Traffic Strategies

Forums:

• Traffic Strategies and Tools

TRAFFIC is the Easy Part - 10 Simple Steps to highly targeted traffic and leads   How to get loads of quality, targeted traffic to your site with 1 quality article.   If someone told me that "Traffic is the Easy Part", and I was struggling with exposure and traffic, I   would probably feel a little irritated with them.  (That is if they didn't offer some effective help).  Here   is a simple 10-step process that we have used to help clients gain easy, targeted traffic and you   can too.  Give it a try, and we're sure that you'll get traffic and leads if you don't give up on the   process (we're always tweaking this process, but it is fun to see new prospects and leads flow in   when you get it all set up and can be highly profitable):      

Write an original quality article with specific helpful knowledge that speaks to problems   and solutions for prospects in your niche (and is related to your product or services).  Your   article should be between 350 to 550 words. If it is much shorter, then it is hard to convey   enough quality to get interest (though it can be done).  If it is much longer, consider breaking it   up into a 2 or 3 part series depending on length.  This can also create anticipation for the next   in the series or can allow for more room for advertising and helpful information.  It can also   help you to serve your visitors and establish better trust, credibility and readership.    

Have the article re-written (by yourself) or by Elance workers for about $7 a pop for   a 350-550 word article.  Be sure to spell out in exact detail what you want and always   keep all communications within the Elance work room to protect your account and your   profile credibility.  You can use the same posting to hire multiple writers and even tell   the writers that you may be interested in a long-term relationship if the quality is    excellent and the working relationship is smooth (this has worked well for us).    

Develop a Squeeze Page (or at least a clear opt-in on your landing page of your   website) to capture leads from the articles once they are out there in cyber-space.   If you are not familiar with a squeeze page, you can hire us to develop one for your    organization, product, or service or you can learn more at one of our sites here:   http://www.squeeze-page.com    

Publish the articles to high ranking article communities like Ezine Articles (and   others).  They used to allow duplicate content, but that is no longer the case with Google   getting tighter and penalizing repeat content.  That is why we re-write articles or have Elance   or Vworker writers do it.    

Re-work your article into a unique press release and use PRWeb or other free   press release sites to spread the word. PrWeb has free and paid options and their   product and process is the leader in the Press Release Industry in our opinion (and the   opinions of thousands of others).  Try PRWeb out for your next traffic article or release.    

Record your article as a podcast using free audio software   here : http://audacity.sourceforge.net/   You can download the lame mp3 encoder as   well and convert your audio recordings into many formats as well as alter the Hz and   bit rate quality to reduce file sizes without hampering the quality.    

Post your podcast to your site and set it up for feeds to other podcast directories   and "feed-burners". Be sure to record and intro and "outro" telling people where your site   address or squeeze page address is.  You can sign up for free music clips at     http://www.soundsnap.com/ and find a ton of quality music loops to layer into your audios   to give them a bit more presentation.  Make sure the clips you layer into your podcast   intros and outros are not over-bearing.  Balance is the key to making a quality audio.    
  Make a blog, article, or forum post to your site that is a quality re-write of your   main article.  Include affiliate links or your product or service links naturally into the content   of your article.  In other words, make the links fit naturally into the flow of the article so   it does not appear to be a strong "sell" but a natural suggested link that just makes sense   and fits the conversation.  
  Turn your article into a slideshow and post it to your site as well as Slideshare.net.     You may want to wait until your personal site article is indexed by Google and other    search engines before posting to Slideshare.net as Slideshare converts your slides   into an outline and then posts the content right beneath your slideshow.  They are   "spidered" and indexed constantly so their content will most likely get posted as original   and yours might get indexed as duplicate so watch this step. You can also create your   slide show so that the text is not in the Power Point, but is a part of the background graphic   for each slide, or create 2 versions of your slideshow - 1 for Slideshare and 1 for your   site so they are the same idea, but both original content.  You can actually use "Impress"   in the Open Office Suite to create Power Point Slide shows and convert them to SWF   (flash) slide shows inside this open source and free software.
  get it here ==>  http://why.openoffice.org/index.html    

Turn your slideshow into a video. Using your slideshow, you can create great   videos for your niche / prospects with some very affordable software.  If you don't have it,   we recommend getting Sony Vegas for a powerful video software with an easy learning   curve (compared to the several video software programs we have used over the years)   If you get Sony Vegas, you can record audio directly in the program after loading your   slideshow into it. Otherwise   Bonus: Step 11:  Distribute your video to multiple video community sites like Youtube,    Google Video, Vimeo, etc.  Make sure that you have a call to action visible with your site link   under the video with some kind of promotional or free valuable report / download to    offer as an incentive for visiting your main site or squeeze-page and opting in.   Hope you have fun and make great profits generating more traffic with 1 quality article!  

What can you do to discover more?

First, download "101 Powerful Profit Strategies, Tools and Tips for Making More Money Online" 
    our 35 page report when you subscribe to our newsletter below for free.

