 6pm and on.

What You Should NOT Do on Twitter

I wouldn’t be helping your success out if I didn’t list a couple of no-no’s on Twitter:

Automatically sending the wrong type of direct message through an AutoDM. Direct messages can be seen as impersonal and pushy when they aren’t written properly. If you decide to use a tool that automatically send messages to your new followers keep it simple and friendly. A message saying ‘thanks for following me’ is fine, but sending automated messages promoting your business or product is not a good idea and most instances people will click the unfollow button right away.

Tweeting promotion after promotion. Yes, you are using Twitter to promote your business, but posting one offer after another will only cause people to ‘unfollow’ you. When people look at your timeline and notice that you aren’t posting anything of value to them they will quickly move on. There are millions of Twitters to follow, why should they follow you when you’re only tweeting about promotions? Remember this basic rule of sales: “people want to know what’s in it for me”?

If you follow any or all of these great tips, you will build a strong following on Twitter which means more traffic to your business website and more money in your pocket!

Recommended Tools:

Auto-Follow on Twitter with Tweet Adder

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Become a Social Marketing Superstar

A really great way to build your prospect list is to find similar companies in your niche or industry that target the same customers and partner up with them also referred to as joint venture. If the company sells related products, you can both get together and form a joint venture. By forming this joint venture, you can offer a special promotion involving products from you and your joint partner which can bring great benefits to your customer as well as their customers. You will promote the new product along with your product to your customers which adds that extra value to your site.  And of course, your joint venture partner returns the favor! It’s a great way to generate traffic and definitely a win-win situation for both partners.

Yahoo Answers is an online community where people ask all sorts of questions on different topics looking for answers to them. You as a community member can gain points for having the best answer to the question. You’ll be surprised at the many questions left unanswered in many categories. You can become an “expert” within many fields by answering questions, and having relevant links point back to your site. It’s a quick way to build back links and have targeted users viewing your profile which will have your contact information and website link.

Be sure to never spam. It’s important to be friendly with your answers, and provide good relevant information. The goal here is to have the user trust you enough to learn more about you.

To get started simply browse the categories or you can search for questions by keywords. For example you can do a search for “making money” and it will list questions people have asked about “making money”.