The Rich Affiliate

Today almost all the businesses are looking to increase their ROI from their website. With that, they are also looking at ways and methods by which they can increase their website traffic and maximize their online presence.

The 5 strategies listed in this article will help you in not only optimizing your website for increasing your customers but also improving the cash flow from your website. The information that is summarized below will help you in getting immediate results for your business.

Strategy 1: Setting Your Goals
A website without a goal is like shooting a bullet in the dark. Just as the bullet looks for a target, so do Internet Marketers needs to prioritize their goals as to what they expect from their website. Most of the Internet Marketers have primarily 2 goals in mind:

1. Building quality leads, and
2. Increasing the number of leads.

In order to achieve the above, it is important that your website is crafted in such a way that it can encompass the following:

Attention: Your website should be well designed and contain valuable and informative content that can attract more and more visitors from the search engines.

Interest: Your website should be able to display the advantages of your products and services such that there is an interest in the visitor to know more about your product/service.

Decision: Your website should be able to illustrate to the visitor that by purchasing the respective product/service they would be making a smart decision.

Action: Your website should be able to cut through your competition and ensure that the prospect converts to a customer.

Strategy 2: Conversion Optimization
It’s a known fact that nearly 50% of the visitors are lost because they cannot find the product or service they are looking for. If this is true, then where are the visitors going? Are you tracking the conversions that are happening on your website? For example, you had 50 visits today. Out of the 50 that visited, 30 went to the product/service page. Out of that only 10 clicked on the sign up link and finally only 2 paid. This is what needs to be tracked and you should find out where were the points or the pages from where the visitors left and what were the reasons for their exit.

Some points to ponder on:
1. Is my websites’ navigation confusing?
2. Does it display a value proposition that would benefit the visitor
3. Are my headlines able to elicit action?
4. Is my content unique and keyword friendly?
5. Does my website offer a risk free guarantee?
6. Do I have testimonials on every page of my website?
7. Does my website look professional?
8. Does my website have VeriSign certificate?

A well designed website can definitely change the perspective of the visitor and that’s something that you would like to ensure in your website. Once you have succeeded in building a well developed website, your sales will increase, conversion rates will shoot up, customer retention will increase, and finally you will get rid of all that stress.

Strategy 3: Driving Immediate Traffic To Your Website
The fastest way by which you can beat the competition with a new website is by first performing AdWords Optimization. With AdWords Optimization, you can immediately beat your competitors and maximize your profits from day one itself. Unfortunately, many internet marketers fail in their initial attempts to either take advantage of this laser targeted traffic generating method or by not monitoring and managing their AdWords campaigns on a regular basis.

The Solution!
Identify the client acquisition cost! Let us consider a hypothetical case where the profit made on the sale of a product is $250. Per the data available, a sale is made from 250 visits. Therefore the visitor value is $1.00 for each visitor to book a profit! The best solution would be to bid low and keep a constant track on the metrics and performance of your campaigns.  Then tweak them as and when necessary.

Also, create unique advertisements that are focused around your main keywords. These advertisements can then be split tested based on the CTR – click through rate to see which ad is performing better when compared to others.

Strategy 4: SEO – Search Engine Optimization To Improve Your Ranking
In order to improve the ranking of your website, you need to ensure that your website is submitted to those sites (Directory Submission Sites, Article Submission Sites, Press Release Sites, Reciprocal Linking sites) that have a good page rank.

Points to note:
• Ensure that your website gets a huge number of relevant and quality links than your competitors.
• Ensure that the anchor text that is used in your website has the keywords that are present in the content of your web page.

Strategy 5: Testing & Tracking
The key to the success of your business lies in maintaining, monitoring, and managing your metrics. The metrics will tell you exactly as to what is converting and what is not.

For example:
What amount of sales happened yesterday?
Which page of your website converted the most?
From which location did the maximum number of visitors come?
What is my ROI?

The 5 strategies explained above will surely get you results that you would have never imagined if you implement and execute them correctly.

As the old year comes to a close and everyone begins to look forward to the beginning of a New Year, many people are also anticipating the beginning of their New Year’s resolutions. For numerous individuals, New Year’s resolutions will involve vows to cut back on their food intake, get on a diet and exercise regimen and drop at least a few pounds. The question that hangs in the air for those who are anticipating the start of a new diet lies in exactly which diet might happen to be right for them and which diet holds the key to helping them lose the most weight.

