There are many Web 2.0 sites that you can link to for free which can help you get ranked in the search engines quickly.  This can seem to be a daunting task when first getting started, but it is actually very easy to do.  Once your linking system is set up, it takes very little time to maintain it. I have compiled the top 4 ways to quickly and easily increase web traffic for free  using popular Web 2.0 sites. These will get you traffic fast. 

1. Social bookmarking. 

Social bookmarking sites are sites that allow you to “bookmark” your site (URL) on their site.  These include sites like Digg.com and Del.icio.us.  These sites are very popular with Google and the other search engines so they are crawled frequently – daily or even hourly.  This means that your link will get noticed by the search engines very quickly.  The search engines will then index your link, go to your site and index keywords, content, etc.  All you have to do is fill out a short form on each site.  It is very important that you use your main keyword phrase in the link title text when you enter your information in the forms.  This is the quickest and easiest way to start getting search engine traffic. 

For a list of the best social bookmarking sites, go to www.socialmarker.com. 

2. Social networking. 

If you use MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter or similar sites, you are already familiar with social networking.  You can use these sites to help drive traffic to your site, but the best ones to use to dramatically increase web traffic for free are Squidoo, Hubpages and Weebly.  All three of these sites allow you to quickly create your own web pages for free.  Be sure to use original content on these pages (Google doesn’t like duplicate content) and have them link back to your site. As with social bookmarking, be sure to use your main keyword phrase in the title link and try to use it once or twice in the content.  Just make certain that it will still be easily readable to anyone who might be interested in what you have written. 

Google absolutely loves these Web 2.0 sites so your page will get ranked very fast, usually within hours, which will quickly drive a lot of highly targeted traffic to your site. 

3. Forum posts. 

Find forums in your niche to post to by doing a Google search for “[your niche] + forum.”  Make sure the forum has a decent PR (2 or more) and that the signature links are dofollow links.  Once you find a forum in your niche that matches those criteria, make some intelligent posts and respond to any questions, or ask your own questions.  Be certain that your signature contains your main keyword phrase and a link to your main site. The more you engage in conversation with other users of the forum, the more traffic and backlinks you will receive. These backlinks will help increase your standing in Google. 

4. Blog comments. 

Post your comments in existing authority blogs.  Search for blogs in your niche the just like you searched for forums. Look for blogs with a PR of 2 or more, the higher the PR, the better.  Also, make sure the blog accepts comments and the links from the commentors are dofollow links.

Once you find blogs that meet these standards, post your comments on them, but be certain that the comments are sensible and relevant to the original post.  This is a good way to get a lot of backlinks on high authority sites and, once again, get noticed by the search engines. 

There are many other Web 2.0 sites other than those listed here, but these are a few good ones for you to get started receiving traffic fast. 

The key to being able to greatly increase web traffic for free is high quality backlinks (links on other websites pointing to your site).  But be careful, not all backlinks are good.  If you try to link to low quality sites, especially sites that are mostly links, you will not help increase your search engine traffic.  In fact, you could even make it worse and possibly get your website banned from Google, but if you follow the instructions in this article and link to high quality Web 2.0 sites, this won’t be an issue and you will soon notice a dramatic increase in website traffic. 

About the Author:
David Hebert says, To learn, step-by-step, more about generating high-quality links using popular Web 2.0 sites to massively increase web traffic for free, visit http://free–web-traffic.net/. Then just download the 4 free videos to help get you started.

More Web Traffic Resources

The first thing you need to do is set up your website with keywords that will bring your website traffic with the smallest amount of effort possible.  This method of optimizing your website to gain traffic from the search engines is called SEO or search engine optimization. 

The most important factor in determining the long term success of your website is SEO.  If you set this up properly, you can expect to receive free traffic without putting in too much effort in the long run.  The most amount of work will come right away in efforts to get your site to the first page, after that it is a breeze keeping it there. 

When doing the research for your keywords, you’ll want to find some that will land your website enough traffic to make you sales but at the same time have few enough competitors where you can rank on page one fairly quickly. There is no written function or science to figuring this out.  In order to get a good feel about which keywords will work, you are going to have to just experiment and do some trial and error.   There are some free keyword tools available and there are also some nice paid tools that do all of the dirty work for you and really take the guessing game out of the question.  To me these tools are an invaluable part of my research and would recommend them to anyone. 

