1. Don’t rush it. Search engines like to see websites to grow naturally so if you buy traffic and go from getting 1 to 100,000 visitors a day they will know something is not right and will more than likely bump your rankings downwards rather upwards. It can take ages to recover from this penalty so it stands to reason that this is best avoided.
2. Start blogging. This approach is best for the short term as well as long term. It is wise to have a blog of some kind that you can regularly add content to. The search engines see this as an active site as long as the content is relevant to the site then you should see improvements in the number of visitors.
3. Back links are a massive part of getting rank well in search engines such as Google. Just like other approaches this should be done slowly so that it will appear more natural. Don’t limit yourself to a single method of getting back links, you can get links from directories, social networking sites, forums, blogs, community sites and many more.
4. Web 2.0 content. This is a great way of getting quality backlinks to your site above and beyond those from article directories. Creating something like a Squidoo Lens or HubPage will really boost your rankings. These would take less than an hour to create and will be there forever. It is well worth investing some time into creating at least one per week.
5. The content of your website is vital. Everything needs to be relevant to the keywords that you are trying target. It is important that you include these in the copy and have keyword-rich links within the site. Never force the keywords in or use them excessively because the search engines are now clever enough to spot tricks like this, and they will put a mark on your website to drop its ranking or worst, take it off the database completely.
6. If you haven’t done anything like this before then no one is going to say that you should be an expert. There are lots of websites, forums, e-books and tutorials online that will give you hints, tips and advice on what you should and shouldn’t do to help your website grow and be profitable. You should spend a few hours going through these to pick up some worthy tips.
7. Check for broken links. If there’s any broken links on your website the search engine bots will have problem with indexing some of the pages. You can use this tool to quickly check for broken links.

Now the email is just an example the same thing could be done via phone calls, SMS text message or filling in a form. Either way you need to make it as simple and hassle free as possible for your customers to ask you for more information.

If you aren’t already doing this on your website you will soon see that it is vital that you implement this to your website.

By having this easy way for customers to contact you, you are collecting contact details of the people who came to your website but didn’t buy or call. If you have captured their contact details you can then build relationship with them and send them special offers.

They may not be interested in purchasing something right now but that doesn’t mean they won’t be in the future. Maybe they are too busy now or too distracted by something else to make a purchase. If you email them once a month with either a special offer or information that are useful to them, and sooner or later they will be interested in what you have to offer. Of course there will be ones who may never buy from you, but that’s ok because they are not your target customers and you probably want to remove them from your list after a while.

The important thing to note here is that if only 30% of your website visitors want more details and give you their contact details, just think how many extra leads you could be generating by implementing this simple yet powerful idea.

You can just add a capture form on your existing company website, however, the most effective way is to have an unique website (different domain name) that focus on just capturing leads. This type of website should be no more than one page and contain only the essential elements on it.

A web directory is the place where you can find all types of business and personal websites. It is much like the telephone directories except with the benefit of searching. Web directories have main categories and sub-categories; you want to make sure the category you submitting to is highly relevant to your website. Always make a directory submission for your website to a directory that you know is read by the search engine crawlers. It helps to improve your site’s rankings because the crawler will be able to read the link’s destination – your website.

There are free and paid directories. Paid directory submission often means your website gets approved by their editors and into their directory much faster. Prices for individual paid directories often seem nominal but consider that if you submit to several of them, you could end up paying a large sum every month. On the other hand, free directories can in some cases be just as effective as the paid but the approval process is not sure and takes much longer.

Use keywords in the website title. Keywords are important because they are used by search engines to rank your site. When you make a submission, you will be asked for the title and a short description of your site. This is where you should use the keywords that you want your website to rank for. Don’t use the same title for all submissions, instead you should use one for about 50 directories and change it for the next 50. The key to make it look natural.

Find niche directories. There are basically two types of links that can point to your website. One is a backlink placed on another website closely related to yours. For example, your website might be selling automobile sound systems and its link is placed on a web page of an automobile customisation shop. In this case, the link is highly-relevant to your website’s content. The search engines like Google will give you more values with this type of links.

It can take some time for the directory owners to approve your link. One thing you can do to improve your acceptance rate is by having a well designed and content-rich web site. Avoid ‘unusual’ domains like .info, .tv, etc.

The number of Internet users are growing each year. By having a web presence your business or brand will be reachable by more people. Think of the website like a 24 hours sales person that promotes your business 24/7. It’s true that the cost of getting this “sales person” may seem like a big investment, especially if you are just started up. However, if you break down the cost into 24 months, that’s assuming you will use your website for only 2 years, you will realise the cost of this investment isn’t as big as you thought. And if the work is done properly, it will most likely to pay for itself after 3 to 6 months depending on what business you are in.