Anytime we make a new discovery or post a helpful article on:

• Increasing Sales Conversions
• Increasing Targeted Traffic
• Relationship Marketing Strategies and
• Getting your web Social 2.0 you will receive a notice

                            

If you are already a subscriber and would like more information, contact us here or below,

or view our list of services to discover the best options for you.

Aaron Schulman for Aim Advantage        
           

 

Forums:

• Traffic Strategies and Tools

Getting Low Cost, Highly Targeted Traffic and Brand Security:   7 Strategic Steps to getting traffic with key word rich domain names:   When I was first getting my feet wet in the online world of developing profitable websites, I was a bit zealous   and sometimes took professional advice too far (because I could not afford specific coaching that was   tailored to my specific needs). One expert I followed had said to buy up all of the domain names   and extensions (.net, .org, .com, .biz etc.) as well as the hyphenated versions for my domain names,   so without much thought, I began buying every domain name related to my brand name for fear of   competition.   2 Years after that, I no longer owned most of them.    1) I had no use for them ultimately and changed direction since then   2) I didn't have the resources to develop all of them and they didn't bring in much as far
     as referred traffic ( I didn't know what I was doing)   That being said, there is a good strategy for buying domain names that will ultimately get referral   traffic and can help with SEO while also protecting your brand name. If you already have an   established brand, and have the budget- it is good to buy up versions of your domain name with   different extension as well as hyphenated versions to protect your URL and brand from sleazy   spammers and not-so sleazy competition.    For example: you could consider for about $8-$10 per year, per name to go ahead and 
buy these versions:
  yourdomainname.com yourdomainname.biz yourdomainname.net yourdomainnamet.tv yourdomainname.org yourdomainname.mobi (if you plan on marketing to phones)   etc. etc. etc.)   Also- versions of :   your-domain-name.com your-domain-name.biz your-domain-name.net your-domain-name.org   (etc. etc.) -    But I would only recommend doing this as your budget allows and as you are sure that you will be

using your URL for years to come.   Getting traffic with domain names   As more and more people get things going online, more and more domain names are being gobbled

up by individuals, companies and "retailers" who buy key word rich domain names and then re-sell   them to small and big shots for big bucks.  This is an entire business of its own and can be very
  lucrative for someone with good backing, know how, and the ability to sit on domain names until

someone is willing to cough up the cash for them.   BUT - How does this help you???     Try this simple little strategy for getting free traffic to your site with key word rich domains:  
  Let's say you are trying to sell "wrenches" online - One way to begin to get traffic is to go directly to   the "Google Keyword Tool" online and to begin typing in your products and services Google will   return a list of relevant, related search phrases, competition for that phrase, global and local   monthly search volumes.     "wrenches" returns an incredible 90,500 global searches per month.   See the diagram here:   Unless you were setting up a massive shopping cart selling all kinds of wrenches, or developing an   affiliate site to refer people to vendors who sell wrenches, this might be too "wide" or general of a   key word phrase for you.  However, I would certainly buy it for $10 and hold on to it until some large   manufacturer like Craftsman gave me a call.  (I would actually call several wrench manufacturers   and see who would bid the highest for it as I have no need for it, but it should be a fairly valuable   domain name.  I would also list it on domain name market places so that the public can bid on it   through a 3rd party site, like SEDO).     *** Assuming you are not going into the domain name business as an investor,   you might drill down to find domain names that are more specific to the exact models or kinds of   wrenches in which you specialize (more long-tail word phrases).     You may specialize in:    -socket wrenches -pipe wrenches -adjustable socket wrenches -spark plug socket wrenches   etc.   Once you find the more product specific key words, continue building your list and drilling down to

get more highly specific key word phrases that range from 3 to 7 words long.     example:  spark-plug-socket-wrench.com would be a great 4-word key phrase if you were interested

in targeting only spark plug socket wrenches (buyers)     Be sure to have a plan or ability to either sell them yourself or to find an affiliate program with a   vendor or multiple manufacturers who sell models of spark plug socket wrenches.  Once you are   confident you are able to sell them or refer traffic to a reputable company that does, you are ready   for . . .  
  Then, buy only those that are available after setting up an account at a server and domain name   company and re-seller like Bluehost.  You can host unlimited domains at Bluehost and their support   is superb (we set up all client sites there when possible).   Make sure you have the time and resources   to develop a mini-site that has several pages with high quality articles about different brands or kinds   of spark plug socket wrenches.  Embed links in those articles to your vendor sites using your affiliate   link or to your shopping cart if you are selling them yourself.  Offer original, quality reviews of the   different brands you are selling in article form.  