When you have your keywords for your website chosen, then you need to place those keywords in the content of your site.  It’s best to put the keywords in your domain name, header, meta tags, alt image tags, and about 1 – 3% of your site’s content. 

Once you have your site optimized with your keywords, then you need to pick up back links to your website using the keywords as an anchor link.  By writing articles and submitting them to the highest page rank directories, i.e. EzineArticles and GoArticles, this will help in moving your website up the search engines all the way to page one.  The more back links you have, the higher your website is going to rank. 

This is just a small taste of what it takes to get your website free traffic from the search engines.  The search engines use some complicated algorithm to place websites in their rankings.  We know that this process works, and really that is all that matters. 

About the Author:
Matt Helphrey has been writing articles for the past three years. He enjoys writing in many different fields.  Check out his new review of laptop notebook computers website at http://laptop-notebook-computers.com.

More Page Rank Resources

But it is quite possible to get to the first page of Google and it isn’t really all that difficult to do. In fact, the techniques for getting a website on the first page of this search engine are easy enough that any webmaster can-and should-try them. Just have a go at the suggestions listed below and your site will be on its way to page one in no time! 

Your website might already be optimized for some of these suggestions but others may be new to you. All of these tips, though, will help you get your website to the first page of Google. 

1. Make sure that there is nothing under construction. 

It is ok to be working on some pages of your site. Simply do not publish these pages yet. Every published page should be in complete working order. All links should function correctly as well. Check everything to make certain. 

2. Adjust your page names. 

Google will look at the names of your pages when determining where they should fall within the search rankings. Therefore, it is worth your time to make some small adjustments. Let’s say you have a page on your website that contains an article  about hydroponic tomatoes. Rather than having the page indexed by Google as ‘yourdomain.com/article.html’ take a minute and change it to  ’yourdomain.com/hydroponic-tomatoes.html’. This will help the web page show up higher in the search results for ‘hydroponic tomatoes.’ 

3. Look at your title and homepage carefully for your keywords. 

Using the example above, the website title should include ‘hydroponic tomatoes.’ And there should be an article on the homepage or at least a blurb of copy that includes that key phrase. Google will look at your title and your homepage to determine what your website is all about; therefore, if your title was ‘fruits and veggies’ and you failed to include your key phrase at all, Google wouldn’t know to rank your site high for that phrase. 

4. Link to relevant websites. 

Google likes popular websites. Therefore, if you can link to popular websites that are relevant to your keyword, Google will like your website and will rank you higher. 

5. Use an HTML validator. 

Google will not rank your website high at all if your website coding isn’t correct. So, use a validator to double check all of your HTML coding. By following the above suggestions, your site will begin to rise in the search engine rankings-and soon enough, your site will be on the first page of Google. 

About the Author:
James Trent is a business coach and mentor who assists serious entrepreneurs in building a profitable online business with multiple incomes streams. James and his team have assisted hundreds of people in generating huge profits in their very first year. For more information and to contact James, visit his website  http://thesevenfigurepro.com

More Page Rank Resources

Every successful promotion has the same essential elements that must be included in your offer for it to be appealing to the masses.  A unique but simple formula that you can follow today: 

1. A Defined Target Audience. 

Who is your audience?  Who is reading your promotion and/or offer?  Are you speaking in their language?  Are you offering something that appeals to them? 

2. A Benefit Statement. 

What benefits or results will your readers get from your promotion?  Is it truly a benefit (meaning some result they will yield) or a feature you are disguising as a benefit? People are tuned in to WIIFM (what’s in it for me) – answer that question up front! 

3. A Sense of Urgency. 

People need a reason to take action so create urgency – “Act Now”, “Hurry While Supplies Last!”   People are busy and if given the chance to put off until another time, they will and then they will forget.  So don’t give them the option of doing something later. 

