1) Spending several hours per day on directory submissions

2) Re-writing other people’s content and submitting them to other sites

3) Posting worthless (”Great Post!”) comments on people’s blogs

Be careful of spending too much time on empty promotional techniques.  Measure the results of everything you do.

If you aren’t seeing a direct benefit after a period of time, either adjust your strategy/technique or move on to something else.

For example, people are obsessed over obtaining links, but all links are not created equal.

Compare the person who spends 10 hours per week hunting for link exchanges to the person who creates one useful video or article that rewards them over and over again with traffic and sales.

I’ve learned that publishing one useful video is worth more to me than submitting multiple ezine articles on any given day. So the task that takes less time actually gives me the greater benefit.

If you take the time to evaluate and track everything you do, you may be shocked at how you can make better use of your time.  That way you can do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

Tweeting Just to Tweet

Many marketers are becoming obsessed with Twitter. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great tool. But if you aren’t measuring the results, how do you know how beneficial it really is to you?

Just because you have 2,000 followers and you tweet 10 times a day doesn’t necessarily mean much if you aren’t measuring the effectiveness.

For example, did you know that you can track many of the URL shortening services (bit.ly, etc.) if you sign up with an account?

That way you can see how many people are clicking on your links. Many of you probably don’t do this, so you have no idea how your tweets are performing.  Doing this is useful because you can learn what type of tweets get the most clicks.

Then there’s the “how-may-people-are-following-me” obsession.  This is not a popularity contest, folks. If your followers are not engaged in what you’re tweeting about, then how valuable are those followers really?

Is there proof Twitter is helping you build credibility?  How about your sales?  How responsive are your followers to what you tweet about? Have you seen an increase in referral traffic from Twitter? Are you reaching your goals? Did you set any to begin with?

I don’t do a lot of direct promotion on Twitter, but I do monitor overall responses and referral traffic. I’ve learned what kind of tweets generate the most interest from my followers.

Plus, the RT’s (retweets) I receive from my followers alone have made Twitter worthwhile for me.

Even though I don’t use Twitter as much as many marketers do, I’ve found a way to use Twitter that is worthwhile for the time invested.

So if you are tweeting just because you just feel like you should be doing it and you aren’t measuring the benefits, you could be wasting your time.

Everything you do should have a strategy behind it and you should be tracking the results at all times.

You don’t measure the success of Twitter or any strategy by how many followers or subscribers you have.  You measure it by how responsive the people are to what you publish.

Are you getting more sales?  More traffic?  Is it opening up new connections with others?  Are you building more credibility?  Do people respond and give feedback?

I hear people say things like “I’ve been promoting my site for 10 hours per day for the last month and I’m not seeing any results.”

My response is always, “What are you doing and have you been measuring and tracking the results?” All busy work is not effective work, and unfortunately there are no rewards or honors for “time spent online.”

How well are you making use of that time online? THAT is the key.   Successful marketers work smart.   They track and evaluate every task they perform.  Then they keep the best and drop the rest.

Is it time for you to do a self audit on your marketing techniques?

Lisa, how much money do you make from Twitter?

My short answer…

Nothing.

However, if I were to answer that question more indirectly, I’m sure it would be greater than that.

Here’s what I mean.

I promote my sites a lot of different ways online (through my forum, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)  However, I don’t do much direct selling on any of these sites.

In fact, I tweeted an affiliate link once on Twitter and I just felt dirty.   I personally don’t like hard selling on Twitter.  It feels a little cheap to me.

Nothing against people who do, and if it works for you great… keep doing it.  I just prefer to use Twitter to inform, educate and connect with my followers.

Now let’s talk about my forum, Website Babble.

This may surprise you, but I didn’t create it with the intention of making a lot of money.  Sure, I make some money from banners and sponsor ads, but it is hardly anything to brag about.

So what’s the point of creating a forum if you don’t plan to make a lot of money? (I can hear you thinking that.)

One thing I’ve learned about earning a full-time living as an affiliate marketer is you have to learn to build a brand…

A brand of Y-O-U.

Website Babble is just another site (like my YouTube channels and Twitter) that allows me to help and connect with my audience while I continue to build my brand and enhance my credibility.

My primary and most successful website has always been 2CreateAWebsite.com.  I use my blog, other websites and places like YouTube and Twitter to provide more advice, help, and drive traffic back to my main site.

Because of the credibility and trust I’ve gained through helping others on these sites, this strategy indirectly drives more affiliate sales in the long-run.

Maybe you don’t like Twitter and other social networking sites because you don’t see a direct way to make money from them.  But you’re failing to realize the compounded value of using multiple channels over time.

