| In the world of online business, traffic is like gold. | | | | major search engines publish additional sponsored |
| It is something you work hard for, and once you | | | | listings on a pay-per-click basis. Pay Per Click (PPC) |
| have it, you can turn it into cash, or even barter | | | | advertising is one of the quickest ways to drive |
| and trade with it. Above all you must remember | | | | traffic to a web site. This is certainly not the |
| how valuable it really is, and invest wisely with it, | | | | cheapest traffic building technique, but it is |
| or your online business will fail. | | | | probably the most effective technique to |
| If you want to grow your online customer base | | | | guarantee a large quantity of traffic, fast. |
| then you must build a good stream of incoming | | | | The web sites shown in sponsored listings are |
| traffic to your web site. Traffic leads to revenue. | | | | usually determined through a bidding system. You |
| Depending upon your online business model it | | | | bid the maximum price that you are willing to pay |
| probably does that in one of two ways. | | | | for each visitor that clicks on your listing and |
| For many online businesses, building traffic leads to | | | | comes through to your site. The more you bid, |
| growth in an opt-in mailing list which leads to | | | | the more likely your listing will show. |
| establishing relationship or rapport. This in turn | | | | How much you need to bid to get traffic really |
| leads to strong prospects and an increase in sales | | | | depends upon the niche in which your web site |
| volume. | | | | operates. Although you could easily pay anywhere |
| For online businesses consisting of web sites | | | | from $0.01 to $1.00 for each visitor that clicks |
| without their own products and services, building a | | | | through your listing, many webmasters obtain |
| good stream of incoming traffic leads to increased | | | | traffic for $0.05 to $0.15 per click. |
| visitor numbers which leads to higher quantities of | | | | 3. Article Marketing |
| clicks on affiliate links or advertisements such as | | | | Article marketing involves writing articles and |
| AdSense. This in turn leads to an increase in the | | | | making them available for webmasters and |
| site revenue. | | | | editors to publish. The greatest exposure usually |
| Let's look at ten traffic building techniques that | | | | comes from listing the articles at article directories |
| have proven to be remarkably effective for | | | | such as EzineArticles and IdeaMarketers. This |
| growing an online business. In the first part of this | | | | allows anyone to publish the article without any |
| three part series we look at Search Engine | | | | fee to you, the author, provided they include your |
| Optimization, Pay Per Click Advertising, and Article | | | | 'Author Resource Box' at the end of the article. |
| Marketing. | | | | Your author's resource box should be a small |
| 1. Search Engine Optimization | | | | paragraph or two about you including a direct link |
| Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process | | | | to your web site. |
| of designing and fine-tuning a web page and the | | | | Article marketing is a great traffic building |
| links to that web page to improve the web page's | | | | technique for several reasons. |
| relevance and ranking in the organic, | | | | First, there is an increase in name exposure and |
| crawler-based listings of a search engine, for | | | | brand awareness as people read your articles all |
| particular keyword phrase searches. | | | | over the Internet. They will begin to recognize |
| Search engine optimization does require some | | | | you as an expert in your topic. |
| study of the techniques involved. That can be | | | | Second, there is direct traffic to your web site |
| time consuming and the results might take weeks | | | | from readers clicking through the link in your |
| or even months to see but, in the long term, | | | | author's resource box. |
| investing your efforts in obtaining natural - also | | | | Third, there is the indirect benefit of backlinks |
| known as organic - high-ranking placement in the | | | | increasing your search engine ranking. Backlinks |
| top search engines will pay huge dividends. | | | | are links on other web sites that point to your |
| While it is possible to optimize pages for many | | | | web page. Backlinks are important for search |
| search engines, most webmasters working on | | | | engine optimization because some search engines, |
| SEO concentrate on Google, MSN and Yahoo. | | | | especially Google, give more credit to web sites |
| 2. Pay Per Click Advertising | | | | that have a good number of quality backlinks. |
| In addition to their organic search results the | | | | |