Lesson 6 - Get FREE Visitors to Your Website
The way that most search engines will find
your website is by sending their "spiders" or "robots" to go out around
the Internet and follow links from one website to another. When
it finds a new website, the spider or robot will "index" that website
in it's database so that it can serve it up when people do a search
using their search engine.
The more links the spider finds to a particular website makes the
spider think "hey, there are lots of links to this website, it must be
a good one" and it will give you some preference over other websites
with less links. That's just one of the ways it decides how important
your website is but it's worth knowing and taking advantage of when we
can.
The other reason you want links to your website is because you will get
visitors to your website when they see your link and click on it.
These are the two main things we are going to try to do:
1 - Get listed in as many search engines as possible (through links
that the spiders follow)
2 - Get traffic to our website because people followed a link
You will see lots of services around the Internet who will take your
money to get your website listed with search engines. Some of
these services are good and some are not. In any event, we don't
want to pay what the good ones will charge (even if you can figure out
which ones are the good ones). We're going to do it ourselves
(it's not that hard anyway).
Get Your Website
Listed in FREE Directories
We will start by getting our website links into Free
Directories. There are many directories that will list your
website for free. They may not be high powered directories that
have millions of users but from them we will get a little traffic and a
lot of exposure to spiders and robots.
When you list your website with directories, you will usually have to
provide a description of your website. Think carefully about
this. Try to write something that will be interesting enough to
make people want to visit your website but also make sure it tells what
your website is about.
If your website is about restoring old Ford mustangs, you will want to
say that and tell people what you can give them that no one else can.
For example "Cut car restoration time in half with the time
saving tips from the restoration pros" will be better than "restore old
mustangs website". Plus, don't forget to include your best keyword
phrases.
OK, now get started. Go to Top 100 Free
Directories. Here you will find a list of 100 free
directories where you can submit your website. Click on each link
on this page and then find the link on the directory page that says
"Submit a Site" or "Suggest a Site" or something like that and then
complete the submission process as they have it set out.
NOTE: Add
your link to no more than 4 or 5 of these directories per day.
Do too much and the spiders could think you are spamming your link and
you do not want that. Better to just take it slow and add a few
at a time. If you have done your 5 directory submissions for the
day and still have some time, then go to the next section about adding
your links to blogs and do a few of those.
Add Your Website Link to
Blogs
There are millions of blogs (which stands for web
logs) on the Internet today on every imaginable topic. Most blogs
accept comments and blog owners love to get feedback. This is a
great opportunity for you to help them out and help yourself at
the same time by adding your link in your comment. Please, make
comments that are relevant and be nice. Say nice things or add
something of value to the topic - don't just spam anything into a
comment and expect it to a) get approved by the blog owner or b) get
followed to your website by another viewer of the blog.
You can search the Internet with the following method to find blogs
about your topic. Type in the search box on your web browser
[blog "my topic"] (use the quotes just like they are here but leave out
the [] boxes. Follow the links to these blogs and look for a link
or box where you can post some comments. If the blog allows you
to use "tags". You will want to add something like the following
to your message (it contains tags that will make what you type into a
link - make sure you have it exactly right and replace ONLY
www.mywebsite.com and My Website or you will break the tags and your
link won't work - write this down somewhere so you'll have it handy).
<a href="www.mywebsite.com">My Website</a>
Use this as a signature with or without your name in the comment.
If the blog does not allow you to use tags in the comments, then make
sure you use a name that will be the name of your website (without the
www and .com) or your best keywords and for the website url put the url
of your website (www.mywebsite.com).
Get Links from Other
Websites
Other website owners are often willing to exchange a
links with you if your website is related to the topic of their
website. Keep in mind here that you want links that are relevant
to your website. If your website is about restoring mustangs,
then a link from a site about ski vacations will be of little value to
either website.
To find websites that are willing to trade links with you use the same
method as you used to find blogs. Type into your web browser
["submit site" "my topic"]. This will bring up a list of websites
that might be willing to trade links with you. Also try "add
site" and "add link" as search words.
NOTE: When you
start exchanging links with other website owners, you will need to
start a links page on your website (you might even need to do this for
the free directories). You know how to build a web page so add a
links.html page to your web site and start listing links to people who
are willing to list to you (but only if they insist).
Start Your Own Blog
A blog is a great way to promote your website and
add lots of links to your website too. You can go to Blogger and create a
free blog. Create a blog that you can use to write short
articles, news or tips about the topic of your website. In each
blog post, add a link (or two) to your website. These are free
one-way links (search engines love to find one way links).
The more you like to write blog posts the better, these are great,
relevant links to your website where you control what is said.
Submit Articles
If you are a decent writer and enjoy it at all, then
this should get your excited. There are article submission
services out there where you can submit articles and other people will
grab those articles (along with your link) and put them in newsletters,
on their own websites, in their blogs and so on. One good article
that get's picked up by a newsletter publisher can send thousands of
visitors to your website.
Here are a few article services that you should check out if you want
to write articles (and, please, before you submit articles, read their
guidelines for submission). There are lots more that you can find
by doing an Internet search.
Article
City
Ezine
Articles
Idea
Marketers
Google Sitemaps
This is a bit more advanced and it is not a traffic
generator, per se, but it will help you get noticed by Google.
Google uses something called Sitemaps. The way it works
(basically) is you register a sitemap of your website with Google and
then, each time you update your website, you can tell Google to go take
a look. It is a fast way to get noticed by the Google search
engine.
Google does a good job of explaining just how it all works so I'm just
going to point you there and you can read it for yourself.
Google Webmaster Tools
Free Google Sitemap Generator Tool
Purchasing Traffic
Finally, a word about purchasing traffic for your
website. Unless you are making enough money on each transaction
(sale) from your website, it is unlikely that this will pay off for
you. You can waste a lot of time and money on purchasing
advertising but wasting money is not what we're about. We are
about making money. If you want to try it out, feel free to do
so, but I don't recommend that you do it until you have a year or two
of experience under your belt and know what you're doing.
As for me, I don't buy traffic. I use the methods I've outlined
above to get all my traffic for free. That way, I get to keep
what my website earns and not turn it over to someone else.
Well, that's it. In
a nutshell! So go forth and create websites and generate income!
If
you don't think that this tutorial is for you, feel free to visit
some of the links below for other options for learning to use the
Internet to make money.
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