Because the domain name is already key word rich, you have an advantage for ranking higher in the   search engines for that phrase and that site.  Next, begin approaching related but non-competitive   website owners (small - single owners - not large corporate sites) and offer quality articles related to   their topics that have variations of your domain name and  key words embedded in the article.     You offer the quality article in turn for the "back-links".  The back-links will begin to help bring targeted   traffic to your key word and article rich site as well as help out to bring your pages higher in the    search engines.     Make an honest assessment of all of the key word rich available domain names you can budget that   are related to the products and services you offer.  All of these mini sites, if done well, can bring in   tributaries of highly targeted traffic for years to come, both through Search Engine Traffic as well   as article referred traffic.     

    Set up some kind of continuity marketing program with helpful messages related to using your product   and services for those who opt-in for your newsletter Setting up multiple opt-ins and a squeeze-page   can help you build a highly targeted list.  Be sure to keep your messages relevant to your industry and   offer value in your email campaign so they will learn to trust you as a resource in helping with their   success!   -To more traffic and sales conversions for you!  

What can you do to discover more?

First, download "101 Powerful Profit Strategies, Tools and Tips for Making More Money Online" 
    our 35 page report when you subscribe to our newsletter below for free.

Anytime we make a new discovery or post a helpful article on:

• Increasing Sales Conversions
• Increasing Targeted Traffic
• Relationship Marketing Strategies and
• Getting your web Social 2.0 you will receive a notice

                            

If you are already a subscriber and would like more information, contact us here or below,

or view our list of services to discover the best options for you.

Aaron Schulman for Aim Advantage        
           

 

Forums:

• Traffic Strategies and Tools

I've been working from my home office now for 4 years, and so can you with a little direction.

Learn from an expert (James Martell) who didn't get slapped around by Google's most recent Algorithm change, in fact, it only made his online training stronger and more credible.

How you to can earn a full-time income from home with affiliate websites, consulting, or web design & project development in 1, very affordable Complete Super Boot Camp

True Story of how AimAdvantage.com came to be, by Aaron Schulman, site owner and founder

A little over 4 years ago, I was working in the construction industry, and though it provided for my family, I knew my heart wasn't in it.  I had been a teacher, owned real-estate, worked in construction and ultimately had to get out of that industry.  

Everything I did left me ultimately unsatisfied.

I had worked with some start up Internet Marketing companies previously, but nothing ever really seemed to "click" for me. . .

that is, until I came across this little blue book from my hosting provider written by James Martell on how to build affiliate marketing websites, get top 10 Google Rankings, and convert your passions or expertise into income.

I began learning much of what I know from James here:  http://www.affiliatemarketersbootcamp.com/go.php?offer=schulman1&pid=1

Little did I realize that I would not only learn the "how-tos" of the affiliate marketing industry online, but would also learn how to develop websites using content management systems like Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress.

I made a small monthly payment to be a part of James' Martell's Affiliate Marketer's Super Boot Camp but opening that one door caused me to learn so much more about generating traffic online and building quality websites that keep people's interest that I was able to quickly begin my own marketing / consulting / web development company that I now run out of the office in my home.

No, we're not super rich yet, but I have had the flexibility to be there when our little girls were born, to take my wife out on a date in the middle of a weekday, or to sleep in without getting fired when I have been too tired, and I have been able to set my own schedule, not having to answer to a boss, while continuing to learn, grow, and help many clients become much more successful with their web sites, traffic, email marketing and conversion strategies, and at least 50 % of what I use in my consulting business I first learned from James Martell's Super Boot Camp.

At the time, I didn't have much money to invest in training, and was highly skeptical as I had spent money on other programs that were a lot of hype and offered a lot of scattered material, yet none of them had the systematic approach to making money online that James' Boot Camp offers.

What I needed was someone who could take a beginner from A to Z.  Though I had a lot of website building knowledge, and had built a lot of sites for people and small businesses - I really didn't know how to get targeted people or prospects to the website nor how to help them through the buying decision.

Not only did I learn all of that and more, including how to outsource when having problems with highly technical issues with my sites, but I also learned how to hire and outsource writers and other quality virtual workers the right way, because James teaches all of this an more in his Affiliate Marketer's Super Boot Camp.

When you are a small start-up web consultant, you need all of the "sound" input you can get, and you need to be able to do things on a shoe-string.  James' Super Boot Camp is affordable for just about anyone with some kind of income to get started in the affiliate marketing and web consulting industry.  And, the great thing about it is how detailed and thorough his training is.  James stays up to date on all of the latest "how-to" in the web industry.  

Even with the most recent content farming algorithm change with Google busting some sites by dumping up to 96%  of some indexed content, James and his students continue to stay in the top 10 in Google Rankings because he focuses on how to stay focused with 2 things:

Quality Content 

and

Quality Backlinks

Never have I been in any other course that teaches how to make money online by doing it the right way, the way that Google and other Search Engines highly favor.

I highly recommend trying James' Super Boot Camp (there's even a complete money back guarantee so you can't lose).

Try it risk free, and yes, due to FTC trade commission laws, this story is completely true and I might make a commission if you try his courses.

