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My 2004 Top 10 Traffic Sources...
by Jim Daniels ©Copyright 2004

About half-way through each year I like to take a close look at
my stats to get a handle on my best traffic sources. My two
busiest websites, make-a-living-online.com and bizweb2000.com
receive thousands of visitors a day, and exactly where the
traffic comes from is always changing.

As usual, this year has brought a few surprises. Of course, I
still rely on low-cost and no-cost traffic sources, and I'd like
to share those sources with you today.

I think you'll find this list interesting. And who knows, 
you may even find a new way to get targeted traffic to your 
websites...

1. Affiliates

My number one traffic source again this year is my affiliates. 
In fact, my affiliates send thousands of visitors a day to my 
sites. Perhaps that's because I keep my affiliate network small 
by inviting only my customers to participate. This keeps 
competition to a minimum and rewards active affiliates more 
handsomely.

If you have not started an affiliate program for your best
products and services, I highly recommend you do so. Although
there are some costs involved with starting your own affiliate
program, it is well worth it. Justify the expense by telling
yourself that you are hiring thousands of sales people and 
paying them only when they sell. A web based affiliate program 
is just that.

2. Repeat Visitors

A perennial top performer is "repeat visitors." You know, people
coming to my site who have already been there before. This is
something you used to hear marketing experts talk about a lot.
Now, it seems that the value of repeat visitors has been
overlooked. Yet repeat visitors are usually the people who end up
making purchases at your site. And there are lots of ways to get
these valuable repeat visitors. I get most of mine through my
follow-up autoresponders ( thank you webbusinesswizard.com ) and
also through my free ebooks and my BizWeb eGazette newsletter. I
suggest you look at these "relationship building" strategies
closely and try similar techniques, if you are not already doing
so.

3. A Free Traffic Network?

OK, why the question mark? Well, this one even surprised me. 
I've never been a big fan of start networks or traffic exchange
programs. But I'm glad I tried one called TrafficSwarm at
http://www.bizweb2000.com/swarm -- it quickly developed into a
top traffic source, and has remained near the top for some time
now. There are lots of traffic networks to choose from on the
web, and the few I had tried never impressed me. But this one 
now delivers hundreds of highly targeted visitors a day to my 
sites. I now have a PRO account and at just thirty bucks a month 
it has been a self-propelled traffic (and income) generator. I 
do nothing. It sends traffic. I recommend it to any webmaster 
on a tight budget.

4. Google

In fourth place this year, and still delivering heavy traffic 
is Google. The web's top search engine really delivers a high
quantity of high-quality traffic to my sites. In fact, I've
managed to help a growing number of my members grow their google
traffic as well. There are no tricks to it either. It really is
as simple as taking the recommendations directly from Google's
site at www.google.com/webmasters/ and then making sure your 
site is properly optimized with the right keywords for your 
niche.

5. Links/Content

Getting lots of incoming links to your site is important. Not
only will traffic arrive via those links, but a site with lots 
of incoming links does better in search engines than sites with 
few links.

Getting links, starts with content. You write articles based on
your niche, post the content at your site AND share the content
with other webmasters. You can do this "on-the-fly" by including
a short footer after your content that tells webmasters they have
permission to reprint your article at their website or in their
newsletter. Be sure to let them know that they need to include a
live link to your site. You may even want to tell them exactly
how to link to your site. (Preferably with a short description 
of your site and a hyper linked keyword or two. This will help
search engines determine that the sites are related and give 
the link more relevance.)

There are lots of websites in need of decent content. Supply it
and you can benefit greatly - your links will grow continually
with no effort on your part. And the beauty of this strategy is
that only sites in your niche will use your content. This means
your links will be high quality links from sites in the right
'neighborhood.' This goes a long way with the search engines. If
you would like to see this content-sharing link growing strategy
in action, visit my marketing articles archive:
http://www.bizweb2000.com/articles.htm

There are lots of other ways to get links into your site, and 
you really need to use your imagination in this area.

6. Affiliate-showcase.com

Affiliate Showcase makes my top 10 list for the second year in a
row. It is a web based affiliate program search engine that is
brandable for anyone promoting affiliate programs. It automates
the tedious process of affiliate marketing and can generate some
serious traffic to any site you want. Since it is viral, it is
something you can set up, then let run on auto-pilot. And that's
pretty much what I've done. Yet it continues to deliver a steady
stream of traffic to my sites. At the very least grab the no-cost
version and give it a try.

7. MSN

Yep, MSN.com is finally making a dent in the search engine
market, and they are making a concerted effort to expand in that
area. In fact, I've already seen traffic to my sites from
search.msn.com grow steadily, especially over the past few
months. If you have not added your URL to their engine, you may
want to submit it at: http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm

8. Yahoo!

Although this traffic source moved down the list a bit from last
year, Yahoo.com still delivers quite a bit of traffic to my
websites. But search has changed quite a bit recently at Yahoo,
and with those changes comes cost to webmasters. If you have the
budget, consider using their new SiteMatch service. Or at the
very least, use the Free URL Submission Yahoo now offers at:
http://submit.search.yahoo.com/

9. "Sister" sites

Over the years I've put together a number of "sister" sites
offering various Internet marketing information, products and
services. These sites include my WebBusinessWizard.com,
Work-at-Home-Site.com, JV-Alert.com and a few others. Naturally,
these sites contain references to my main sites. So as the
traffic has grown to the sister sites, the traffic to my main
sites has grown as well. Putting up additional websites is easy,
with discount website templates readily available, and web
hosting fees at all-time lows. So it you are sticking with just
one site, it may be time for you to explore a bit of expansion.
Just keep costs to a minimum and make sure all your sites
complement each other. Before you know it you could have an
entire network of sites all helping each other grow!

10. Article Submissions

Although I have not submitted articles to other email newsletters
as often this year, this strategy still works well when I find
time to do it, and I highly recommend it to other grass-roots web
marketers. In fact, I still get quite a bit of traffic from my
archived articles across the web. That just goes to prove how
effective this strategy is for long-term traffic, as well as
establishing expertise on your topic of choice. If you are not
using this strategy, try it! Visit an ezine directory like
www.ezinehub.com and find some ezines in your niche. Then send
your best, current article to the editor. Make sure the article
is helpful and includes a small footer at the end, about the
author.

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Article by Jim Daniels of make-a-living-online.com. If you're
interested in starting or growing a business on the Internet,
Jim's sites will help you save time and money. He's been making 
a living online since 1996 and knows the ropes. Visit Jim and 
get your free help! http://www.make-a-living-online.com
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