DAY 7 -- Build Free Traffic

SBI! Modules Used Today -- TrafficCenter (Traffic Stats, Search Engine HQ,
Value Exchange HQ, Other Search HQ)

To truly own your online business, you must build your own free traffic. It's fine to supplement traffic by buying Pay-Per-Click advertising or opening a Yahoo! or eBay store, depending on what makes sense for your business.

But remember... the day you stop paying other companies to send you traffic is the day the traffic stops. And so does your business.

Your lifeblood is free traffic, new pre-customers who find your site, read your content, become PREsold... and monetize. Most online small businesses never build their own free traffic.

Your DAY 7 goal is to build your own free traffic.

How?

By creating more high-value, optimized KFCPs and by establishing a quality links program. Picture your traffic growth as a snowball increasing in size and speed as it rolls forward down the hill. It's all about pleasing both your human visitors and the Search Engines... naturally and effectively.

In DAY 6 and going forward, you know how to seed enough "on-page hooks" (i.e., Specific Keywords) with Analyze It!'s help to let the Search Engines know what each page is about. You blend those keywords into excellent content to also create "human delight," which the engines also measure.

And that brings us to the concept of "off-page" criteria. Getting only the "on-page" right is not enough.

You also need to meet the Search Engines' "off-page" criteria, which collectively form an important indicator of human approval of a Web page.

The more closely you meet the engines' criteria (on- and off-page) for a quality site, the higher your page ranking scores will be. And the more pages that you have ranking in the top ten positions on the major Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), the easier and faster it will be for your target group to find your site and business. The snowball grows...

The more traffic, the more off-page behavior generated by humans (ex., in-pointing links to your site, time away from engines after a click to your site, etc.). The more, and the better, off-page criteria, the higher your keywords rank. Which brings more traffic... the snowball grows and grows.

Time for a quick reality check...

Now that you are creating a high-quality page or so per day, you are way ahead of 99% of e-business people on the Net.

Site growing? Adding a page per day or per week? Great! Does that guarantee your success, even though you are well ahead of others?

Sorry to say... nope!

Why not? Because your site, even with its superb content, is just sitting there. You need traffic and lots of it! No one is finding it... yet. And when they do...

You need visitors who read your content, become PREsold, and then do something that earns you income (i.e., buy, complete a form, hire, click on ads or affiliate links, etc.).

It's time to nail down the T, that all-important bridge between the "C " and the "P  M." Let's do it...

The best free traffic-building techniques are high-yielding and sustained. In other words, you must get...

• big traffic returns for your time and effort.
• ongoing traffic, not short-term or one-time spurts.

When you "get it right" at the Search Engines, they deliver high volumes of traffic for months, even years. What more can you ask for?

Let the free traffic momentum begin!...

Step 1- Work the free major Search Engines.

The SBI! process is not complicated. The Search Engines will provide you with lots of traffic as long as you work with them rather than against them. That requires some patience, motivation, and a collaborative, WIN-WIN attitude.

Let's start with the "10,000-foot view" of the process and then see how SBI! executes it. The traffic-building process boils down to these actions...

1. Build an "on-page-optimized" Keyword-Focused Content Page, one that delivers content that will "WOW" human visitors.
2. Submit that page to the Search Engines. If you don't start the submission process, you won't get into a Search Engine's database at all. And, if you're not in a Search Engine's index, you're invisible on the Net.

   Build another content page.

3. Check for each spider's visit.

   Continue to build more content pages.

4. Check for the presence of your page in each Search Engine's index (i.e., database). This could take anywhere a few weeks.

   Uh, should I say it? Yes... "Continue to build more content pages."

5. Evaluate performance of your page.

   You guessed it! Keep building more content pages.

6. Track your performance on a regular basis. As you start to see results, you will do #3-6 less and less often (and SBI! takes care of #2). Why?

   Because you'll be busy building more content pages.