Sincerely,

Aaron P. Schulman

owner, Aimadvantage.com

          

Forums:

• Traffic Strategies and Tools

 

Get to the top 10 in Google the right way:   Watch this live process as we take a website from non-existent to the top 10 in Google:   Recently- we started building a new website based on guitar reviews.  It is a basic affiliate model type website whereby we post reputable, researched reviews on acoustic guitars and present the best products with detailed explanations of their features and benefits.     This site will be worthless without traffic and solid reviews.    So we are working diligently on both.   A month ago, this site did not exist in the search engines, and only 4 weeks later, we are already on the rise due to real, nose-to-the-grind SEO that anyone can learn to do.     The 4 factors that make SEO work for any site are:   1)  Quality content on your pages 2)  Quality content on other sites linking back to your pages 3)  The right kind and diversity of contextual links (anchor links) for the phrases you want to win in the Search Engines 4)  Consistent, quality effort (not giving up)   Here is a picture of the most recent page rankings for key words we are working toward, and you can also see how many pages are out there on Google that contain these phrases and where we rank.     As you can see, we have already ranked, 198, 18, 39 and 1 for selected keyword phrases.    However, anyone in the SEO field knows that if you are above 10, your pages are not very good for sales- perhaps good for researchers and competition, and a few other types.   Now compare how many pages are indexed in Google and how close we are to the top of the crop!  

• "best beginner acoustic guitar" 198 out of 869,000 results
• "acoustic guitar reviews at strumviews.com" - 1 out of 58 (this is useless until we make a noticeable brand)
• "beginner acoustic guitar" - 0 out of  1,430,000 results
• "beginner acoustic guitars" - 0 out of  405,000 results
• "reviews about acoustic guitars" - 0  out of 1,110,000 results
• "reviews on acoustic guitars" - 0 out of 1,110,000 results
• "acoustic guitar reviews" - 0 out of  3,220,000 results
• "best beginner acoustic guitar reviews" - 18 out of 888,000 results
• "best beginner guitar" - 39 out of 3,430,000 results
• "strumviews.com" - 1 out of 58 - this is also useless until we make a wider brand impression
• "guitar reviews site here" - 0 out of 52,300,000 results - extremely long tail keyword phrase that will not bring results, but will help build search engine trust affecting other SEO work.

We've got a road ahead of us until we see top 10 rankings, and quite a bit of work until we see affiliate sales, but stay tuned as we show you how we do it.  

Lord willing, we'll get these pages ranked well as we continue to work consistently at the effort.  

Stay tuned and subscribe below to follow our progress and to learn how we are working at this.  You can use the same techniques for your business.

 

What can you do to discover more about improving traffic to your business?

First, subscribe to our news via RSS or email below for free.

Anytime we make a new discovery or post a helpful article on:

• Increasing Sales Conversions
• Increasing Targeted Traffic
• Relationship Marketing Strategies and
• Getting your web Social 2.0 you will receive a notice

                               

If you are already a subscriber and would like more information, contact us here or below,

or view our list of services to discover the best options for you.

Aaron Schulman for Aim Advantage        
           

 

   

Forums:

• Traffic Strategies and Tools

5 Steps for Getting Targeted Web Traffic with Strategic Domain Names:  

Simple Do's and Don'ts to help you successfully get key word based traffic for your brand, product or service.

Purchasing and using strategic domain names has been around long before it was given a name.  A common term for using key word based domain names has been tossed around by web marketing strategists as "domaining".  Coming up with creative and key word rich domain names is one of my favorite visioning or market expansion activities.  

We have helped clients and our own traffic and lead generation strategies greatly in some cases, and poorly in others by "domaining" or strategic use of domain names, and here are a few tips and ideas to help you get the ball rolling for your own efforts.  In this, we also share a few pointers from real marketing experience where we have been very successful, as well as where we have fallen short in this process.

Here are 5 solid steps we have personally used for ourselves and clients in
building solid domain name traffic and conversion strategies:

 
Conversion starts with the Domain name???

Though this is categorized under "Web / Internet Traffic Strategies" it is also technically a Conversion Strategy.

Here's an Example from the world of golf.  

Jack Nicklaus - arguably one of the best golfers who ever lived rebuked a popular phrase in golf, and rightly so when he said,

"Drive for show, putt for dough. . . not in my book"
(taken from his video series - "Golf My Way")

How in the world does this relate to traffic and conversion?  Looking at traffic as the preparation for getting the sale, we can look at Driving the golf ball as preparation (or setting up) for the birdie putt.  Simply stated, he considers putting while standing on the tee.  He knows where he wants to land the drive, so he will have the best angle of approach to the flag, so that we will have the best chance at making the putt!

 What an analogy to the simple web success formula, "traffic + conversion = revenue"

  

#1: Before you buy domain names for traffic generation, consider whether the domain names can or will convert to revenue.

