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10 Tips to Increase Traffic with Alexa Web Marketing

Published on April 26, 2007 in Alexa, Alexa toolbar, Amazon, Blogging basics, SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Site Stats, Strategy, Traffic Booster, Traffic Graph, Web Marketing, Web technology, ranking, tips and tricks and web traffic. 16 Comments

TrafficAlexa.com if the #1 Traffic Ranker in the blogosphere.

1. First and foremost, add the Alexa Site Stats Button to your site, if your site ranking is high, flaunt it in a visible spot. Even if your site ranking is not high, the toolbar will act as a constant motivator for you to be a active blogger.

2. Add Alexa Toolbar to your own site and let your readers know that it also blocks pop-ups!

3. Find out your competitor’s ranking. If yours is higher, display a comparative traffic graph proudly on your site with Alexa’s free traffic graph banner.

4. Alexa is owned by Amazon. The reviews done on Alexa can be a part of your Amazon profile. If you don’t have an Amazon profile, get it now!

5. If you have an associate ID, Amazon will include your ID in your link. Also, any purchases made at Amazon using the new Alexa toolbar will earn you commissions.

6. Thank your customers and well-wishers for writing good Alexa/Amazon reviews for you. You can also thank your customers by providing them a discount or a free gift. This might encourage them to be a repeat publisher for you!

7. Once you establish a friendly base with your new customers, you could request permission to re-publish the review on your own site as a testimonial. Even better if the individual/site who reviews your site is more reputed than yours, or at least as good as your own.

8. If your site traffic increased by adding affiliate products to your site, highlight it with the free dynamic Alexa traffic graph and encourage others to be your sub-affiliates. High traffic could translate into high sales.

9. Keep a track of the upcoming and current trends by visiting the global top 500 sites on Alexa’s homepage. If you want to capitalise on the difference in economies in different countries, I would recommend a thorough study of country-specific top sites.

10. Last but not the least, do visit Alexa at least once or twice a day!

If any of you have tested any of the Traffic Booster softwares online, do leave your comments here!

WordPress Scams: Ratings Removed from Theme Viewer, What a Respite!

Published on April 7, 2007 in Buzz TV, Mark Ghosh, The Undersigned, Theme Viewer, Themes, WP, WordPress, WordPress themes, Wordpress scams, ranking, ratings and sadish bala. 1 Comment

This post was lying as a draft for long, it’s a little late to publish, but better late than never.

There are many designers who used aliases to downrate our themes, but the designer who broke all records was no other than Sadish Bala, who shared the same email id as Edwin’s (Sadish’s alias) and who shared 14 IPs in common with Edwin, to downrate so many of our themes and other designers’ themes.

Crab mentality continues, but the removal of the rating system at least discourages some unfair and malicious practices.

Lately I have also noticed some “prospective competition sites” trying hard to downrate Theme Viewer in some way or the other, with the only motive of moving designers to their own sites. With success, comes envy. I wouldn’t be surprised if people are paid to write misleading comments on Theme Viewer, just like people are paid to Digg, etc.

What disgusts me most is to see the very designers who use Theme Viewer as a platform to advertise their own talent, continuously complaining. As if a free service is not enough, designers make it sound like they own Theme Viewer or Thomas, the Undersigned. Aha, it’s like putting a gun to Thomas’s forehead and saying:” You gave us a free platform to showcase our work, but you better give us a good service, else….”. It’s the same as wanting a free theme, not on the designer’s terms and conditions, but on the users’ terms and conditions.

I would agree, it would make one irate to see their issues unaddressed for long, but it’s important to understand that running a site for free with a huge traffic like on Theme Viewer is not easy, changes are being made and it would be nice if designers are a little patient and co-operative.

We hope the Donation Button is up on Theme Viewer soon, it will be a good way of showing our gratitude to Theme Viewer.

I would like to extend a big “Thank You” most importantly to Thomas, the Undersigned in his effort to bring about such a valuable change by removing the rating system, and of course thanks to Aaron Krane for his valuable advice to accelerate this process.