It may take 2-3 months, but your efforts will pay off if you have followed this Action Guide and the online Help & Strategies. You will start to rank well for a few pages at one engine, and then more and more pages at different engines.

That success will grow as you continue to build out your site's content. And that can only mean increasing volumes, month-on-month, of targeted traffic.

This is the beginning of the snowball effect in action! In Step 3 below, we'll cover how "off-page criteria," which are how the engines measure "visitor satisfaction" with your site, together with increasing traffic, create the evergrowing SBI! snowball momentum.

Right now, though, let's see how SBI!'s integrated tools make the traffic-building process a snap...

Phase #1) Once you are finished building a page (on-page-optimized with the help of Analyze It!), WorldSubmitter automatically adds it to your sitemap file and pings (notifies) Google, Yahoo! Search, Live Search and Ask to let them know about the new page. However, you must manually start the process. For specific how-to details, please see the Search Engine HQ's online help.

Phase #2) SpiderWatcher checks your site's log files regularly, looking to see which of the major engines' spiders have visited, and which of your pages they "took back to their mother ships."

In all cases, SBI! reports the most recent dates for SE submission, spidering, and listing. So, if a spider revisits at a later date, SpiderWatcher will report that date, overwriting the previous one.

Phase #3) ListChecker watches for when each engine lists (i.e., "indexes") each of your pages (that have been spidered). The dates are recorded in the Submit-Spider-List Report.

At this point, the pages are officially in the database, but not yet ranked.

Phase #4) After your page has been submitted, spidered, and listed, the Keyword Ranking Report tells you where your page ranks, at each major engine, for the specific keyword that the page focuses upon.

Phase #5) The Keyword Searches Report tells you the keyword searches that found each page (and # of times), which Search Engine(s) found each page for each keyword (and # of times), and how you rank today for that keyword search.

See how SBI! makes "the process" a snap? You get the exact tools and data you need to win at the Search Engines! The reporting tools help you see how your pages fit in your particular "Web-niche world," (i.e., vs. other sites that are focusing on the same niche).

To sum things up...

The free engines are still the Net's biggest bargain. This TNT article explains why the future for SBIers keeps getting rosier for free Search Engine traffic. Google needs you!

Working with the Search Engines is essential. However, while it can be useful to occasionally check how your pages are faring in the SEs, it is important not to obsess and lose sight of the big picture...

C  T  P  M

Do not allocate more than a half-hour per week to monitor SE performance, for two reasons...

• SBI! is working behind the scenes to "do it all for you," and
• The creation of quality relevant content always serves your business best.

Remember, Content, not the engines, drives C  T  P  M. The engines merely (and naturally) serve their own interests best by ranking your site highly, if you create valuable content while following SBI! to a tee.

Step 2 - Understand why "tweaking" is a low-yield exercise.

Many Webmasters, experienced and otherwise, fall into the trap of excessively adjusting or tweaking their Web pages in order to improve Search Engine (SE) rankings.

Trying to manipulate the SEs is a game that is not worth your time. Search Engine Optimizers ("SEOers") are doomed. Why? Because "faking reality" is getting more and more complicated. It is not possible to stay ahead of the smartest minds on the planet at Google, Yahoo!, and Live Search.

SEOers are kidding themselves if they think their tricks are anywhere near what SEs really want. Search Engines are getting better and better at recognizing reality.

So jump one big step ahead of SEOers. Don't fake it. Simply keep it real.

And be realistic. Do not expect to rank #1 for every keyword at every engine. It is not necessary (to succeed), in any event...

Be delighted to get half of your Specific Keywords in the Top 10 at some of the engines. That will build you more than enough traffic in the long run.

SEs want relevant reality... quality, not SEO'd pages. They want happy searchers who find what they seek.

Happy searchers return to engines that give them what they want... quality, relevant information, not "manipulated," lesser results.

Happy searchers do more searches and click more ads at the engines that deliver the best results.