 
Test the domain name with the Google Key Word Tool

Early in my internet strategy career, I was a bit zealous (and lacked a lot of knowledge in areas that I was aggressively pursuing)  I kind of missed the whole point of Proverbs 19:2 - "It is not good to have zeal before knowledge" and spent a lot of money on domain names that I never got around to using.  Eventually, I realized that I did not have the capacity to use them all effectively, and had bought many in haste, hence the purpose of this report.  When you are searching for domain names, yes, you may have your main brand names, and if you can afford it, you should purchase the derivatives, different extensions and hyphenated versions of your own brand name to protect it.  

Domaining or buying strategic domain names that are rich with your targeted key words should be tested first with the Google Key Word Tool.

Why?

1) Because it will reveal to you the potential monthly global and local traffic if you are able to optimize a page or site using that domain name

2)  Because it will give you other ideas for key word rich domain names that could potentially bring targeted traffic.

  

Before you buy domain names, test it and it's potential cousins with the Google Key Word Tool

(or another reliable key word tool that gives real Search Engine Metrics)

 
Test your key word phrase conversion value with PPC

(Using Pay Per Click to test your key word rich domain names)

If you read our work, (or work with us) you will hear the "T" word a lot:  "Test"

It is actually a foundation of our philosophy as it should be for everyone who is serious about marketing, sales improvement and ROI (return on investment).  

1 Thessalonians 5:21 says, "Test everything. Hold on to the good."

 Claude Hopkins pointed this out (paraphrased):

 advertising (marketing) if done scientifically is the surest, safest way to great returns for your money.

He helped pioneer this, he proved this, and he lived this principle and became very wealthy while building wealth and national brand names for many of his clients in the process.  

One of the things that grieves us is when a company does not understand this principle, will not invest the time to implement it, or prefers legacy or opinions or popular vote (not the customers but the strategic team's vote) or pride rather than scientific, proof-based marketing.  

This often leads to the downturn in our marketing relationship with a client when we are unable to convince our clients that testing and tracking and change based off of proven sampling returns is always better than the team vote or pride.  

When it comes down to it, it is difficult for some clients to accept the facts and with a "gulp" realize that they may have been senselessly wasting marketing money for years. 

  

Before investing in Search Engine Optimization or domain names, test.

Test them for their potential traffic value by purchasing at a bare minimum of 100 clicks (probably best to purchase a few hundred clicks if it fits the budget).  Then begin to make your strategy based off of these returns.  Poor conversions based off of good key word phrase clicks can also be caused by your landing page, so be careful and know which key words will do well before investing in domain names and/ or SEO campaigns.

  
Have a solid landing page strategy

Imagine opening up a bakery, spending thousands of dollars on good, targeted advertising and enticing people to come to your store to get great donuts, and tons of potential donut lovers stampede your doors down, but then can't find the donuts in your store, or worse, the donuts are hidden behind some boxes in the back room that can only be reached by going through a series of doors and hallways that form a confusing maze!  

Worse yet, what if they somehow mangage to find their way off of your gauntlet of a site, leave and tell all of their friends (social media working against you) how confusing and impossible, and misleading it was and they never could find your donuts that your advertising enticed them to come and try!

This is exactly what happens to your site visitors when you have great traffic funneled to a crappy landing page.

(well not exactly, but you get the point)

Your landing page should have a clear strategy, and if it is not a sales page, squeeze page, or opt-in of sorts, you should still have a goal for your visitors.

So how can you avoid this embarrassing waste of money?

Start with AIDA for landing page success
(Run split tests or multi-variate (MVT) tests on all 4 aspects of your copy)

• Attention: Craft and test appropriate headlines and graphics, font size, color, etc. 
• Interest: Be sure your copy draws them in- make it interesting and in alignment with the target
• Desire:  Arouse appropriate desire by adding value and serving their initial need (let them sample the donut)
• Action:  Make the "call to action" clear and in alignment (Help them easily buy a dozen donuts or more!)

  

Before investing in domain names, have a solid, testable landing page strategy in place

From our story about Jack Nicklaus earlier, Jack had a mapped plan for each hole.  He knew where he wanted to hit his drive, because he knew from where he wanted to approach the green with his second shot.  He also knew where he wanted to putt from on each green to have the best chance at birdie.  Having a good landing page in alignment is similar to knowing where the best place is on the green to putt from. . . and it starts on the tee box.

 
Figure out how the domain name will fit your "Big Picture" Sales and Marketing Funnel

 

• How is the domain going to be used?  
• Will it point to a sales page?  
• Will it be used to segment potential buyers for a specific product or service?
• Will it be used to have them opt-in to a series of drip marketing or irrigation marketing leading to the sale, subscription, or other service?
• Will it point to a specific landing page housed within your regular website?
• Will it be used to survey and do marketing research for returns on a particular key word phrase or "catch phrase"
• Are you starting to see the endless possibilities and perhaps the temptation to run away with a trunk-load of domain names that you will never really put into action? (I've learned this lesson the hard way - you don't have to).
• Will it be disguised to bring in leads and slowly introduce them to your brand (again)?

