WebMastersLoom

I took a look at a new Website recently in response to a request for a site review on one of my favorite forums. And, while the appearance was pleasing, there wasn’t really much there. Too often, new folks to the Internet marketing world make this crucial mistake. They think that if they build a stay at home job website, customers will automaically show up and start buying stuff. When those customers don’t materialize, the site owner often gives up and quits.

In order for any stay at home jobsite to attract quality visitors, there are some things that need to be done. In this article, I will give you a small list of objectives, along with brief hints on how to go about meeting them. If you follow through, your site will advance in the search engine rankings, and before you know it the visitors will be showing up faster than you can count them.

Search Engines Love Content

Involve yourself in an ongoing process of collecting and/or producing articles for inclusion on your site. There are many sources of articles on the Internet. Some of them charge a small fee, while others are free. Look for articles that are relevant to the subject of your site, and add them. If these articles are rich with the keywords that you wish to target, so much the better.

You can also write your own articles. This allows you to concentrate on the keywords that you wish to target, and establishes you as an expert in your field.

By adding your resource box, with your URL, to the end of your articles and then submitting them to other sites and Ezines, you can generate additional traffic to your site. More about this later.

Invite your visitors to submit articles to your site for publication. This helps to build visitor loyalty, because eveybody likes to see their name in print;)

Search Engines Love Links.

The second thing that you need to do is exchange links with other websites. Search Engines look to see how many links point to your site and use this information to gauge the importance of your site. The more links you have, the better, but look for links that add value for your visitors. Make sure that you link to quality sites that are somehow related to what your visitors are looking for. In this way, you will get traffic that is targeted to what you are trying to sell. This will increase your chances of making sales or signing up affiliates who have a good chance of being successful in your business.

There are two basic types of links; reciprocal links and one way links. Reciprocal links occur when you trade links with another website. These are important because not only do they help in your rankings, they also generate traffic from the sites that you link to. One way links are a bit different. These are links that point people to your site, but do not point your visitors away from your site. As a result, they are more valuable. Not too many webmasters are willing to give away one way links, but there are a couple of good techniques that you can use to get them.

1. Write articles and offer them for publication. You will be pleasantly surprised by the number of sites and Ezines that are looking for quality articles to use for content. By placing your resource box at the end of the article, and including a link to your site, you can generate dozens, if not hundreds of one way links to your site. To find sites that accept articles, simply do a search for ‘Free Website Content.’ You will find several good sites. Also think about joining the Directory of Ezines. Many of the publications listed there accept articles, and some of them will even invite you to write for them on a regular basis.

2. Visit several forums and bulletin boards that deal with stay at home jobs. Especially, those that are directly related to your field of expertise. Many of these allow you to include your URL in your signature block. By participating in these forums, you will be able to create many more one way links to your site. Just make sure that you offer sound advice, and make relevant posts. If you don’t, you could be considered a nuisance or worse, a spammer.

The addition of content in the form of articles and links to your site should be an ongoing process. If you concentrate on these two things and continually add to your site, you will not only move up in the search engine rankings, but you will end up with a site that has great value to your visitors. Add to your site every day. Remember, you are in competition with a lot of other related websites, and chances are,they are already be doing this.

If you don’t know by now one the best ways to attract free traffic to your site is with articles. You find them in your email. You find them on any website that provides useful content. Take a look and you will see they are all formatted the same way.

• Attention-getting headline
• Body of article ( usually offers tips or how to information)
• Resource box - That is at the end and involves a blurb to plug your site or product and your link(s)

I’m sure if you think about it you can come up with some ideas of your own for great articles. A good place to start:

What is it that you would really like to know? Find the answer online with Google or go to your local library and write away!

Aside from creating helpful content your purpose is to promote yourself. Thus, the resource box. Do not include affiliate links, leave your selling for when the reader clicks through to your site.

Okay, you’ve written an article- what now?

Submit your article to the article banks. Article banks are depositories for articles. Like a real bank you can make a deposit or a withdrawal. There are several articles on my site that I did not write. I made several “withdrawals” from some of the banks. It’s a great way to get free content for your site.

When you are re-publishing another author’s article you must remember one very important thing: Never ever cut-off the resource box! They worked hard to create something useful for you. Repay their generosity by keeping the links intact.

And guess what? if you take your article and make a “deposit” it’s free for others to download and post on their site or newsletter! You could find it scattered all over the net in no time.

Why is that good? Because of your link in the resource box. That link is going to bring you curious visitors which means more traffic for you!

I know from personal experience when I find some useful info in an article I want to find more useful stuff from the same author so I follow the link.

And because you wrote so well about your topic I will get the impression you are an expert. We both know that may not be the case, but if people see you as an authority in some area they will seek you out for tips, advice and product recommendations. That means more traffic and ultimately more money in your pocket.

There are dozens of article banks you can submit your writing to for free. Just do a search on the net. And submit, submit, submit! If you write it - the traffic will come.

-David Parton

Copyright 2005

Since online articles can be an additional source of contract leads, it is important that you write them in such a way that they are “web friendly”-and thus more accessible to your readers. This is especially important for articles you published previously in magazines, journals or other print media. While long paragraphs are visually acceptable in print magazines, they are a bane to Web users.

Web users don’t read; they scan.

When you write for the web, you must first consider how people read on the web. A study by Jakob Nielsen, deemed the “guru of webpage usability” by The New York Times, found that only 16 percent of his test users actually read the copy they found online; 79 percent of them simply scanned it.

Given those numbers, web-content providers who truly want to get their information across to their readers must follow what has become the cardinal rule of web writing: Make it “scannable.” Web users, notorious for their impatience, don’t want to get bogged down in long blocks of text as they search for the information they need; instead, they want that information to jump out at them.

Keep it short and scannable.

There are a number of ways you can make your text easier to scan:

Use bulleted or numbered lists. Keep sentences and paragraphs short. Make sure all your writing has substance. Say it straight. Use subheadings. Use typeface variations.

Start with the conclusion.

Use your keywords.

To get visibility on the major search engines, your site must be able to be “indexed” by their robotic software. To do this, they must be able to compare the code, keywords & other Meta tags, and the actual written content of the site and reach a consistent conclusion regarding the context of your site. Other factors are important as well, but that is the most basic requirement. Use these guidelines for other online copy.

These guidelines hold true for all kinds of web copy, not just your online articles. Keep them in mind when creating content for your own websites or when contributing articles to other electronic media. The same things that encourage users to read your online articles will encourage them to read your other web copy.