You may not be able to generate many direct sales from these microblogging and social networking sites. But if you do a good job of educating, teaching, helping, etc. you can use these tools to drive traffic to your sites and make more money in the long run.

It’s not always about getting the sale, at least not right away.  It’s a process.

Stop looking for quick, worthless traffic.  Develop your brand. Seek trust.  Become accessible.  Use the available free sites and tools online to develop relationships, connections and educate your audience.  Then watch the targeted, loyal followers that will develop over time.

These are the people who will come back to your site over and over again.

These are the people who will trust you the most.

They are more likely to buy what you recommend.

They will tell their friends and family about your site whenever they get a chance.

They will email you before buying and make sure they are purchasing from your affiliate link so you get the credit.

These people will become your bread and butter as an affiliate marketer. 

So are you just pitching products or taking the time to build your brand? Position yourself today to earn a steady, long-term income that will reward you forever.

If you’re reading this post via an RSS reader or email, click this link to view the video on my blog.

Here’s the link to Matt Cutt’s video that I mention in the video where he discusses what Google thinks of directory submissions.

One of the biggest challenges I face with teaching people how to market their sites online is the constant comparing.  People want to know exactly what I did to draw in so much traffic over the years because they are convinced if they do the same, they’ll have the same (or similar) results.

One guy even accused me of keeping my REAL traffic tips a secret because he just couldn’t seem to get enough traffic to his website.  He requested that I write out a list of everything I did from day one to generate traffic to 2 Create a Website.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to learn from someone who is already seeing success, but you have to remember the Internet has evolved.  Yes, many of the techniques I used years ago still work, but a lot of them don’t anymore.

In the video below I discuss why new Webmasters have to be careful about doing direct comparisons with more established websites when it comes to traffic building…

And just for the record, there are no secrets when it comes to building traffic.

Adobe Acrobat is quite expensive and may not be in the budget for everyone, so if you have experience with more economical software solutions please feel free to comment on this post.

Just remember that you always get what you pay for and some of the lower cost solutions may not provide the benefits that Adobe does like securing the book from theft and creating feedback forms that people can complete and print right from the book.

However if those features are not important to you, you can use a more economical solution for creating your books. I would still recommend using the PDF format, however, because they are compatible with both Macs and PC’s.

E-Book Creation Video

Watch the video on how to create an e-book with Adobe Acrobat Professional.

E-mail subscribers, click this link to watch the video.

Do you obsess over the number of outbound links you have, thinking they might be hurting you in some way?  Do you copy your competitor’s meta tags hoping you can steal their rankings?

Maybe you’re puzzled by the lack of traffic you’ve been able to receive from popular search engines like Google and Yahoo.

If any of this sounds like your SEO habits, you’ll want to watch this video…

Do you often wonder how long it will take your PageRank to go up to the next number?

Are you stuck in the site brainstorming phase until you find the the perfect supply/demand combination in the AdWords Keyword Tool and WordTracker?

If you can relate to any of the above activities, chances are you may be expending a lot of energy in the wrong places and not focusing on what really matters.

Alexa

I remember when I first learned about Alexa. I was fascinated that it displayed my site’s ranking and I could compare my site to other competitors.  I watched webmasters proudly display their Alexa widgets and badges to let people know their site was in the top 1%.

Even though Alexa has improved their ranking algorithm, you still have to remember it’s largely based upon people who have the Alexa toolbar installed on their browser.  This opens the door for a lot of skewed data.

I’ve watched my site’s Alexa ranks go up and down like a yo yo, but the most important thing is my traffic has steadily increased. And in my opinion, THAT is what counts more than anything.

PageRank

Ahhh yes… Google’s measurement of your site’s quality backlinks. This pesky little green bar has caused more frustration, exhilaration and confusion over the years, leaving people obsessed with their own PR and how to improve it.

Many people are stuck on the idea that improving their PR is the best way to get more traffic from Google. What they don’t realize is that your PR is more reflective of the traffic and quality backlinks you already have. So it’s more of a reaction to your site’s existing activity.

So rather than worrying about what it takes to improve this number, work on producing a quality site and delivering solid information, features or products to your target audience.  Your PR will take care of itself.

PR seems to have little or no impact on your traffic potential from Google.  I watched my PR drop from a 5 to a 4, yet my traffic from Google doubled since that time.

Keyword Tools

While tools like The Adwords Keyword Tool and WordTracker can be quite useful to help you determine your niche, focus, keywords to bid on for PPC, etc., they can also overwhelm you if you let them.

The Internet is saturated with blogs and websites on thousands of different topics.  It’s going to be insanely difficult to find the perfect topic with high demand (number of monthly searches) and low supply (existing competition).