Know and test how this domain name will fit into your overall sales and marketing strategy.

 

What can you do to discover more?

First, subscribe to our news via RSS or email below for free.

Anytime we make a new discovery or post a helpful article on:

• Increasing Sales Conversions
• Increasing Targeted Traffic
• Relationship Marketing Strategies and
• Getting your web Social 2.0 you will receive a notice

                               

If you are already a subscriber and would like more information, contact us here or below,

or view our list of services to discover the best options for you.

Aaron Schulman for Aim Advantage        
           

Forums:

• Traffic Strategies and Tools

Increase your income 2 to 10 times with 1 simple strategy

Cornell University did a study a while back and revealed how the top 10 rankings in Search Engines differed greatly in the amount of traffic they bring.

These numbers reflect the percentage of people that clicked through based on the page results in the top 10 of the Search Engine.

The click through rate (CTR) is the percent of people who clicked on the search engine results when they typed in a particular search phrase.

Top 10 Ranking click through rates: 

1- 56.36%  (notice how the first natural position received over 1/2 of the traffic!)
2- 13.45%
3- 9.82%
4- 4.00%
5- 4.73%
6- 3.27%
7- 0.36%
8- 2.91%
9- 1.45%
10- 2.55%

Now, clearly, these results would vary depending on the search phrase and the meta description (the little paragraph after the search engine result that described the page you would click to) and even the search engine used, but these results convey a very convincing message:

Getting top 10 Natural Search Engine Rankings can cause a 2 to 10 fold increase in traffic and a corresponding increase in revenue, depending on what your ranked page is doing to convert traffic.

The reason I decided to write this article is simply because many clients at first do not understand the value and the power that a top 10 ranking can bring, nor the effort it takes to gain and sustain a top 10 ranking.  Though it is an investment, the ROI can be quite powerful on the revenue generating side

and the traffic / lead results can last for years if done correctly.

Understanding Search Engine Results (basic):

For example, if I pull up Google and type "best cat food" here is what I currently get from my location:

Notice the 3 areas in boxes above.

The very top  "pink area" marked "#1 paid" in this particular search engine result reveals the top 3 "paid" positions (as per a pay-per-click) campaign.

The extreme right position marked "#3 paid" in this particular search engine result reveals the rest of the "paid" positions.

This article is referring to the box marked "#2 Natural" results.  These are the pages that the search engine returned when I typed in "best cat food" and these pages are not there via accident.

Now, these are hypothetical numbers following, but are also very conservative:

Consider that every 100 clicks converts to $20 for your business in this example.

Your site-page is currently not ranking in the top 10 and you get 10-30 clicks per month.  

You may convert $20 every 3-10 months for a particular phrase because your traffic is so minimal.

Now, let's say we complete a trusted, high quality backlink campaign and in 6-8 months, your same page is ranking at position #5.

Your traffic may be 4.73% of 22,000 global searches or 18,100 local searches average per month for "best cat food" 

Actual Google results for this search phrase "best cat food":

At position #5, converting $20 for every 100 clicks would result in the following revenue.

0.0473 X 22,000 global searches = 1040.6 clicks

1040.6 clicks divided by 100 = 10.41 conversions.

10.41 conversions x $20 per conversion = $208.12 per month in position 5.

Here's where SEO can get exciting:

Let's focus over the next 3-6 months to rank #1 for this phrase for this converting page ( I would continue doing this past this time frame to secure the #1 position):

In 6-12 months our clicks will go from 4.73% to 56.36%

which is an increase of 11.91 time more clicks!

Assuming the conversion of our page remains the same, we would expect to see an increase in revenue from

$208.12 per month to (11.91 X  $208.12) = $2479.84 per month (approximately)

Moving from the 5th position in Google to the first position in Google would

increase the revenue in this scenario by 11.9 times!

So, reflecting on your company and your current search engine rankings.

What would a top 10 Google Ranking be worth to your company?

What would a #1 ranking be worth?

It would depend on so many factors (i.e. the search phrase, the conversion rate of your page, the page title and  description, etc. and the longevity and quality of your backlinks and ultimate quality of your ranking status).

If you have more questions about how a solid
SEO investment can help your company or organization:

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Hope this blesses your efforts!

        

Aaron Schulman for
aimadvantage.com

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• Traffic Strategies and Tools

What's a top 10 Search Engine Ranking worth?

Natural Search Engine Optimization and gaining top 10 natural rankings can be a decent investment of time and capital, but it is one that can pay of residual dividends if done correctly (and can reduce your long-term advertising costs significantly - details below
Have you ever wondered or considered how much a top 10 search engine ranking would be worth for your business?
Pay close attention, because this is a slippery question, and is as general as asking, "How much would a billboard advertisement be worth to your business?"  Would you be able to answer a question as general as that?  We wouldn't be able to either.   In order to appropriately answer this for your particular business, we need to ask more questions and dig deeper into the question for clarity.  Some additional questions that need to be answered first are:

• What search phrase are you optimizing a page for ranking?
• What is the conversion rate of your page that is being optimized?
• What is your optimized page selling (product, services, pay per click ads, banner ads, memberships, etc.)?
• Are you optimizing for a research phrase, a general interest phrase, a product or service phrase, or another selling phrase?
• How well is your competition presenting their goods?
• What is your targeted audience seeking from this search phrase?  (how do you know?)
• And the list of questions goes on. . .