And, of course, the engines' real customers, the advertisers, are more than happy... they are delighted. Growing volumes of trusting, targeted traffic deliver better results on their ads. Pleased advertisers, in turn, buy more ad space. And that causes Search Engines to earn even more income.

It's an ongoing WIN-WIN-WIN situation! But...

SEOers do not "keep it real." That threatens results delivered by Search Engines. So SEs fight hard to defeat SEOers and protect the WIN-WIN-WIN that delivers such tremendous profits for Search Engines.

As the Web becomes more and more complicated, as engines get better at figuring out "what is real" and "what is SEO," SEOers will have a harder and harder time playing the game of "Match the Algorithm."

SBIers leapfrog the SEO-players by "keeping it real." How?

Here's a quick summary of the TNT HQ traffic article titled "To Tweak or Not To Tweak, That Is the Question"...

1. Build more and more and more relevant and high-value content that delivers what humans want.
2. Plant enough Specific Keywords as "on-page hooks" to let the engines know what that page is about. Use Analyze It! to get your on-page criteria correct. As you build new pages, you might try experimenting by increasing or decreasing keyword presence. But once you have optimized your page as best you can, it's time to move on. Focus on creating more quality content.
3. Focus on building off-page criteria naturally, again by "keeping it real." Start the snowball rolling by securing a few high-quality in-pointing links (more on this in Step 3 below). And build buzz (Step 4), using whatever is relevant for the target market, business, and circumstances.

One last point about building free Search Engine traffic...

Even Free SE Traffic Costs Something

Every business situation is different. Cookie-cutter techniques won't work on something as complex as the Web. You have to get the lay of the land (your land) and see where you stand in it, in order to move up from there.

Yes, it takes some time and effort. So major Search Engines are not really "free." They do cost you something... time. And time, after all, is money.

Bottom line? While your competitors waste most of their time on a variety of traffic-building chores, many of them off-focus (many hours wasted on reading SEO zines alone!), you methodically spend all of your time growing a business that works.

Always keep in mind...

1. Content drives the C  T  P  M train.

   Trust the process. Build a content-rich site, and deliver great information about the theme-related topics (keywords) that your brainstorming has found. Create Content, Content, and more Content. Every newly optimized page offers another opportunity for top rankings.

2. Tweaking creates no new content; it merely reshuffles words. Even if it "works" (and that's unlikely), it will likely stop working as the engines change their algorithms (ex., the so-called Google Dance that makes SEOers whine).

3. Tweaking merely diverts you from creating new content. It is a low-yield, time-consuming process that derails your business, is frustrating, and puts your focus on all the wrong things.

Best advice? Polish content, don't tweak keywords. Polish content to please humans and build your "Brand of One." It is what the Search Engines really want and it makes the next two steps so much easier, too.

Do not let on-page SEO dominate your thoughts. The key to top rankings lies off-page rather than on-page. Ready for that? Good, the next two steps are about "getting off-page right"...

Step 3 - Build a quality links program to improve your link popularity.

The measurement of inbound links is one of the "off-page criteria" that measure human reaction to your content. In-pointing links are, in a sense, "seals of approval" for your site.

They are a sign that humans "approve" of your site. Google's famous "PR" has made "links" the most well-known "off-page" criterion. But it was not the first, nor is it the only one -- there are over 200 criteria that Google uses, and most are off-page criteria.

Since "links" are the most well known off-page factor, it was only natural for SEOers to try to "game" it, too. SEOers fail to consider the increasing off-page complexity of how engines really measure relevance and quality to deliver their search results.

They doggedly stick to the game of manipulation.

Not for much longer. With progressively degrading results and increasing off-page complexity, the "business of SEO" is destined for extinction.

Google is becoming more and more "intelligent" at recognizing real in-pointing links. Naturally, the "keep it real" approach is as effective (more so, actually) "off-page" as it is "on-page." And it always will be... after all, it is real.