4. A Call to Action. 

What do you want your readers to do?  What are the next steps?  Purchase your product? Sign up for the next seminar?  Be sure to tell the readers what you want them to do next and limit their options.  Studies have shown that providing too many options will result in a lower response rate. 

5. A Readable Length. 

How long is your promotion?  If you received this, would you read it?  Most people skim material so make sure your promotion is short and sweet.  If in an email, keep it simple.  If it is a sales page, make it no longer than a page and a half.  Remember, people have limited time these days, create a promotion that gets straight to the point. 

6. A Trustworthy Source. 

Who is the promotion coming from?  Can people get in touch with you if they have a problem or have questions?  Do you offer more than an email address?  People want to buy from reputable companies and you are required by law to include your address.  To put buyers at ease, I  recommend also giving them a phone number.  Too many “bad companies” are out there and don’t allow you to speak to an individual. Remove the risk and give your audience a place to contact you. 

7. A  Couple of Bonuses. 

Can you sweeten the pot?  Is there something you can throw in that will bring additional value to your offer?  A consultation?  A free Ebook?  An extra widget?  Anything that will enhance your offer and bring additional value will increase your chances in a successful promotion.

The formula for email promotion success is: 

Target Audience + benefits + urgency + action + length + trust + bonus = Promotion Success! 

About the Author:
Kellie D’Andrea is the creator of the BLAST 9O Day Coaching Program and teaches biz owners how to build the business of their dreams for a life of freedom, profits and fulfillment. Interesting in growing your business, sign up for her FREE mini course “The Empowered Entrepreneur” and learn how to take the journey to freedom, profits and fulfillment at http://www.kelliedandrea.com

A backlink consists of your link being found somewhere else on the internet. For instance, if you pay to have your link placed on someone else’s web site for marketing purposes, this is a backlink. Anyone who goes to that web site and sees your link has the ability to click on it and make their way to your site.

As you can imagine, the more backlinks you have the better chance you have of people seeing your link. This does a couple of things. First, it gives you the opportunity to increase your overall traffic volume. The more traffic you have coming to the site the more likely you are of increasing profits. Second, it increases the amount of exposure you are getting. The more people see your link and company name the more likely they will be to visit the site.

There are a number of ways you can go about spreading the word on your business and gaining backlinks. As mentioned above, you can pay to have your link placed in search engine directories or other people’s web sites.

Another method is to exchange links with someone within the same niche as you. Link exchange consists of you trading your link for someone else’s. The idea is you will place their link somewhere on your site in return for them placing your link on their site. Just make sure you are trading links with someone who has a web site with a page rank equal to or greater than yours in order to benefit from it at all.

One of the best ways to get backlinks in front of your target market is by writing articles. What you want to do is write an article and submit it to as many article directories as possible. After reading the fresh and enticing content, readers can then follow the link you place in the resource box to your web site. The key is writing content that is worthy of people visiting your site after reading it.

Backlinks are essential to succeeding online. If you really want to make money online, you have to generate as many backlinks as possible in order to create the kind of traffic needed to actually develop sells.

About the Author:
Paul Jesse started a successful work from home business in 2004 and inspired many others into working online for money. If you are looking for work from home opportunities, visit http://www.sheamarketing.com for more information.

Using Keywords To Your Advantage:

The most important and best way to use keywords properly for search engine optimization is to take a list of long tail keywords on the very same niche and make sure and intertwine these into your article making this particular article very SEO friendly. 

Reciprocal Linking: 

One of the most powerful ways to skyrocket your web page up to the top of the search engines is to practice reciprocal linking. 

Always make sure to tell web masters that you are trading links with, that you want your link to be a hyperlink with a specific key word that you give them before hand, this is crucial to help get this page ranked highly for this particular keyword. 

Content Swaps 

Placing your content on other people’s web sites is probably the most powerful form of linking you can do. The process is not that hard. First you find a website in a topic related to yours. Next you contact the site owner and offer them an article of yours that you think would be of interest to their readers. Of course, the article has your links in it. 

It may take a few emails or phone calls but your content swap will be accepted. Content swaps let you control the SEO, title, links, and keywords on someone else’s site. You’d be surprised but with a little work you can find popular blogs and websites always in need of fresh articles and posts and willing to let you meet your SEO needs. 

