One always wants to drive traffic to their website or blog on a daily basis. This is normally achieved by performing various SEO traffic techniques that help in driving traffic by either doing it yourself or hiring an expert. In the former case, you will end up spending too much time doing it yourself as the processes are time consuming and cumbersome while in the latter case you will save on time but end up spending a lot of money to the provider.

However, there is one technique that can achieve a lot of traffic without having to spend too much or investing a lot of time. Article Writing!

Now the next question that may come to your mind is how does Article Writing drive traffic? It’s quite simple! The Internet comprises of a lot of information and there are millions of visitors, researchers and webmasters who are looking out for content for their blogs and websites. They have a choice where they can either create their own content or search on the Internet for a good quality article which they can utilize easily and quickly. This is exactly where you come in.

This article will describe the points that you need to keep in mind while writing your article:

Choosing the Right Headline:
It is important to create a headline that is appealing. A catchy headline will attract the attention of the viewer and will appeal them to read the article.

Preferred Word Count:
A good article is one that can convey a message, strategy and tips in 500 to 750 words. Making an article too long will dilute the attention of the reader and may be considered as a drag.

Preferred Software:
The best software is Microsoft Word as it has a spell check, word count option, synonyms option, etc. If you don’t have Word, you can use Open Office Word (which is free) or you can use Notepad.

Resource Box:
This is where one hits the bulls-eye. Use this box to the maximum possible extent. Write about the author, place a link of your website, add a freebie if possible, create a call to action phrase (Download now, Submit now, Click here, Submit here, etc).

Editing the Master Piece:
Once you have written your article, don’t forget to proofread and edit it. Ensure that the article is grammatically correct and free of any spelling mistakes, etc.

Now that you are done with writing the article, the next step would be to find an online website where you can submit your article. In this way you will be able to create an online archive of all your articles. If the site has an article content management system, then it will be excellent as it automates the submission of the article to your website.

Strategies for building the traffic through the article

This involves submitting your article to the top page rank article submission directories that will publish your article on their website. Create a blog if you don’t have one and post the article there. You can register with Yahoo Groups and post your articles there as well. Create an eBook on a collection of articles that relate to a topic and give it away for free. When you give it away for free, you are actually engaging in viral marketing which brings in wide exposure. Add the article to your website and if possible do generate some extra revenue by adding Google AdSense to it. You can also create an e-course on the articles that you have written and send it out through an auto-responder. Example, Free Auto Bot. Use any social media to build awareness around your article. Submit your article to various article announcement groups. For example, Yahoo Groups. These groups give a lot of eyeballs to your article as they can be used on their own websites.

By adopting the techniques listed above, you will be able to get loads of incoming links which boosts traffic and also the performance of your website.

These days everyone has a blog but most of them float unread out on the internet cloud. So the big question I keep hearing is how do I get more traffic to my blog? The answer is simple, and if you are willing to put in a little time you can do it for free as well.

Blogs are more or less just like any other website out there. Sure they are designed to make it easy for bloggers to post news, images, and video without much computer savvy but in reality they are just user friendly mini-websites. So now that you have one you want to get more traffic to it so here’s a few of the free and basic first steps to increasing your blogs traffic.

#1 Blog About Something People Care About

Seriously – if nobody cares about your blog because it’s just random talk about what you ate that morning you aren’t going to pick up a lot of traffic. However, regardless of how weird your interests may be someone out there also cares about them. So this one is an easy – just blog about something that someone else can relate to.

#2 Submit Your Blog to Directories

This one is also easy but takes a bit of time. There are a lot of free services out there where you can submit your blog to. They are basically like giant phonebooks for blogs and once you add your blog to their service more people will be able to find your blog. You’ll be able to categorize your blog and many of them let you use your own “tags” which are basically key words. Just jump on your favorite search engine and type in something like “free blog submission” and you’ll find lots of sites which can help you out.

#3 Have a Blogroll

Blogs often have a list of links somewhere that lists the other blogs or websites that are related or that the blogger enjoys visiting. If you want to help increase traffic find some sites that will trade you a link on their blog for one on yours. Don’t get too carried away with this though as you can actually lose traffic if you abuse this. This is where you start to get into the internet’s deeper and more inner workings so for brevity we’ll just leave it with this: you don’t want more than about 100 links on your front page or you might actually decrease your chance for big traffic.

#4 Submit Your Blog to Feedreaders

Most blog services have the ability to create a “feed”. You might hear people talking about RSS, syndication, or feedreaders. Basically what this means is each blog creates a list of what posts have been added to it much like headlines for a newspaper. You can find sites out there like the Blog Directories which you can submit your blog feed or RSS to. If you do this they’ll pick up your headlines and people can then dig through them for interesting blogs. The best part about these feed systems is that most continue to check your blog for updates so once you’ve submitted it you can just reap the benefits!

#5 Blog Often and When Appropriate

One mistake some people make with blogging is blogging when they have nothing useful to say just to get another “post” on their blog. If you are doing this then you are going to have a hard time making fans who are interested in saving your page in their favorites or bookmarks. However, you want to often update your blog. If you don’t post regularly then you’ll bore your fans. Blog often, but make sure you’re blogging something of interest.

#6 Make Sure Your Blog Has a Theme

If you’re blog is all over the place you’ll have a hard time putting together a fan base. You may get a few hits here and there by random people but you want to build a community. To do that you’ll probably want to pick a few categories you’re going to post about and stick with them. If you are the type who likes to make random posts sometimes you could just make a category called Random Thoughts or something along those lines but again be careful.