What's the "SBI! approach" to inbound links?

I hope you guessed by now...

Keep it real. It's simple...

The more sites that link to your site (i.e., in-pointing links), and the more credible the linking sites are, and the closer the linking sites are to the theme of your site (even to the topic of individual pages), the more "popularity points" Search Engines award to your site and Web pages.

Do secure quality, relevant inbound links. But before discussing how to do that, here are the important guidelines to remember and keep real...

1. Establish credibility

   An in-pointing link from a quality, related site tells the Search Engines that another Webmaster thinks highly enough of a site to link to it. A link is human feedback, a vote of confidence.

   Don't Fake Credibility

   A link is worth less (or zero) if it is from an off-theme site, from a page with a ton of links, from a page/site with low-or-zero credibility.

   Avoid the temptation of link manipulation. Like other forms of SEO, it jeopardizes the integrity of search results. Expect the SEs to ignore, and at worst, penalize you for off-theme links.

   What does that mean in the real world? Don't buy links from sites "selling high Google PR links." Never, never link to a link farm (an organization set up merely to boost link popularity).

   It's not nice to fool "Mother Google."

2. Work to secure your first few inbound links

   Search Engines do indeed factor link popularity and link credibility (i.e., where your in-pointing links originate from) into their ranking algorithms. Other off-page criteria are increasingly important, but in-pointing links are particularly important to give the "SBI! Snowball" that all-important first push.

   Without a few credible links, you may find it difficult to get listed and ranked in some of the major SEs (especially Google).

   The good news is that a small number of credible links will do the job. 99% of most Web sites do not have many inbound links. (If the SEs were to weigh in-pointing links too heavily, they'd make 99% of the Web disappear!)

   Of course, if your topic is much more general/competitive in scope (ex., "e-commerce," "computers," "sports cars"), obtaining links becomes more and more important.

   Some people misunderstand the role of links. In the era of the e-dinosaur, Webmasters used to seek links for the direct traffic from them.

   While links will bring a little traffic, we now want links to build off-page credibility with the SEs.

3. Start only after you have built 20-30 content pages

   Most Webmasters will link only to sites of value. Quality content is the currency of the Web. So you will need a sufficient amount of it before you go link-hunting. To get a Webmaster's "vote" of confidence, your site must provide some benefit to his/her audience.

   Directories, too, are only interested in adding Web sites of substance and value. A more mature site will also help you impress a human editor and secure a directory listing. (More on this below.)

4. The major "to do's"

   Once you have numerous high-value pages, build a strong, all-round inbound links program. Here is a summary of the key action steps...

i) The Major and 2nd Tier Directories

Get IN-pointing links from second tier directories and possibly a major one.

Second tier directories are not on par with the majors, but that shouldn't deter you. Remember, you're not after traffic from these directories. You want the inbound link. And to ensure that you have a quality inbound link, concentrate on those second tier directories that have a review process.

In some ways, second tier directories offer greater value than the majors. Submission costs, for example, are quite reasonable -- between $20 and $50 will get you in, usually within a couple of days.

This next level of directory offers you a cost-effective means to build your link popularity quickly, especially if you have an immature Web site. A couple of decent links will go a long way to keep the SE spiders around.

Because second tiers are not as congested, it's easier to obtain the listing you want, higher up in the directory hierarchy (i.e., a listing in Health > Weight Loss is more desirable than a listing in Health > Weight Loss > Supplements). It will be easier for spiders and the few visitors to this spot to find your site.

See this article in the Directories Series for recommended second tier directories. And please note that it usually costs cold, hard cash to submit to directories. But paying the fee does not guarantee that your site will be accepted (this is what makes a link from these directories a quality link in the eyes of Google and the other SEs). So use your money wisely.

Be wary of submitting to hundreds or thousands of free directories using submitter software. Many are not quality directories, and most have backlogs of several thousand sites to review. This is worsening as submitter software allows even more Webmasters to submit their sites quickly and easily to free directories.