So when you’re using these tools, you should definitely take the supply and demand into consideration, but if that’s the only thing you look at, you may find yourself spinning your wheels and never making a decision.

I’ve noticed that Site Build It! customers often suffer from decision paralysis because of the brainstorming phase.  Don’t get me wrong, SBI! probably has one of the most comprehensive brainstorming tools available, but that also makes it easy to get stuck.

Take the numbers into consideration, but also do your homework.  Don’t let these tools do all the work for you. Physically research your competition by typing in the keywords you want to target. Look at the quality of sites that show up.

If they are sub-par then that may leave the door open for you to compete in this niche — especially if you work on developing a good spin on the topic.

So it’s important to look at the overall picture — the supply, demand, your passion, topic interest, and potential competition before making a decision on your topic.

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There will always be tools available for you to compare, monitor and gawk over.  But don’t let them paralyze you and cause you to lose focus.  Tools may develop, change and evolve, but one thing has always remained the same…

People who succeed online produce quality work that meets the needs and desires of a specific audience.  When you do this well, it will be hard to lose, no matter what the measuring and ranking tools say about your site.

With the emergence of the social networking scene, developing connections and acknowledging regular contributors is an important part of marketing (particularly if you’re a blogger).

Having said that, I thought I’d discuss a few of the ways people publicly reward their visitors…

EntreCard – Top Droppers

Many EntreCard members make the occasional post to their blog with a list of their top EntreCard droppers.

If you aren’t familiar with EntreCard, it’s a free service that allows you to promote your blog by dropping your card (a 125×125 image) on other blogs.

You earn credits for every “drop” you make and you can use those credits to buy advertising space on other blogs.

I haven’t posted a list of my top droppers as of yet.  On one hand, I like the idea, but on the other, it opens the door for a bunch of empty drops by people looking to make my “Top Dropper” list.

Nevertheless, it can be a good way to build up loyalty.

Top Commenters

I read every comment posted here and often follow them to view the person’s blog.  But I pay even more attention to the people who take the time to craft insightful posts.

Blog comments are important because they make a blog look active and they encourage participation from other readers.  So I appreciate it greatly when people take the time to make a thoughtful comment.

WordPress has a plugin that allows you to display the top commenters as a widget on your sidebar.  While that’s a very generous thing to do, you still have to monitor rewards like this very closely.

People are competitive, and any time there’s a reward for quantity, some take advantage of that and the quality of the content begins to suffer.  So you have to evaluate if it’s worth implementing.

Your top commenters may not always be your best contributors. Personally, I’d much rather reward someone with a few good comments than someone else with a bunch of empty ones who is just looking for first billing on my widget.

That’s why I’m a fan of the new partnership between SezWho and EntreCard.  Hopefully this will enhance the commenting community and encourage more productive discussions across the blogosphere.

As an EntreCard member you can now earn credits for leaving comments on SezWho-enabled blogs.  The catch is you only earn credits for quality comments.

This keeps people from flooding other blogs with quick comments like “nice post” or “great info”, just to drive up their credit totals.

Just for the record, this blog uses SezWho, so if you’re an EntreCard member, get to commenting and earn those credits.

vBulletin – Top Posters

There’s a hack out for vBulletin 3.x that allows you to show your forum’s top posters for the month.  I’ve installed it and posted a link to this list in two places on my forum Website Babble.

While the quantity vs. quality issue could come into play here as well, I’m not as concerned about that with my forum due to the high number of regular, quality contributors.

As many of you know, it takes a lot of work to build and maintain an forum active, and I am truly grateful to the active members who have helped Website Babble grow.

My forum is nowhere as active as Digital Point or ABestWeb, but for someone who has launched 3 forums that failed in the past, you won’t hear me complaining.

When I first launched Website Babble, I held 2 contests and gave away cash prizes ($300 and $150 respectively) to the the MVP (Most Valuable Posters).

I do believe that incentive helped my forum grow in the early days, and I do have plans to offer more prizes in the near future.

The great thing about this reward was that it was based on quality of posts, not quantity.

Even though I had to manually review several posts to determine who was eligible for the contest, it was worth it. It’s important to recognize and give back to quality contributors.

You can join my forum here.  I’d love to get to know you.

If you’re thinking of starting your own forum, think of ways you can reward your members.  It doesn’t haven’t to be money.  Perhaps it’s free advertising space on your blog, or you could give away EntreCard credits.

Public Response to Tweets

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net is good at this.  Anytime someone poses a question on Twitter that he feels is best answered publicly on his blog, he’ll post a link to the person’s Twitter account in the post.

