Tag Archive for 'traffic'

The truth about article marketing

Article marketing is a well established and effective method for promoting a website because it’s an easy way of garnering traffic and backlinks. Here’s how it works:

  1. You write an original article on a topic you know something about
  2. You submit it to one or more article directories
  3. In return for your quality content, the directory allows you to place one or more links back to a site or sites of your choice
  4. By submitting your article, you make it available for reprint by website and ezine owners seeking fresh content
  5. Each time your article is republished, so are your links, resulting in a multiplication of backlinks over time – and we all know that this results in more traffic for your site, both via direct clicks on your links and via increased search engine rankings.

Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work!

In reality when people republish your article they often either remove your links entirely or make them nofollow, thus negating most of their value to you. Or at least that’s my experience, but I suspect I’m not alone in this. When this happens, your first thought might be to complain to the article directory and expect them to do something about it, but you will not get anywhere with this – the article directories’ terms of service almost always state that it’s your responsibility to follow up any violations of your copyright.

So what can you do? Well, you could simply stop submitting content to article directories, but this is cutting off your nose to spite your face. And remember, there’s nothing to stop other site owners from illegally using your content even if you only publish on your own site, so whilst this approach may limit your exposure it doesn’t solve the problem.

Alternatively you could be vigilant and make it your business to follow up every infringement, first demanding that the relevent site takes the content down, and if that doesn’t work, by filing a complaint with their hosting service. Before embarking on this approach, make sure you understand the cost to your business in time and lost productivity, and also the emotional and psychological cost to yourself.

Or you could do what I do and simply accept that the practice will continue, but not let that detract from the benefits that article marketing will bring regardless. This doesn’t condone the wrongful use of your content, it’s simply an acknowledgement that we don’t live in a perfect world but we carry on anyway.

Bing traffic converts well

We’re always told (I’ve said it myself) that when optimising your site for search engines that Google is king and you may as well forget the rest. Now it’s certainly true that Google commands the lion’s share of the search market, but in my opinion it’s also a lot harder to rank well in Google. It’s kind of like choosing a super-competitive keyword versus a long-tail one: you know it’s better to own the competitive keyword, but it’s a lot easier to achieve a good ranking with the long-tail one.

The reason I mention this is I’ve noticed something surprising happening with one of my sites. It’s a niche site, optimised for a handful of related keywords (and when optimising I had Google in mind), and monetised with AdSense. It’s not getting a lot of traffic yet as it’s still quite new and ranked quite low for my target keywords (at the moment the best-ranked is on page 8 in Google), so what Google is sending me is long-tail traffic. The surprising thing is that I’m on page 1 in Bing for most of my keywords, and while the volume of traffic Bing is sending is still only about 25% of what Google is sending, here’s the thing: it’s targetted traffic matching my keywords!

The result is that I’m getting an AdSense CTR of about four times higher on the Bing traffic than the Google traffic and the 25% (targetted) Bing traffic has made me twice as much as the (semi-targetted) Google traffic!

Of course, all this was unintentional. I didn’t set out to rank well in Bing; it just happened as a side-effect of optimising with Google in mind. Just goes to show that after all is said and done the search engines aren’t really that different! But perhaps Bing finds my particular blend of SEO especially tasty? I don’t really know at this stage, but you can bet I’ll be keeping a close eye on my stats!

Would you care to share your own experiences of Bing optimisation? Feel free to leave a comment below…

How I increased my Alexa Rank by 2k percent

Two and a half months ago my Alexa rank was around 7 million; today it’s a shade over 335k. Unless my maths is way off, that’s a two thousand percent gain! And the good news is it’s still rising – the “official” Alexa rank for a site is an indication of its average traffic over the past three months, but they also show a one week average – this site‘s is a little under 200k.

So how did I do it? Extensive link building? Premium content? Long hours? Well, yes actually (I’ll leave you to be the judge of the content) – but that’s not what I attribute this rise to, at least not directly. In actual fact, it took all of about 10 minutes two and a half months ago to sow the seed that is now beginning to bear fruit – I’ll give you a little hint:

Alexa rank for Hippo Web Solutions

That’s right, I simply installed an Alexa traffic widget.
Continue reading ‘How I increased my Alexa Rank by 2k percent’

Strategic commenting, part 2

A couple of weeks ago I outlined my strategy for strategic commenting – go ahead and read it if you haven’t already – the key for me is building relationships with other bloggers. Taking over the world one blog at a time, if you want.

But with any strategy, even a good one, there’s normally room for improvement, so while last time I spoke about my philosophy of commenting, today I’d like to mention a couple of tactical tips you can apply to maximise the benefits of your comments to your blog’s authority and traffic. They’re actually closely related – I’ll give you a little hint: neither involves nofollow links…
Continue reading ‘Strategic commenting, part 2′

All backlinks are created equal…not!

Links back to your site (or backlinks as they are commonly called) are a critical determining factor for the amount of traffic you will receive. But not all links carry the same weight – some are definitely more valuable, and thus more desirable than others. As is often the case, the most valuable links are also often the most difficult to procure…but that doesn’t mean the lesser types do not have their part to play.
Continue reading ‘All backlinks are created equal…not!’