How To Get An Extra 108,160 Hits A Year

Most of you have seen those little award graphics on web sites. They are given to the web site by another web site or award association to reward the web site for a specific reason. They usually link right to the site that has given the award.

These award sites are drawing tons of traffic to their own web site. The reason is because all the web sites who get the awards are linking right back to them by posting the award on their web site.

What is stopping you from offering other awards to other web sites? You could design a graphic for the award. The graphic could include something that will draw them to your web site. Have an online form at your web site so other people can enter to qualify for the award. You then judge all the entries and pick a winner. You give them the award graphic with a link included. They post it on their web site and now they're linking your web site.

You could offer web site awards for many reasons. The web site might offer outstanding and original content. The design of the web site could be very professional. It could have a fast load time. It could include original web features that aren't found on most web sites. The site may be easy to navigate through.

Let's say you give out 20 web site awards a week. In a year that would be 1040 people linking to your web site. If you received 2 hits a week from each link, that would be 104 hits a year from each award you have given. That equals an extra 108,160 hits to your web site a year!

Regards
Roger Mayne
Swiftdeal

How To Get Valuable Feedback From Your Customers

You can learn many things you didn't know about your business by getting valuable feedback from your customers. Your customers may buy your main product just to get the free gifts. Your visitors may think it's to hard to navigate through your web site.

By knowing this type of important information you can improve your web site, products/services, advertising, and marketing. Below are nine techniques you can use to get valuable feedback from your customers.

-Use surveys and questionnaires regularly to improve your business. Publish them on your web site, ezine, print newsletter, direct mail material, include them with product shipments or inside product packages. Post them on appropriate online message boards, email discussion lists and newsgroups on the internet.

-Create an online community for your customers. Include a chat room, message board, email discussion list on your site for customers to participate in. You can regularly moderator these communities to see what your customers are saying about your business.

-Give away your products to a group of your customers. Ask them to use and review the product. Ask them to fill out an evaluation form and send it back. Some customers may fill them out, some may not, but the feedback you do get will be valuable.

-Offer your web site visitors an online product or service from your web site at no cost. It could be an ebook, search engine submission, consulting via email, web design, etc. In return, ask them to fill out a short survey about your web site, products or services you're selling, customer service, or your web site.

-Create a customer focus group. Invite ten to twenty of your most loyal customers to meet regularly. They will give you ideas and input on how to improve your customer service. You could pay them, take them out to dinner or give them free products.

-Stay in contact with customers on a regular basis. Offer them a free ezine subscription. Ask customers if they want to be updated by email when you make changes to your Web site. After every sale, follow-up with the customer to see if they are satisfied with their purchase.

-Make it easy for your customers to contact you. Offer as many contact methods as possible. Allow customers to contact you by email. Hyperlink your email address so customers won't have to type it. Offer toll free numbers for phone and fax contacts. This will make it easy for your
customers to voice their opinions.

-You could regularly contact customers on birthdays or holidays. Send thank you gifts to lifetime customers. Email them online greeting cards on holidays or birthdays. Call them personally to wish them a happy holiday. You could them follow-up with a survey or ask them if they're happy with your business.

-Invite your customers to company meetings, luncheons, workshops or seminars. Create special events for your customers like parties, barbecue's, dances etc. Make a point for yourself and your employees to interact with them at these event to get valuable feedback for your business.

You could use a couple or all of the techniques listed above to get valuable customer feedback. These aren't the only ways, be creative and come up with some of your own.

Regards
Roger Mayne
Swiftdeal

How To Increase Traffic By Offering A Free Course

If you have extensive knowledge on a particular subject, why not create a free course for your web site visitors. The course should be related to the theme of your web site. If you're selling business related products, you would want to giveaway a free course about business.

You could offer the course in html, autoresponder, and ebook format.

HTML- Your course could be right on your web site. On one web page, create a title page and table of contents. Use clickable chapter links so they can go to the sections easily were they need the most help.

You could increase your traffic by allowing people to give away the course to their web site visitors. Just have them link to your web site.

Ebook-Your course could be in a downloadable ebook format. Include your business ad in the ebook. A good ebook software to use is Editor Pro, you can find it at http://www.e-ditorial.com.

You could allow other people to give away the ebook. They could just upload it to their own server. Every time someone downloads it, they will see your business ad.

AUTORESPONDER-Your course could be published on an autoresponder. You can sign-up to get a free follow-up autoresponder from all the free services on the internet. You can find them by typing in "free autoresponders" in your search engine of choice. Include a lesson of your
course on each follow-up message sent.

You could increase traffic by allowing advertisers to include their ad in the course. Ask them, in return, to advertise the free course at their web site. Just have them link to your web site.

There are many other formats you can use to create your free course; downloadable text, pdf, print format, fax-on-demand, cassette, video, etc. You can use all the methods above with all the formats to increase your traffic.

Regards
Roger Mayne
Swiftdeal

How To Successfully Joint Venture Your Online Business With Offline Businesses

There are many advantages joint venturing with offline businesses. You could increase your target market by reaching audiences you couldn't advertise to before. You could get referrals from the offline businesses you joint venture with.

The key to joint venturing with offline businesses is to find ones that have the same target audience. If you're selling business software, you wouldn't want to joint venture with a store that sells candy. You won't be very successful. You would want to joint venture with an office supply or computer store.

Below are three possible joint venture deals you could set up:

1. Write a tip booklet that is related to your business. Make a deal with an offline store where they giveaway your tip booklet to their shoppers with each purchase. The store you pick should attract your target audience. The store could have something free to giveaway to attract shoppers and you could have your web site ad in the tip booklet.

2. Design a printed flyer for your online business. The flyer should include a description of your web site, email address, web address and any other important information. Make a deal with an offline store to have them include the flyer in each bag of products they sell in exchange for free advertising on your web site.

3. Make a deal with a computer store to have them display your web site on the computers they display in their store in exchange for free advertising on your web site or in your email newsletter.

Once you find a targeted offline business, contact them and present your joint venture proposal. Tell the business owner the benefits of the joint venture. Tell him or her why it would be a win/win situation for both of your businesses. Give them a lot of compliments about their business, products and services. Using all three methods above will greater your chance of
having a profitable and successful offline joint venture.

Regards
Roger Mayne
Swiftdeal