The Proper Use Of Title Tags: 

Using a title tag properly throughout your web page is another proven and powerful way to help you rank better for the given niche or keyword you’re targeting. Always make sure and use a separate title tag for each and every web page. 

A Bonus, Often Overlooked Technique: 

Always try to keep your web pages short, concise, and to the point. This not only looks better in the eyes of the search engines, it also helps keep your visitors on your web site because they are not facing the daunting task of reading a web page that scrolls on and on. 

Conclusion:

Following these short and simple tactics, will set you light years ahead of your competition and give you an unfair advantage in ranking higher in the search engines on virtually any niche you use these techniques on. 

About the Author:
David Tropeano. NicheADay.com (http://NicheADay.com ) publishes a daily list of hot niches, keyword lists, and marketing opportunities for you to take advantage of.

If you operate a blog site, your exposure to legal liability may have increased exponentially. Violators could be fined up to $11,000. And you face new liability associated with statements made by your endorsers, such as affiliates. 

It’s critical that you understand how these regulations affect your website business. 

A Quick Summary 

In a nutshell, the new regulations are aimed at protection of online consumers. The FTC wants to regulate blogs to see if they’re trading testimonials and favorable reviews for some kind of financial reward. That’s a good thing. 

The not-so-good-thing is that the new regulations may be overbroad and even in conflict with existing legal precedent. As a result, they may subject harmless, every-day activities to potential liability. Serious liability. 

A good way to see how the regulations affect you is to consider 3 basic questions discussed below. 

No. 1 – Threshold Question: Are you even covered by the new regulations? 

If you have a blog on your site, or if a blog is essentially your site, and all you do is publish creative content about your areas of interest, you’re not even covered by the new regulations. 

No worries.

No. 2 – Are you promoting someone else’s products or services? 

If you promote or pitch someone else’s products or services on your blog, there are 2 key requirements under the new regulations:

• Disclose “material connections” — you must disclose all incentives you receive — cash, gifts, benefits, etc. – for promoting or pitching the product or service, and  
• Disclose typical results — you can’t get away any more with small print disclaimers such as “results not typical”; you’re now required to provide a more complete and forthright picture of what can be reasonably expected from a product or service.

If you’re a violator, you could be fined up to $11,000. In addition, you could be held liable for false, misleading, and unsubstantiated statements. 

This all sounds like a great win for consumers; however, It doesn’t take much creativity to imagine horror stories with the “material connections” requirement.

Example: suppose you’re a book reviewer. Book publishers routinely send you free books to review. If you fail to disclose that the book was free in your review, will you be fined $11,000? Technically, your failure to disclose the free book would be a violation, but would you be fined?

That’s anyone’s guess. If you’re not fined, and someone else in a similar position is fined, is that selective enforcement? As you can see, there’re a lot of potential problems with well-intentioned, but overbroad regulation. 

No. 3 – Do you recruit other bloggers to pitch your products or services? 

If you recruit other bloggers, such as affiliates, to pitch your products or services you’re an “advertiser” under the regulations. As an advertiser that sponsors endorsers, under the new regulations you’re required to: 

• Provide guidance and training to ensure that statements made by your affiliate-bloggers are truthful, not misleading, and substantiated, and 
• Monitor your affiliate-bloggers and take steps necessary to stop the publication of deceptive representations when they are discovered. 

The new regulations apparently embody the concept that advertisers can be held liable for the endorsement-related sins of their affiliate-bloggers. The FTC stated: “It is foreseeable that an endorser may exaggerate the benefits of a free product or fail to disclose a material relationship where one exists. In employing this means of marketing, the advertiser has assumed the risk that an endorser may fail to disclose a material connection or misrepresent a product, and the potential liability that accompanies that risk”. 

Legal scholars are now debating whether this new liability exposure for advertisers is in conflict with a well-established legal defense provided by a federal statute (47 USC 230(c)(1)), which reads: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” In simple terms, this statute has been interpreted to mean that Party A is not liable for Party B’s online content. 

