The trick is figuring out what happened. Daily traffic increased from just over 600 to 4500 visitors last friday. Not showing up on search engines yet so that wasn’t it. Didn’t all come from one place/country so can only guess that someone recommended it in a newsletter or forum of some kind. Newsletter subscriptions increased also, from 12 total before to +35 that day.
I’d sure like to be able to repeat whatever happened as numbers are drifting down towards 1000.
Anybody have suggestions as to what would cause such a jump and how to encourage it? Or how to read web stats for more information (earthlink/Urchin reports)?
If you submit your site to Google, and get accepted (which is pretty easy) your site will most likely end up on Yahoo! because Google’s search results feed into them. So you don’t have to do what SharpNET said about paying $200 to get reviewed by Yahoo!
Not quite Corbmacc,
Definitely go after the Google listing, you will receive a nice amount of traffic from Google and its partner sites. Be patient, often your link won’t filter through to the partner sites for a few weeks, but sometimes sooner, it all depends on the site.
One of these partner sites is the infamous Yahoo! Please pay attention here: Yahoo does not do its directory based on Google results. However, Yahoo searches Google for additional sites pertaining to the search query and then lists these results on a separate page. Don’t get me wrong, you can still receive a decent amount of traffic from Yahoo through this route (I received an extra 60 per day.)
Please note that this is NOT a substitution for your Yahoo listing. The Yahoo listing is still very important as you will receive a much larger amount of incoming traffic from them.
In many cases, paying the $200 7-day fee is worth it. Think about it, would you rather have your Yahoo traffic start this Saturday, or two months from this Saturday?
Let the traffic flow ASAP. This will be very beneficial to your sales, newsletter subscribers, ramping period, and your web traffic overall.
Bottom line, go for the Google AND Yahoo listing. And if you have an extra $200, cough it up. You’ll be glad you did.
Do you keep a record of all the e-mails you have sent to
your subsciber list?
A) Yes. Easy so far because my site is just over one month old and I have sent out 1 free monthly email.
Is your list attrition still increasing?
A) I think there was a communication error on my part. No list attrition to date. It was the daily visitors are dropping, though page views are holding up. There is lots to see on my site - requires multiple visits.
Could I interview you for the next edition of theViral Marketing e-Zine
A) Yes. With the understanding that I am very new at this and have limited real world experience. Most of what I know comes from these forums.
I used the Google Ad Words and are not very satisfied. Targeted to the German market with keywords specificied for my site. Click-through rate was under 1%. I adjusted the keywords to get more impressions but also had to look for the dime to not burn my money so fast. In my eyes it is not a good advertisement tool if you do not have a big budget. If you have big budget you wouldn’t use Google Ad Words - I guess. I spent $50 but decided to stop my ads now because of low success.
My best traffic building technique invloves creating multiple domains with keyword rich names (i.e. www.keyword-phrase.com). I build these sites with a different look, never a copycat of the original. After those domains are created, I submit them through the usual channels, Yahoo, LookSmart, DMOZ, Inktomi, Altavista, then the free engines. Now I have 5 sites with great keyword rich domain names that are listed in al the directories and search engines. I’ve doubled my traffic in one month’s time. I’ve done this without using GoTo or other PPC engines to promote these sites.
As far as the single most effective tool, I would have to say Inktomi, hands down. They have such a wide exposure AOL, GoTo, MSN, LookSmart, etc. plus they index your site very quickly so that optimization efforts are quickly rewarded. For $30 (then $15 for the additional domains), it is definitely worth the money.
I’m thinking about paying the $200 to get my web design site listed on Yahoo. Any success stories? Can you really generate a lot of traffic that way with thousands of other web design firms competing for attention? Thanks!
If you notice when you do a Yahoo search, the categories are listed alphabaetically. One trick is to find a category that your site will fit in that is as high on the list as you can get. Usually, the regional ones are higher than business listings. Another trick is to write a good description on your site for the search engine. If you get some keywords in there, then your chances of getting good search results in their directory are better than average.
I just did a search for my business name on Google and was amazed that it seemed to find every place I exist on the internet.
Unfortunately I was horrified to discover that the search results also included my posts on SitePoint. I’ve been sharing my mistakes and client issues and questions here, and now I find that anyone who does a search for me is pointed right to them. So I’d better NOT say anything here unless it promotes my business. I’ve been thinking of this as a learning environment. ARGH!!!
So how long are my current posts going to show up in Google searches? Are they archived out of reach eventually? Does everyone here smarter than me know to use this place strictly as a promotional tool? Can I just re-register with a totally anonymous user name?
Lin popularity helps alot in many search engines, especially google. I like to go looking for various related directories and sites that already have links to sites in my market. I then submit a link to them and move on. You can find alot of these by doing a reverse link lookup on your competitors in google. Also a listing in DMOZ and Yahoo counts for alot for google rankings. DMOZ results can pop you straight to the top on AOL as well.
Get a description and title with lots of keywords in yahoo and it will bring in good solid targetted traffic. If they dont give you a good listing with the business express submit, send in a reply and tell them why your description would benefit their users more. I’ve had AWESOME results with this second round submission.
Goto.com can be expensive, but there are some good alternatives. Sprinks has a wide reach, but doesn’t generally come in a SE format, so your results are a bit less targetted. FindWhat has been great for me, delivering a good number of results in the 10c range. The key with buying traffic like this is knowing how much a targetted visitor(not a hit) is worth(including repeat visits). You need good tracking software in place for this.
Dynamic personalization is always important for repeat visitors. If you have a mailing list database, request their first name too and put in the email you send out to them. I’ve also been using geobutton.com and put text on my main page that looks something like “We welcome our visitors from <their city>, <their state/region>.”. I hide the link it creates with some fancy CSS.
One more idea. If you are thinking about the inktomi quick spider deal, go through networksolutions.com. The trick is that you can change the url every 2 days(without paying extra) and have them spider something else. Even if it is on a different domain. Works really well.
(1) Targeted ezine advertising. Find common points of interest similar to your site. Finding an ezine with a topic unrelated to your site may increase your hits but your sales will virtually not go up.
(2) Search engine placement of course is critical in the main ones.
(3) Signatures are very good such as in these discussion forums.
(4) Targeted banner advertising on sites that are not competitive but compliment your product line.
(5) Develop an article and submit to targeted ezines and include your URL signature.
(6) Put articles on your site to develop greater search engine presence and keep visitors on your site.
(7) Offer FREE things on your site.
Just be patient… Keep resubmitting, reminding them… Its a long process but pays off…
We are now in the “most popular” list under the category bodybuilding and traffic has gone up significantly…
You know whats wierd is most of my traffic is a direct request… alot comes from yahoo but thats about it…
One thing I think will help me is link swapping… I am gonna be putting a lot of effort into this as its something I velieve in for generating traffic. Getting your name out there…
having a community really helps… People are talking, they will talk about you on other forums and to their friends…
I am also going to spend some money on magazine advertising very soon… Has anyone done this?
as far as I am aware the $200 charge is JUST for review… thats it… They can still turn your site down and you lose your money… Just be patient… Tehy will get to you.
My site is not commercial. It doesn’t have any products at all… Not yet
As for direct hit I mean not referred from another site. Its strange we keep getting bigger but the stats still show a large majority as typing in wannabebig.com and not coming from somewhere else. I guess this tells me I need to get my act together and work harder on marketing