#7 Pingbacks and Trackbacks

If you want people to visit your blog then visit other blogs that are related to yours and get involved. You’ll find that people often leave comments with links back to their own blog or another related blog in the comments. These are part of the pingback/trackback system which can be a lot of fun and also get you a lot of additional traffic. Avoid spamming though as you’ll just irritate potential friends and you’ll likely have your comments removed and lose your comment ability.

#8 Appearance Matters

Every blog service offers templates which can make your blog look unique or have a style you feel fits. Often you can also customize your blog with custom graphics and tinker with the layout. While this can really help your blog be careful that you aren’t making it irritating to potential readers. Not many people want to come to a blog that hurts their eyes to look at or which has loud music they don’t like.

There you go, 8 simple tips on how to increase your blog traffic. The last thing to remember is that building up your blog traffic is going to take time. Depending on the potential number of people interested in your topics and your other blogging related skills it could take weeks and even more likely months to really get things going. If you blog it, they will come!

Email marketing is one of the most profitable strategies available to the online entrepreneur (and offline business owners, too).

Consider this: About 99% of your website visitors will leave without buying anything from you on their first visit. But by creating a great opt-in offer you can at least get their contact details — and then use email marketing to follow up, build relationships, and turn them into paying customers.

And email marketing is by far the BEST and CHEAPEST way to stay in touch with your customers and build rock-solid relationships with them — so they’ll buy from you again and again! (This is called the “lifetime value” of your customers, and it’s extremely profitable.)

Email marketing just plain works! Just take a look at these statistics from PostFuture:

There are now more than 1 BILLION Internet users worldwide — and 90% of them use email. 70% of users receive opt-in email from online businesses. 82% of online buyers have made at least one purchase in response to an email promotion. 32% have made an immediate online purchase in response to an email.

With numbers like these, you can understand why I’m always stunned to hear about a business that STILL hasn’t started to take advantage of email marketing strategies.

If you’re stuck for ideas on how to use email marketing to ramp up your profits? Here are 10 proven email marketing strategies to get you started…

Email marketing strategy #1: Develop relationships and establish credibility by offering free information

Sending your subscribers valuable, free information — such as an authoritative eBook — will help them get to know and trust you. Once you’ve established your credibility, you dramatically increase your chances of converting subscribers into lifelong customers.

You can offer anything from a free report to a free trial version of software… whatever you think your subscribers would like!

Email marketing strategy 2: Encourage repeat visits by announcing regular specials

Once you’ve started collecting email addresses, you can send your customers and subscribers regular updates letting them know what your specials are. Sending regular discount offers is a great way to get your customers familiar with you and your site — and turn them into regulars who will buy from you again and again.

Email marketing strategy 3: Host “Customer Only” events

Suppose you own a restaurant, and you’ve been collecting your customers’ email addresses. You could send each of them an email invitation to an exclusive wine-tasting evening for regular diners only. Rewards like this are one of the best ways to capitalize on the lifetime value of your customers.

If you own an online business, you can set up a special page on your site that is accessible only to customers — and then send them an email telling them how to take advantage of the specials you advertise on that page.

Email marketing strategy 4: Include promotions in appointment reminders

If you are running a service business, as opposed to a retail business, you can still capitalize on the power of email marketing by sending appointment reminders to your clients.

If you’re a karate teacher, for example, you could send your new clients an email three days before their first lesson, reminding them where you are located and when they need to arrive. In that same message, you could include a coupon that offers them 25% off their lessons if they bring a friend to enroll as well!

Email marketing strategy 5: Follow up with your hottest leads

You can use email to follow up with people you have spoken with personally, but who have not made a purchase. Offer to answer any additional questions they may have, and let them know that you are available to speak with them at their convenience. This can dramatically increase your chances of closing a sale by providing your leads with extra information they’re not expecting.

Email marketing strategy 6: Offer electronic “loyalty coupons”

This is a great way to get your existing customers to buy from you again and again. Simply send each of your customers a coupon that they can print and bring with them into your store or use on your website. It is always a good idea to make your coupons valid for a limited time only to motivate your customers to make a purchase from you as soon as possible.

Email marketing strategy 7: Send follow-up offers to your customers

Follow-up offers are one of the most powerful ways to build a profitable business. because they build on the trust you’ve established to close the initial sale — and turn first-time buyers into regular customers.

How profitable can follow-up email be? My team once sent our customers a follow-up email introducing them to a product that we thought they might like. The entire process of writing the email and sending it out took about 20 minutes — and the result was a direct profit of $74,000!

Email marketing strategy 8: Encourage “Send to a Friend” referrals

Email is a great way to encourage referrals because it’s easy for people to forward messages to their families, friends, and coworkers. Make sure every newsletter, offer, or eBook you send to your subscribers reminds them that they can forward your message to anyone they think might be interested.

You could even run a promotion that gives your existing customers something for free every time they personally refer a new customer to you.

Email marketing strategy 9: Deliver your product electronically

Suppose you’ve written a book and you’re currently selling paperback copies through your site for $29 each. By creating a digital version of your book — which is WAY easier than you’re probably thinking — you can simply email it to your customers.

And since you won’t have to worry about things like printing costs, warehousing, packaging, and delivery, you can DRAMATICALLY increase your profit margin!

Email marketing strategy 10: Use email to sell your knowledge and create recurring revenue

If you are an expert on a particular topic — and just about everyone is — then you’ve got a successful business based on a paid-subscription newsletter waiting to be born.

Of course there are tons of other email marketing strategies you can put to use. And once you realize just how easy it is to use it to drive sales, you’ll be thinking of all kinds of new strategies yourself!