Here are just some of the things that a well-designed website can do for your business:

1. To drive your targeted market and increase their level of awareness on the products or services that your business offers.
2. To get leads and eventually conversion of these leads.
3. To strengthen customer relations by making your business easily and readily accessible using the power of your online presence.
4. To build your credibility as a business.
5. To save on cost in promoting, advertising, and marketing your business.
6. To meet the needs of your customers and respond to the demands of the modern times.

It is extremely important to get your website right if you want to see good results. If you do not have any knowledge in building a website, you may consider finding a professioanl freelance web designer or web design company to do the work for you.

The Internet makes searching for the right web design company quick and easy. Don’t waste your time on newspapers and yellow pages, because many good-and-affordable web design companies don’t advertise on those mediums. You will be able to find more good web designer or companies from Google, Yahoo or MSN. Go through at least 5 pages and make a note of the ones that you like and then filter them one by one afterward. Don’t afraid to contact their clients to find out how good of a service they received.

There are many benefits in putting up a professional looking website to help growing your business when you have just started up. It will help to list all of your reasons and purposes in establishing your website and place them in the order of your priority. You also need to identify the kind of website you need that will also determine the appropriate website design that will be created especially to meet your purposes by your web design company.

Remember that your website is a reflection of your business. Traffic and conversion will also depend on how good your website is. A mediocre website will not do your business any good. It may even hurt your business.

Overall, if you have just started your business and you do not have the expertise to setup a website, it is essential to find a professional to do the work because the benefits you will get from it (if done properly) are worth far more that the extra cost. Don’t expect to see any big results instantly, however, if you put enough work into it you will soon realise that your investment is well worth it.

1. Update your website often. If you have nothing new to add, try to improve the copy. This will let the search engines know that your website is still “active”.
2. Start blogging for your business. Write something that could be useful to your customers.
3. Join some affiliate networks, add their products to your website. Make sure they are not in direct competition with you.
4. Invite people to opt-in for your newsletter or free gift.
5. Join social bookmarking sites like Digg.com, stumbleupon and wiki, then add the icons to the bottom the homepage.
6. Add a bookmark link to your website so people can easily save it to their favorites.
7. Make sure your branding, colours and navigation are consistent on every page. It should be clear that which page the user is on.
8. Create a policy page if you don’t have one yet. Let your customers know the principle and philosophy of your business, so that they will feel more comfortable in dealing with you.
9. Make sure each page has a unique page title and description. Doing so will give you not only the search engine benefits, but also the benefits for humans.
10. Create a user friendly 404 error page. By default, if somebody goes to a page that has been moved or doesn’t exists, he/she will be shown a page with the message “404 Error – page not found”. To make this page more user friendly you can create your own error message with a link that takes the user to the homepage.

1. Pay Per Click (Google Adword)
   This is by far the best way to get highly targeted traffic. You get instant traffic to your website at the cost of only 0.10 per click, and you can always track those clicks in Google Analytics. When you first start the pay-per-click method you should set the daily budget to a small number. Once you’ve found a few profitable keywords and ads, you drop the ones that aren’t profitable and then you increase the daily budget.
2. Article Marketing
   You write some “how to” type of articles that may interest your customers and submit them to article directories like ezinearticles.com and goarticles.com. Alternatively you could use Article Submitter to simplify the process. Be sure to include your website link in the about section. Don’t try to sell ANYTHING in the articles.
3. Forum MarketingFind forums which your customers would go, and join the community. The easiest way to find these forums is to type in “fishing + forums” in Google if your business is related to fishing, if not, just change the first word. Look at the number of posts on the forum, if it looks fairly busy and related then register. Post valuable information often, let them know that you’re the expert in your field. Again, don’t try to “hard sell” your products or services, it just doesn’t work. All you need to do is put a link in your signature and let that do the work for you.
4. Sponsored Blog Reviews
   You can find blogs that are related to your industry in websites like BlogCatalog or Technorati. Visit each blog to check the quality of their content, the relevance and traffic. Go to Alexa.com to get the blogs’ traffic details. The ranking system is reversed, which means low the number the better. Try to look for blogs that are below 500,000 (that’s around 100 visitors per day). Once you’ve got a list of blogs that you like, you can write to the owner and ask for a sponsored review of your products or services.
5. “Steal” Other People’s Customers
   This method can be used both online and offline, it’s very powerful and cost effetive if done properly. You need to find businesses are related to yours but not the same. They’re not your competitors, but their customers can be your customers too because your products or services can benefit them as well as the other business. For example, if you sell fishing rods and baits you may want to approach companies that sell fish tanks, fishing clothes, fishing books…etc and then ask them to promote your website once in their next monthly newsletter, if they don’t send out newsletters then just ask them to send out an email to their customer list. And in return you will promote their website in your newsletter for a whole year (or whatever you think is good). Now if they have a good customers list you should get many sales, as well as subscribers (you should have a opt-in box before you start this)!