In order to keep up with the free submissions, some owners of free directories are now bulk-approving hundreds of sites at a time, without reviewing any of them. Google and the other engines are starting to look at these directories as link farms, linking out to low quality sites.

Stick to submitting to one or two quality authority directories and a few targeted niche directories.

ii) Themed Directories and Niche Hubs

List with directories that are specific to your area of interest. These themed directories and "niche hubs" offer listings for little or no money. The links are valuable if the directory or hub is a good one -- to verify, use Search It! to check Alexa and Google PR.

Speaking of Search It!, how do you find these related directories and hubs?

Use its Inbound Link Opportunities category.

iii) Complete a few high-value exchanges

Link exchanging can be extremely time-consuming. Since the strategy is to cherry-pick a small number of high-quality exchanges, the best use of your time is to...

Participate in SiteSell's Value Exchange. It generates credible matches so that you contact only sites with similar themes which have specifically expressed an interest in exchanging links with you.

Value Exchange should only be a small part of your overall 4-part link-building program. The goal is not to generate hundreds, not even tens, of links from it. Instead...

Use it patiently as a sifter. You are both sifter and "siftee." When a good match comes along, one that will offer value to your visitors for the outbound link and one that comes from a good site, take it.

If Value Exchange contributes even just 2-3 good links over the coming months, it will have done its part in helping you to build a well-rounded links program.

Result? Pre-qualified valuable link requests from quality, like-themed sites -- the real way. Value Exchange's monitoring, managing and behind-the-scenes tools and reporting turn a tedious, time-consuming process into a breeze.

For more details, click on the Value Exchange HQ link at Site Central...

iv) Set up three OUT-pointing links

A great content site provides the occasional link to another site simply to provide value. Choose high-quality theme-related, non-competing sites as you happen to discover them in the course of normal business or surfing.

Link to them to provide value to your visitors. If they want to give a link back in return, that's good, but it's not "the point."

Out-pointing links (that are not exchanges) "count" with the human editors of directories and with engine algorithms. If directory editors see that you provide bona fide links to other quality sites, your site is a more credible resource for their directory. Why? It shows "visitor focus"...

Visitors appreciate being presented with high-value links to related material that further enhances their surfing experience. No need to go overboard, of course...

You want your site to be viewed as an "authority" and not as a "hub." So have more in-pointing links than out-pointing. Three per page is enough going "out-only." And open a new browser window when you link out (in your HTML), so you don't lose your visitor completely.

Long-Term Strategy

It is important to work to get your first inbound links. Once you do, those links give your less competitive keywords a boost. More visitors arrive. Since you OVERdeliver great content, they respond in a way that engines track better and better (the "off-page" criteria). And meanwhile, you are building more content. The snowball starts...

More content More visitors More off-page criteria Better rankings for more competitive keywords More visitors Around and around the snowball grows...

The long-term strategy for building link popularity is a passive one. Simply build a site of such high quality that people want to link to it in order to increase the value of their own visitors' experiences.

What could be easier? Your link popularity builds itself! So do all the other off-page criteria. That is the power of "keeping it real."

And don't forget to periodically check into the TNT HQ's Link-Building Strategies section of the Traffic category for additional ideas.

OK, now for the final action step of DAY 7...

Step 4 - Seed a buzz through link-building. Work your niche.

How do you get a "buzz" started? First piece of advice... do not bother with those "recommend-a-friend" banners on your Web site. Less than one visitor in a thousand pays attention to them. Why should they trust you? At this point, you are a stranger with no credibility.

"Net Marketing is Life" Rule #1...

If something promises fast and easy results, if all you have to do is copy-and-paste something, forget it! Why? Because, even if it works well at first (and usually it won't), it will stop delivering results very soon.

Think about the old recommend-a-friend scripts and Free-For-All (FFA) sites as examples. They delivered some traffic at first...