When you get a link from a blog with over 50,000 RSS readers, you’re bound to get some kind of reward, even if it’s just a few extra Twitter followers.

I just started using my Twitter account in the last week to announce my blog posts, and plan to come up with more useful ways to interact with my followers.

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The bottom line is people love to be recognized, and it’s important to show your audience that you appreciate their support.

Do you reward your visitors?  If so, how do you do it?

I love checking my RSS feed subscriber numbers, my AWeber subscriber stats, Google Analytics account, etc. multiple times per day.

I’ll admit, I might need therapy.

However, if you really take some time analyze your traffic stats and even stats from other sites (I’ll explain that part in a bit), it can really help you improve your site and increase your traffic.

Here are some ideas…

Bounce Rates from Referring Sites

If you don’t have a Google Analytics account by now, I’d sure like to know why.

It’s the most comprehensive stat package you can get for free, and the information it provides is incredibly useful.

One report I like to keep an eye on is the Bounce Rate for Referring Sites.

By Google’s definition, a Bounce Rate is the percentage of people who left your site after viewing a single page (i.e. the page they entered on.)

So this is a percentage you want to keep low. If your Bounce Rate is 90% that means 90% of the people who entered your site, left after only viewing the page they entered on. You can view your Bounce Rate for your entire site or break it down by page.

Google also lets you take it a step further by viewing your Bounce Rate based on referring sites. For example, I discovered that traffic from EzineArticles.com returns the lowest bounce rate.

I guess this shouldn’t come as a huge shock. After all, 2CreateAWebSite.com targets Webmasters and so does EzineArticles.com.

So it definitely makes sense why visitors coming from there would be more inclined to stay on my site longer. Nevertheless, it’s still useful info.

Now, I’ll admit. Article marketing is nowhere as useful as it once was. A couple of years ago it was the thing to do because it helped you gain backlinks. But you may have heard Google and other engines are devaluing such links.

So while I don’t expect any backlink miracles from using EzineArticles.com, I do appreciate the fact that people who find my sites from this source tend to stick around longer than some of my other referring sites.

Not to mention, the traffic I receive from older articles is still quite impressive.

I haven’t been writing as much for EzineArticles.com as of late, but after discovering this little traffic fact, I may have to start sending more content their way very soon.

Have you checked your Bounce Rate from referring sites? Google makes it easy because you can sort from lowest to highest and vice versa.

What sites send you the stickiest traffic? How can you increase your exposure there to boost your traffic?

Most Popular Pages

Check your stats and see what pages or blog posts are visited the most. How can you leverage that and generate more traffic to other parts of your site that may be less trafficked?

Say you have a site on skin care, and your most heavily trafficked page is one that shows people how to control acne. In that article, you discuss the benefits of using a particular mask.

A few months later you decide to create a new page all about different kinds of masks. Since this page is brand new, it won’t get much search engine traffic for a while. So why not link that page from the popular acne article to help funnel traffic to this new page?

As your site matures, it can be tempting to just add new content to your sitemap, left navigation and be done with it. But it’s important to continually look for new ways to interlink your content. I set aside time to do this once a month.

The “Time on Page” Stat

This is another statistic you can get from Google Analytics (Under the “Content” section). Sort your reports by the “Time on Page” stat and see if you notice any patterns.

If your longer pages tend to have lower times then that could indicate you need to break up your content better. Perhaps people are getting lost and drowning in a sea of text.

One thing I have to do on 2CreateAWebSite.com is condense a lot of my longer articles. I’ve been doing that for some pages and tracking the results by monitoring their individual “Time on Page” stats.

I’ve noticed many of these pages I’ve updated are now showing that people are staying on them a lot longer and my overall site’s Bounce Rate is improving.

Too much content with not enough breaks can make reading tedious and overwhelming. Make frequent use of sub-titles, break up your paragraphs often, use images and start incorporating visuals such as charts, video, etc.

You’ll be amazed at the results.

Search Engine Keyword Traffic

I touched on this in my post 5 Easy Traffic Building Tips, but it’s worth mentioning again.

Pay close attention to the keywords people are finding you for. Not so much for the keywords that bring you the most traffic, but the keywords that bring you the least amount of traffic.

That’s right, the least.

Have you ever checked your stats and noticed certain articles on your site get found for keywords you weren’t necessarily targeting? Maybe you rank #12 for “popular puppy toys” in an article you wrote about house training a dog.

Just think… if you can rank #12 with a keyword phrase you weren’t trying to target, imagine if you wrote an entire article that focused on popular puppy toys. Perhaps you can grab one of the top spots for this phrase and rake in even more traffic!