Has the FTC overlooked 47 USC 230 in its haste to regulate? The courts will have to sort this out. Only time will tell. 

Conclusion

The FTC was well-intentioned in its new blog-related regulations. Protection of online consumers is a worthy undertaking. However, overbroad regulations, particularly if they are in part contrary to well established legal precedent may create as many problems as they solve. 

One thing is clear, however — if you fall under #2 or #3 above, protecting yourself from unexpected legal liability should be a high priority. 

About the Author:
Leading Internet, IP and software lawyer Chip Cooper has automated the process of drafting website documents for small websites with his MyLegalFirewall website documents drafting service. Discover how quick, easy, and cost-effective it is to determine which legal documents you need, draft them online, and claim your FREE Special Report, Determine Which Legal Documents Your Website Really Needs, at ==> http://digicontracts.com/kits/firewall.aspx

Maximum online profit generation can only occur if you take an analytical approach There are a number full website traffic statistics and analytics systems available, but are you using any of them? And aside from Web Analytics, there are also comparison resources and performance metrics that should be considered. Do you know what paths visitors are using to gain access to your website? What is the ratio of new vs. returning visitors? Which keywords are drawing visitors to your sites? Which Search Engines? What is your bounce rate? Where are most of your inquiries coming from? Is your Home Page customer-focused? How do you compare to your competition?

What exactly will keep your business mojo running? Take a look at our Top 5 Web Analytics Resources. Some offer better information than others for user behavior and some are stronger when it comes to facts and figures. With your research and once you have done your own needs analysis, it should become clear to you, which will suit your situation the best. Enjoy!

1. Google Analytics – Provides full website analysis.

It is currently a free service, but it requires that you have an account with Google and that you meet specific online criteria. Once your account has been set up, Google begins to gather data on your site(s), and reports it back to you via pages and pages of graphs, maps and stats. Everything from the number of visitors to your site; to new visits vs. repeat visits ratios; average time on site; top traffic sources; top pages; keywords; and so much more, this program is a must. My two favorites have to be the map and site overlays. The map overlay tells you exactly how many visitors are coming from each area in the world; and the site overlay pops up percentages onto each link on your web pages, to show where visitors are clicking. This is definitely worth the investment in time that it takes to get set up.

2. Google Trends – Compares key words and phrases.

We all know the importance of key words and key word phrases. Here you can input two or more key words or phrases to evaluate and compare their effectiveness against each other, with the results displayed on a graph. You can drill down further to uncover results on specific target locations, and more. This is a very useful tool to help you choose the appropriate word content within your web pages, to ultimately boost your exposure and organic ranking.

3. Compete – Identifies competitive strategies.

Compete is an online competitive service that combines intelligent site and search analytics to help you improve your online marketing initiatives by identifying competitive strategies. Knowing this information can take your SEM (search engine marketing) and SEO (search engine optimization) efforts to the next level, and help you stay on top with site metrics and audience profiles.

4. WeWe Score – Rates your website’s customer focus.

When visitors find your website, they really only care about how well you can help them meet their needs. Your focus has to be on the customer, which is conveyed through the words you use on your site. This website counts certain words on your site that are the key indicators of whether your focus is on them, or on you. This can be helpful in better understanding the impression you are making on your prospects, and where you need to make changes in order to grab and entice customers to go deeper, when they land on your home page.

5. Trace My IP – Tracks IP addresses for traffic analysis, and much more.

Is the time coming that we will actually be able to zero in on the name of the person visiting our websites, and where exactly they are from? It appears that this kind of advanced data gathering is just around the corner, but for now, just knowing more about our visitor details through the activity reports provided here, is a great way to develop strategies; monitor results and improve outcomes.

About the Author:

Leslie Lyon, President of Spas2b Inc. is a Spa Consultant, Trainer, Classroom and Distance Learning Educator, Speaker, Writer, and Advisor to number Spa-related Committees and Associations, now in 36 countries. If you enjoyed this information and wish to read more exciting, up-to-the-minute business news, log onto http://www.spas2b.com , or contact Leslie Lyon personally at llyon@spas2b.com, or 1-519-585-0626 in Canada.