But as people started seeing the tell-a-friend script frequently, and started feeling manipulated, the response rate soon dropped to near-zero. And the FFAs were so easy to do that everyone did them, and then everyone stopped reading the messages. It degenerated into a mess of spam and ignorance.

There's a simple but very effective way to start a big buzz...

Deliver excellent customer-focused content.

Then seed your own word-of-mouth, link-building buzz. In other words,

"Work your niche."

That's it. That's all. But one big warning...

Average content = near-zero word of mouth. After all, do you get excited by "average"?

There are many good techniques to seed word of mouth buzz, especially if you are selling your own product or professional service...

• There have been many books on buzz marketing. Most overlook the most important "strategy" of all...

  Deliver a best-of-breed site, product or service. Nothing pierces a deafening roar faster than OVERdelivering on your promises. Customers love and appreciate it when they receive more than they expected. They will buzz for you.

Other "buzz" strategies include...

• Articles
• Ads
• Wikis (Wikipedia, for example)
• Forums, and discussion groups
• Referrals
• Social bookmarking
• Signature file (AKA "sig file" -- a short VPP-focused message after your name) in your daily e-mail correspondence.

For complete details and more tips, see the Link-Building Buzz Strategies section of TNT HQ.

In short, develop a high profile in your niche as a knowledgeable expert who overdelivers. Work your niche.

On the other hand, if your site's content is just so-so, these buzz techniques will not deliver big and sustained results. For example...

• Writing articles or buying ads in e-zines will bring you a 1-2 day pulse of traffic. But then traffic falls right back down... unless your content is superb! Great content would have brought them back... again and again.
• Same reality for posts in forums, mailing lists, etc. Make a great post in a tightly targeted discussion group, and some people will visit your URL. After that, the content must wow them.
• Sure, using a sig file is something you should do. It's free, and it's sustained. At best, though, you send 40 or so e-mails per day, mostly to people who know you. Not much super traffic-building potential there.

When does buzz work particularly well?

Circumstance 1) The "nichier" your site, the better.

Circumstance 2) Have 30-40 pages of content. There must be substance.

Circumstance 3) Be remarkable. Wow them with content and they will buzz.

If all three circumstances are present, making a post or writing an article produces higher, longer-build yields. For example, someone reads your post, visits your site, and... your content blows them away! As a result, they tell their friends, put a link on their site to yours. Heck, they even go to a discussion forum to talk about your site.

Talk about a home-run buzz! And how do you make that happen? Re-read the above three circumstances.

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Wrapping Up

That's just about it for DAY 7. Here's your work in the days, weeks and months ahead...

Drop by the Search Engine HQ in Site Central and check its different reports periodically. Do not become obsessed by your ranking results.

And do not become frustrated by a slow start. Getting over a potential "hump" stage is very do-able.

Patiently continue with the proven C  T  P  M process...

Create more high-value content. Keep linking, as quality opportunities present themselves. Then start the cycle over again. As your site becomes more substantial (say 30-40 high-quality pages), seed word of mouth buzz.

End result? Achieve an ever-growing traffic snowball rolling downhill at an ever-accelerating pace!

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It's a Process

Of all the 10 DAYs in this Action Guide, DAY 7 is the most "metaphorical." Great volumes of traffic are not built in a single DAY. It's a process.

But traffic you will build. Ten visitors per day will grow to 50, then to 100, and then to 1000. How quickly depends on such variables as theme (competitiveness), the amount of time you invest in your business, "doing" the Action Guide to a tee, and so forth.

But you will build traffic, better than 99% of the small business universe. And when targeted traffic arrives, your enthusiastic visitors will like what they see. You are already PREselling.

So how do you build an ongoing relationship with them? How do you encourage these potential customers to return often to your constantly expanding site? In other words...

How do you deepen the P in C  T  P  M?

Let's blog and zine your way into your visitor's hearts.

It's easy! Let's Advance to DAY 8.