Certainly, there are numerous diets available and it seems like every few months a new diet or eating plan has emerged to become the new successful diet rage. Is it possible that all the ‘popular’ diets can help you lose weight or are there certain diets that can help you lose more weight than others?

This is the question that a group of researchers set out to answer recently. Over a period of two months, 160 individuals were monitored closely as they followed a supervised program. The varying factor among all 160 program participants was that they were allowed to choose whichever diet suited their fancy. Researchers waited and watched in anticipation to learn which diet or diets would prove to be most successful.

What they learned at the conclusion of the study proved to be quite interesting. The data they collected not only helped them to learn more about which diet programs tend to be more successful in terms of total weight loss but also which diet programs more individuals were more likely to stick with for long term weight loss and maintenance.

While the study participants were allowed to choose their favorite diet plan, most participants opted for one of the following: Atkins, Weight Loss, Ornish and the Zone. Even though initial data was conducted after just two months, researchers continued to study the remaining participants. They discovered that after a period of time more than half of those participants who opted for diet plans that focused on low carbs and high fat, such as the Atkins plan, dropped out. Additionally, approximately the same percentage of individuals who chose the Ornish plan, which focuses on low fat and high carb vegetarian foods, also quit their diets. Weight Watchers participants fared moderately better, with about two-thirds of that group’s participants sticking with it. The Zone participants showed similar results.

So, which diet plans performed best overall in terms of total weight loss? Surprisingly, they all performed about the same. Those individuals participating in the Ornish plan who were able to stick with their diet for the entire year achieved a weight loss rate of about 6%; the highest of all groups. Atkins came in at about 4%, with Weight Watchers and the Zone performing at an average of 5% weight loss. Health risk factors related to obesity were an entirely different matter; however. In terms of heart disease risk, Weight Watchers participants decreased their risk by 15%, while other diet plans hovered in the 12% range. The Ornish diet plan participants, who showed a higher overall weight loss, showed a lower decrease in risk of heart disease, at just 7%.

Overall; however, researchers concluded that in the end, there is no one magic diet. If you’re planning to resolve to lose weight in the New Year, your best strategy is still the same regardless of which diet plan you ultimately choose. Eat sensibly, cut back on portions, drink plenty of water, participate in a moderate exercise routine and find a diet buddy to support you in your weight loss goals.

The first place people search when looking for an answer is the Internet. “Google it” has become part of our everyday vernacular.  Billions of people go online every day looking for answers to their questions.

The two main search engines are Google and Bing. (Bing is the merger of MSN and Yahoo.) Google has dominated the search business due to the algorithms they use to ensure the end user finds the answers they are looking for. Time will tell if Bing will be competitive with Google.

Ranking high in search engines is an art. Ten percent of ranking is data, but 90% is insight. The insight comes from understanding the difference between keywords and queries. Keywords are the words the end user types into the search engine. A query is the question behind the keyword, the intent behind the keyword. The query is what the end user is actually asking and looking for. Understanding the query is the first key to ranking high in the search engines.

The second thing needed to get on the first page of search is to understand what it takes to get on the first page.  Generally achieving a high rank in search is based on 3 criteria: competition, relevancy, and content.

Competition is basically popularity. The more popular (talked about, linked to, and click on) your ad or offer is, the more competitive you are. Relevancy is based on how well your offer matches the keywords. Your ad should include the keyword, or be as close as possible to the keyword being searched on. Finally, your content should address the question being asked. Your goal is to answer the query as directly as possible. You want the end user to say “Yes, this is the answer I’m looking for.” If you can master these three criteria, the higher rank you can achieve in search.

The best positions (ranks) in search are those above the fold. The fold is the bottom of a web page you can see on your computer screen.  Everything you can see on your computer screen without having to scroll down is “above the fold.” Everything below your screen (where you have to scroll down) is call “below the fold.”Being above the fold is your goal. Why? The most relevant ads or offers are typically above the fold. Many users want to find answers immediately; it’s human nature, and they would rather find the answer “above the fold” than have to scroll down to see if their question is answered below. This is why relevancy is so important in your ad or offer.

Mastering the art of search is not impossible. It’s just take practice and time. Take the time to think about what the end user is really asking (the query) and how your offer answers their question (relevance and content). Be persistence and consistent.  Work through the learning curve and you’ll find yourself with a high rank in the search engines.

Happy Business Building,

Yoli