FREE SEO Website Evaluation: Rank Better now!!

Published on March 2, 2007 in Alexa, DMOZ, Google, How to's, SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Technorati, Web 2, Web 2.0, Web technology, crawl, free, increase page rank, keywords, metatags, ranking, tips and tricks and web traffic. 8 Comments

Here’s a quick checklist of tips on improving site traffic (in no particular order):

  1. Submit URLs to search engines and web directories to start the ranking process: Technorati, Google, Alexa, DMOZ.
  2. A good domain name and targeted meta tags can help improve search engine rankings. Keep your tags relevant to your data.
  3. Check your site validation from time to time.
  4. It would not hurt to keep a banner ad of search engines on your website to boost your own ranking.
  5. Trading links and advertisements with other web sites similar as yours will bring you more web site traffic.
  6. Linkbaiting will tempt viewers to place links to your website from other websites. One of the most important features of site engine optimization is to find a way out to attract all potential viewers. Common ways are providing information, humor, or digging in controversy.
  7. Post your ad on free classified advertising sections, free link sites, free yellow pages directories, free bulletin boards, basically use every FREE opportunity.
  8. Pay close attention to the statistics regarding unique/repeat visitors, length of stay of each visitor, number of hits, traffic ranking, search keywords, most popular pages of your site and so on. Restyle and grow your blog/website accordingly.
  9. Search engine spiders are unable to read images. If you have text on an image, make sure it gets highlighted with a mouseover, else the content is meaningless for search engines.
  10. Check how your website looks in different browsers and check for different screen resolutions. Make sure your pages don’t take too long to load. Aesthically pleasing, easy to navigate and content-rich websites are likely to get more hits and repeat viewers.
  11. Start networking, both online and offline through social and business networking sites, online communities and forums, discussion and chat rooms which fit your personality and business models.
  12. Think globally, if your site has a universal appeal, the better. If you are familiar with other cultures and people around the world, use that experience to optimize your links.
  13. If you are a good writer, submit your articles to e-zines: goarticles, ezinearticles, ideamarketers, contentdesk
  14. Show interest in other people’s work and leave comments or feedbacks. Good comments usually open doors to your own site.
  15. If you have a business, do make a newsletter for your clients and keep them updated about your latest offers. Even if you are not a business owner, you need to constantly add to your viewers’ curiosity. Be creative.
  16. Set up a survey/opinion poll on your website. Ask questions which are irresistible and compel your audience to vote. Ask for reviews of your own work and share your opinions with others too. Communicate freely with your target audience.
  17. Observe what your competitors are doing and act ahead of them.

And of course don’t forget to write a blog on this topic yourself!!

Google Webmaster Tools: Sitemap Generator for WordPress, good or bad?

Published on February 25, 2007 in Google, Google sitemap, Link juice, SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Sitemap generator, Web 2.0, Weblog tools, WordPress, crawl, crawler, index and ranking. 2 Comments

Google Webmaster Tools is a service offered by Google for the purpose of indexing and ranking. In addition to the natural crawling, the Sitemap Protocols help to acquire additional information about the website URL, in terms of the latest updates, frequency of updates, and so on.

The graphs and diagnostics are fascinating enough to be duped into believing that it would add value by sitemap submission. But if you are thinking so, think again.

googlesitemapSitemaps include even those pages which do not get indexed by natural crawling, so if some of the pages of your website lack content or link juice, they will get trapped by a sitemap, and might adversely affect your ranking. Extensive sites can be bailed from this, as some of their valuable pages which would otherwise be left out by natural crawling might get benefit by added scrutiny.

As you build your site well enough, first validate each page of your website periodically. Create a huge unique, valuable database, and then safely submit your site to Google sitemaps. Even if you don’t gain anything, you can at least rest assured that you will not lose anything.

Before you go on mindlessly adding a hundred tools to your weblog tools collection, check your own site’s worth NOW!