In order to assess the value of a top 10 search engine ranking, one must consider many more factors, and all should be scientifically researched and tested before the decent investment of SEO is undertaken.

Imagine having natural search engine rankings for one of your most competitive key word phrases.

If you sold homes for a living in Columbus Ohio, it would first benefit you by doing a key word analysis search to find out what people are actually typing into the search engines when looking for homes in the Columbus Ohio area.

Thought there a more robust "paid" tools, Google offers a great free tool to online competitors call the Google Keyword Tool.   Simply type in that phrase "Google Keyword Tool" and check it out.   Here is a link directly to the Google Keyword tool as well (if this link is changed or broken, please report it to us so we can fix it.) 

Step 1:  Make your common sense list first!

Before you do this, however, create a common sense list of 30-50 keywords and key word phrases to research.  For example, if I were looking to help a client optimize some of their web pages for home buyers in Columbus Ohio, I would start with a keyword list from a brainstorm session like this:

• Buy a home in Columbus Ohio
• homes for sale in Central Ohio
• selling a home in Hilliard Ohio
• homes in Westerville Ohio
• realtors in Central Ohio (using this to make a list of my competitors' sites)
• new homes for sale in Central Ohio
• good neighborhoods to buy a home in Central Ohio (or near Columbus Ohio)
• etc. etc. . .  (exhaust your list- this can be quite an educational and fun exercise while giving you a better understanding of your prospects and how they use the Internet to begin the home search)

Additionally, I would interchange Columbus Ohio with Central Ohio, as well as suburbs where I would like to target for selling and buying homes as a broker or realtor.

Step 2:  Use the free and powerful Google Keyword tool to refine your list

Next, take your list to the Google Key Word Tool and begin plugging them in.  What you will find will be fairly eye opening and will help you to refine your search and discover other phrases that you would otherwise miss.

For example:  the first common sense phrase for my list above had no search results (numbers so low that Google does not register this phrase)

However, some similar phrases that the tool returned at the time of this writing were:

"homes for sale columbus ohio" averaging 5400 searches per month (and a highly competitive phrase)
"houses for sale columbus ohio" averaging 6600 searches per month 
"new homes columbus ohio" averaging 1000 searches per month
"homes columbus ohio" averaging 18,100 searches per month
"new homes in columbus ohio" averaging 720 searches per month
and the list of similar results goes on. . .

Step 3:  Test before you invest! (ALWAYS)

Before setting on a key word phrase or phrases to begin an SEO campaign, make sure you test your market with some in-expensive and highly track-able  advertising.  In the great marketing handbook: Scientific Marketing by Claude Hopkins, he made fortunes for large companies and for himself by being frugal and wise in testing advertising in small market samples and tracking the returns before dumping sums of money into large marketing campaigns.  Many companies could learn how to dominate their markets, or at least continually improve their ROI for marketing and sales by reading and implementing the genius in this book.  Claude actually stated that mass advertising, if tested and carried out correctly, should be one of the safest forms of investing for a company and gives credit to his frugality and success to his mother who was very conservative and frugal and instilled these principles into his life as a youth.

One can easily set up a pay per click advertising campaign for their top 10 search phrase picks (or whatever the budget allows), and track the results.  In other words,  one can track how many actual leads converted to sales they made for each search phrase they tested.  In the housing industry, this could take some time, but the returns would be well worth the investment.  Additionally, the savings in otherwise lost advertising dollars on poorly performing search phrases could be invested in the best performing search phrases (see the science and ROI concept involved here?)

Once a test give some credible results based off of a reliable sample size, then the SEO campaign can begin.

Given any search phrase researches, one would expect a certain number of those searchers to not be home buying prospects at all.  Some might be designers looking for ideas, other realtors and brokers looking for information, government workers researching different things about homes in Columbus Ohio, etc.  The only way to know the demographics of a search phrase is to thoroughly test your choice phrases. 

Step 4: Focus on your top 3 -5 phrases and get busy

Begin finding other quality websites to obtain links to your sit pages.  Additionally, your site pages should be optimized with opt-ins, contact information, and other strategies to capture leads from the traffic that will come to your site.  It should be very easy to opt in or contact you from your website.  In order to begin optimizing your pages for certain key word phrases, you will need to make sure you are able to commit the time or money to a natural SEO ranking campaign.  If you have the time and not the money, you can do it with a few months of consistent effort.  Simply being looking for other websites that are non-competitive and have page rank scores of 3 and above (use Google tool bars and other page rank tools to find these scores), and begin contacting these website owners offering quality content for their sites.  The sites should have themes non-competitive but related to your topic so that your writings or articles will be received by a percent of these webmasters / owners. 