The best three directories are Dmoz, Yahoo Directory and Business.com. Dmoz, also known as the Google directory is completely free but it’s extremely difficult to get your website in there because they only accept quality and established websites. So if your website is new, you probably want to wait a few months. Yahoo and Business.com are paid directories, both are well respected on the Internet. The cost is around $300 for one year. If you just started out you may want to try the free directories first, here’s a huge list of free directories.

What to look for when submitting your website to directories:

• PageRank or PR (higher the better).
• Alexa Rank, this shows how much traffic the directory receives (lower the better).
• The number of clicks from the homepage to your category. (less clicks the better).
• The number of links that pointing to the directory. You can use this tool to find out the number of links a directory has.

Directory submission can be very time consuming because you need to find a good directory, find the right category and submit your website details. It normally takes about 5 – 10 minutes to do one directory if you’re doing this manually. Fortunately there’re softwares that can make the directory submission process easier and faster. We have tested a few and found Directory Submitter to be the best in terms of ease of use and price (free).

Directory submitter is a tool that will save you hours, it comes with 500+ directories preloaded, when you click on the directory name it takes you directly to the submission page. You only need to add your website details once to the software and it will fill in the information for you when you on the submission page. You just need to double check all the fields to make sure everything is filled in correctly before clicking the submit button. As you can see from the screenshot below, all directories can be arranged in either alphabetical, Pagerank or Alexa rank order, this allows you can start off with the ones that have high Pagerank or Alexa rank.

Finally I would recommend you to create an email address for all directory submissions (for example – dirsubmit@yourwebsite.com) because some directories adds you to their mailing list when you submit your website, therefore you will receive a lot of unwanted promotional emails.

There are a number of services (or software) you could use to track website visitors but the one I would recommend is Google Analytics. Feel free to do some research yourself. The setup process is easy and it gives you more information about your visitors than you will ever need. If you are planning to use AdWord to promote your products/services you will be able to track the click-through and conversion rate in the Analytics control panel as well.

Like most online services, you’ll need to sign up for an account and here’s the link to the sign up page. Once the sign up process is completed you will be able to add a new website profile to your account. All you have to do is enter your website’s address there and then wait for it to process the information. After that you should be given some codes to put on your website. You need to put the codes on ALL of your pages (not just the homepage). Open each file in Notepad or something similar and scroll all the way down until you see “” (without the quote). Now copy and paste the Google Analytics codes between and whatever is above that. Once you’ve done this to all of pages you can upload them back to your server via FTP. Check your Google Analytics account after 24 hours and you will see some data there.

This tool gives you valuable information about your visitors, with it you can find out how effective your new advertising campaign is, which advertising channel is more profitable and many more. It’s important to use the traffic results to guide your marketing direction so that you will get more ROI.

First of all, use this online tool to create your sitemap. It will take a minute or two for the system to go through all the pages of your website and then it will give you the option of downloading the generated sitemap file(xml file). Download the file to your desktop (or somewhere easy to find) and rename it to sitemap.xml. The next step is slightly more complicated, you’ll need to login to your website control panel where all the files and images are, and put the sitemap file in the root folder. An easy way to do that is to find a file named ‘index.html’ and that’s where you should put the sitemap file.

The next step is much easier compared to previous one. You need to register for a Google Webmaster Tools account, it’s completely free and here’s the link.

Once you’ve gone through the registration process you should see the dashboard. Add your website and then click the add link next to your website to add a sitemap. The type of sitemap should be ‘general’ and in the third option you’ll need to type in the name of your sitemap file (sitemap.xml).

Do not use the URL submission form because it takes too long (about 5 week).

There are number of ways to get your website in Google quickly, for example, you can ask somone who has a established website to link to your website or you could buy a link from link networks like Linkworth. Make sure you get the link from a related website if you’re going to use Linkworth because it will give you more benefits. However, if you don’t want to spend any money and you have spare time, you could use the following method:

1. Register for a new account on Stumbleupon.com and Digg.com.
2. You’ll be asked to confirm your email address; once you’ve done that you can then login to your account.
3. Submit your website url to both websites. (Make sure you write a good description and pick the right category)
4. Use the same method discussed above to check if your website has been indexed.

After the homepage is indexed your next task is to get the other pages in there as well. The best way to do that is to create something called sitemap for your website and use that to inform Google about your website structure. Here’s the article on how to create and submit a sitemap.