If you can do this for 15, 30, or even 50+ keyword phrases, imagine how this could impact your traffic over time.

Sure, you may not be able to gain a top rank like this for every keyword phrase, but I’m sure it will make a difference. Not to mention, adding more useful content to your site is always a good thing, right?

Digg and Other Social Bookmarking Sites

I like to spend time on Digg.com looking at the most popular articles related to my niche. Sometimes you can get ideas for what to write about and see what’s hot.

All you do is search their site for whatever keyword you’re interested in and Digg will return the articles with the most “Diggs”. Or you can search by category and get the same kind of results.

Not only can you get ideas for content, but you can also learn a lot about writing. Don’t just look at the content of the article, but look at the headline itself.

Is it catchy? Funny? Does it create controversy? What tips can you take from the author and apply it to your writing style?

Now, let’s face it. A lot of the articles become popular in Digg because the authors themselves are popular and have a large traffic base.

So I’m not implying you can just write a similar article and easily get as much traffic. But it’s still a good tool to use to get ideas.

TrafficJam.com

I’ve been lucky enough to appear on this homepage a few times and got a decent amount of traffic from it. (Don’t let the site’s PR3 scare ya away.)

In case you don’t know, TrafficJam.com provides a ranking of blog articles based on traffic they’ve received throughout the BlogRush network.

I’ve used this site from time to time to get ideas for what’s hot in my niche and tips for writing good headlines.

You can utilize the above tips with any social networking/bookmarking site. Pay close attention to the articles getting all the publicity and see how you can apply these principles to your own content.

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So there you have it. Hopefully you can see how useful statistics can be. Rather than just checking the most common stats (total page views, top referring sites, etc.), dig deep and see how can use these numbers to improve your traffic and overall visitor experience.

By all means, sign up with Google Analytics and take advantage of this thorough stat package that won’t cost you a thing… Well except the time you’ll spend gawking at the reports and absorbing all the numerous statistics they report to you.

Some of you spend months searching high and low for sites and techniques to help boost your traffic. Yet in many cases, the most effective tips are often closer than you think.

The problem is, if you don’t have enough traffic, your site will end up looking vacant, smallish and unimportant.

So I thought I’d make a list of a few things new Webmasters should avoid when starting a site.

Don’t Look For Advertisers… Yet

Most serious advertisers know what to look for when searching for sites to advertise on. They’ll check your Alexa Rank, PageRank, PageStrength and other tools to get an idea for how much traffic you’re getting.

So don’t throw up “Advertise Here” message unless you have the traffic and advertisers to support it.

If you do this prematurely, it lets everyone know you don’t get enough traffic because the “Advertise Here” message continues to display, yet you have no advertisers who choose to advertise with you.

Don’t Launch a Forum or Other Community-Based Applications

Many members on my forum, WebsiteBabble.com ask about starting their own forum. Yet, I always caution them to make sure they have enough traffic before doing so.

It doesn’t look too good when you launch a forum that gets 1 or 2 posts per week. People won’t want to participate in a forum that looks inactive.

I’ve found that the best way to establish a forum is to build a website or blog that generates a good amount of targeted traffic (500-1000 unique visitors per day). Then use that traffic to help promote your forum.

Incorporate links to your forum in popular web pages and blog posts. For example, if you have a heavily trafficked page on how to develop a site with CSS, you could invite your visitors to post questions about CSS in your forum.

Also, don’t be afraid to create a few fake accounts and post some starter questions and answers to get your forum going.

Once the activity picks up you won’t need to do this anymore, but that’s a great way to encourage participation in a new forum.

However, if your traffic levels are low, hold off on the forum for now.

Don’t Display Your RSS Feed Subscribers

With the popularity of FeedBurner, many bloggers opt to display how many people have subscribed to their feed.

This looks pretty impressive when you get into the 4-digit arena, but not quite so good when the number is under 20 – especially if your subscriber rate is not increasing much.

It doesn’t look too good when someone visited your blog on January 1st when you had 20 subscribers, and four months later they return and you have 22.

Sometimes it’s best to keep your numbers to yourself.

The Moral of The Story

Notice the above points all revolve around one thing… generating enough traffic. That should be the first goal for your site.

I know it’s tempting to add user interactivity, forums, chats, make money from advertisers, etc. but without traffic, your site becomes a collection of features that no one is using.

It’s much better to spend the early days learning how to generate targeted traffic to your site. Then once the visitors come, you can start thinking about adding such features.

View my traffic building tips page to read about some of the ways I’ve brought traffic to my site over the years. See if there are any methods you can implement yourself.