For example, a realtor could contact owners of sites related to home ownership, home decorating, home remodeling, home cleaning, etc. as long as the realtor or broker can craft unique articles (or have them written by freelance writers) that suit the themes of the sites he or she is contacting.  In other words, the broker would contact home cleaning sites and offer articles about themes such as:

• "Cleaning a home in preparation for the Sell"
• "Top 10 things to spit polish before presenting a home"
• "How to add curb appeal to your home"

and other writings that could naturally bridge one site theme to a realtor's site.  Optimize these articles for your partner sites that you will approach so they will serve the visitors to their site (not necessarily yours).  In those articles, create 3 anchor text links that use the search phrases you are trying to compete for in the context of each article.  When you are successful in having 20 articles published, you should have a total of 60 new highly targeted links to 3 specific pages on your website.  

If your articles are given to quality websites, and the articles are of high quality and are unique (not copied anywhere else on the web), then you should begin to see your pages steadily rise in search engine rankings for those phrases.  When choosing your key word phrases, you should divide your 3 phrases into 3 categories:

• 1 Highly competitive phrase
• 1 Moderately competitive phrase
• 1 Less competitive phrase

This strategy of spreading the competitiveness of your phrases will almost ensure that one of your phrases will see top 10 rankings while the more competitive phrases might need additional links.

Gaining quality links from other trusted websites (pages) is perhaps the most effective way to build quality into the world wide web by offering and publishing unique and quality content, while simultaneously gaining in the rankings and helping other website owners improve the overall quality of their own site content for their visitors.

This is a fairly straightforward process, and can be accomplished with a small budget and consistency.  If you run into a snag, browse more of our articles or contact us for help.

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• Traffic Strategies and Tools

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is certainly an ingredient for gaining qualified, targeted traffic as well as credibility and trust.  

  Recent polls have stated that natural search engine results are trusted by searchers up to 6 or 7 times more than paid advertising, banner advertising, pay per click and other forms of advertising and trust at the front end can certainly have a positive effect on the conversion rates as well.   Although there are currently over 200 algorithms that the Google Search Engine uses to rank web pages (Search Engines don't rank sites, they rank individual pages), there are just a few key ingredients we need to focus on as website owners to gain popularity, trust and page rank within Google and other search engines.   The easiest way to divide this up is into two categories of SEO:   On page SEO  and  Off page SEO.   On Page SEO:   To summarize, on page SEO is simply setting up a page with quality content, and meta tags, consistent titles, key words etc. that makes the page a quality web page based on the topic, theme and keywords one might be targeting to rank naturally in the search engines.   For example, if I wanted to rank a page well for the phrase "Search Engine Optimization", I would need to be sure that the page was quality content, and not plagiarized or duplicated anywhere else on the web.  Additionally, I would need to make sure that the title, headings, tags, and content were all in alignment with the subject of Search Engine Optimization.  Key words, headings, and other tags and elements of the page should not be under-optimized or over-optimized.  In other words, if that page lacks in coherence, quality and alignment by not containing enough information that is consistent with facts about Search Engine Optimmization, then it would be under-optimized.     On the contrary, if a page were over-optimized by containing the key word phrases far too often and exceeds what would be deemed natural language, it can actually be penalized and give less trust in the search engines because it comes across as a page that is reverting to tricks and gimmicks to attempt to rank well instead of quality aligned content.   Additionally, the better the quality of the content in a page, the more likely people are to share this page with others.   Off Page SEO: To summarize off page SEO, this is simply the measure of the quantity and quality of links and referrals from other web pages, book marks, social sites, etc. pointing back to your specific page.  Search engines take into consideration the quality of the pages and websites that are linking to your page, and consider these similarly to "quality votes of confidence" on that particular subject or theme.     If a person were trying to obtain top rankings for the search phrase "Search Engine Optimization", the other half of the equation would be off site SEO, meaning the overall quality and quantity of articles and links closely related to the phrase "Search Engine Optimization".  Though Search Engines differ in their algorithms, Google has been the pace setter for years in returning quality pages based off of key search phrases, which gives Google such a great public trust factor.     Early in the days of SEO, people used tricks such as loading up pages with key word phrases that were the same color as the background of the page, so that they could get many points for key word frequency.  Additionally, other high ranking pages were credited by the process of link swapping (which does very little for natural SEO today).     Today, Search Engines look for quality content and quality inbound links or back-links and rank pages accordingly.  Thought they use many other factors such as site longevity, social bookmarks, outbound-links, etc.  These two main ingredients, on page and off page optimization are the two that a web site owner has the most immediate control over and those with the right approach to both strategies and with consistent effort in the right direction can gain top 10 Search Engine Rankings.   To learn more about SEO for your site or business, read more articles here or contact us.