The Naked Truth About Website Traffic

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed and follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!

Today is a milestone. Why? Check two happenings on the Internet that impact you and me:

Microsoft to overtake Google.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22947626?gt1=10856

Chaosmap - Internet Marketing Architects.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080201/20080201005390.html?.v=1

If Microsoft can take on Google at 44.6 billion dollars, then I can certainly help map the Internet!

Anyway, from 2005 when I started with Microsaw.com — the chaosmap.com launch is met with great excitement, and what a few years it has been! (more later)…

In traditional media: television, radio, newspapers, magazines, direct mail are failing to deliver results. Although some of these still retain positions to certain demographics (read: older) and retains a level of trust, businesses are racing to the Internet and trying to figure out how to sell and position their brand online.

A recent Nielsen report on “who do you trust” reveals the biggest online sales secret. Next question - now you know - but how do you create that online? Contact me, and I’ll tell you… (shhh….)

PREPARE TO BE PUNCHED IN THE FACE:

Click the single biggest online sales secret, and see for yourself. *scroll down, and do you see the 78% number? Aha!

When done, read the edelman trust barometer to cover “trust across borders” and more.

You are getting closer…

With so much controversy this week on this company and events in the last 30 days, no wonder the 5th most valuable asset is getting a lot buzz and activity, in addition to its normal (?) traffic.

A huge user discontent was received at their email inboxes and phone centers this past week, and the discussion around a beacon (a small pixel, a graphic) that was placed in shopping sites like Overstock.com and others, blew the buzz-charts.

Without a users knowledge, their system would automatically update fields in their back end database. You probably have seen it on their platform, a reference to “What action a person performed” - sort of a status of affairs.

Because of the huge outcry, this was urgently changed to alert the user when performing activities that would trigger the auto-update.

Can you imagine the implications here? Not just from a privacy perspective, but imagine this: you are shopping and buying an engagement ring for your bride to be, and if you are both users of their system, she could actually see that you “shopped a ring”! The implications here far surpass any privacy issue.

This company is still the 5th most valuable company on the Internet - and the company name is… See how they rank.

A great way to generate quick, quality traffic is using articles (see goarticles.com, ezinearticles.com and get an account).

Another really cool way to generate traffic that will allow journalists and others (including search engines!) to get to your site is prweb.com,marketwire.com, etc.

The killer strategy that can add really good exposure and quality for your website is a service called Expert Click. It’s 895.00 for the year, and you might want to do some research before signing up.

The site is located here. 

A common challenge is:

a) try to understand what SEO means in the first place

b) try to figure out when to introduce SEO engineers into the web development cycle

Answers: Read the enclosed references, and for b) answer is: early & upfront. You don’t want to be caught with your pants down and your budget exhausted when introducing your site to the SEO technician - you will often need to go back to the drawing board. (I see it all the time).

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3627555

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/21732

How to blog your way into riches.

Download the free money making guide here: free pdf download: “how to make $10,000 a month”

This is real data about how to make money online using blog techniques, but they can apply to web sites as well. Many of the techniques can work for you too - if you apply them correctly, which is also shown.

Google reached over $700.00 a share today, and with a 57% increase in revenue from this time last year, they now have reached a company at 4.23 billion dollars. (I say this with my pinky nail at the right side of my mouth, Austin Powers-style).

It topped Wall Street expecations, and you can read more about it here: Google swells above expectations.

I was speaking with a client in real estate today.

They didn’t know that you could use widgets to generate potentially large traffic to their site. The example I gave was the “mortgage calculator” example. If branded correctly, and created with a new, fresh, weird, funny, useful twist - visitors may use it (first) and find it great enough to email to somebody (second), who in turn send it to their friends/network (hey, did I hear ‘viral’?).

If set up correctly, with backlinks and not too “pitchy”, it can be a very worthwhile exercise. While many say formulas exist for viral marketing using widgets and gadgets, I say it’s all about “strategy” and “testing”. Google is a master at creating gadgets, and many other companies are creating Mash-ups to intermix technology, widgets and gadgets for useful applications.  Check out Ning.com as a platform to build your own

As Jeff Huber, VP of Engineering, at Google in a presentation at the Web 2.0 Summit (Oct 2007, San Francisco, CA) explains, “Gadgets are being created using rss, html, flash, and css and that gadgets are open, easy, mashable, packable, portable, and embeddable”. And, “what rss did for content, gadgets are doing for apps”.

Therefore, understanding Mashups and use of widgets and gadgets in online marketing programs are a valuable exercise, and can be fun too. Get your creative brains together, and think up how you can do this.

For the realty company, I suggested a Calculator that captures the origins of the user on the web, and use a Google Map to highlight top listings in the visitors geographical area, to show the power of the realtor’s services. They loved it! (Now, who will do the work?)

Reference: http://www.webguild.org/2007/10/gadgetizing-of-web.html

Unexpected results and a huge win for clicks from this guy (an example of how viral marketing takes hold, without planning or knowing how to do it):

Google Designs Their Own Interface

As you are ramping up your website…

…building links, adding content and developing hot looking designs, that appeal both to users (important) and you (not as important) - there is one thing that is missed by over 97% of all search engine optimization wanna-bees.

Content is King as we know - and the position of keywords in TITLE, H<x> and BODY elements along with proximity (how far related words and phrases are apart) and keyword density (less important) - there is a single factor much more important.

One key factor is the most important
In order to save the most time, money and energy - spend time on this - and you’ll be successful: targeting the right keywords in your inbound links. If you are targeting “buy red shoes”, make sure to get that link from a relevant site (even within your site) - and apply that text in the anchor text (blue underlined text) from the page.

In order to capture that keyword or those phrases, use a keyword research tools like Wordtracker (aff) or the Overture Suggestion Tool.

The time you spend here will pay off in large dividends, if done right.