Your avatar.

It’s the little square that appears next to your tweets, FaceBook posts, etc.  It’s your identification for social media online.

Someone recently asked me why I never change mine.

I simply replied…

It’s part of my brand.

For the most part, I use the same icon for 2 Create a Website everywhere.  (There are a few exceptions.)

It’s recognizable and my followers have become familiar with it.  I also prefer to use a photo because I believe it is more personal.  But I certainly understand why you may choose a logo instead (brand awareness).

Changing Faces

I follow people on Twitter who change their avatars multiple times per month, and there have been many times I didn’t realize who they were until many tweets later.

This happened with someone I follow very closely.  I unintentionally bypassed their tweets because I didn’t recognize the avatar.

I know what you’re thinking…  Content sells, not avatars.  So why does it matter what picture is displayed?

Here’s the deal.  Most people follow hundreds (or even thousands) of people these days, and can’t effectively read every update.  But many have their favorites.

No matter how many people they follow, they will always take time to read the updates from their favorite people.  So as they are scanning, they tend to zero in on these people, and a recognizable avatar assists with that process.

Of course, content is the most important thing, but don’t underestimate the importance of that little square.

A familiar picture helps people quickly recognize you as they scan through the numerous updates of people they subscribe to/follow.  You don’t want to get skipped by your loyal followers because you change your picture every other day.

If you’re using social media for personal reasons, then these rules don’t necessarily apply.  In fact, switching up your photo is often a means of self expression.  But for business, I think it’s important to consider familiarity, brand awareness and consistency.

I’m not saying never switch your avatar.  A change in scenery is nice every now and then — especially if you’re just changing to another photo where people can still recognize you.

However, random avatar changes (from cars to dogs to sunglasses, etc.) every week might be a bit much.  Just remember the role that small icon plays when it comes to recognition and branding.

What do you think?  Do you change your avatars often?  Why or why not?  Let’s talk!

As you may know, your search engine rankings, largely depend on relevant, quality backlinks (related sites that link to you.)

However, when it comes to less competitive keywords (which make up the majority of my search engine traffic for all my sites), your content and other on-page criteria may have more influence in certain cases.

So it’s still important to make sure your pages are as optimized as possible, and this includes ensuring that your source code displays your main content as close to the top of the page as possible.

The problem is, most CSS templates (static websites and blogs) are not coded this way by default.  Check the source code of your site (right click and View Source on your page.)  If you have a left nav, I bet that content comes up before the main content.

Just to experiment, I changed Flat Stomach Exercises (my Site Build It! site) last August.  Now the content displays right after my header in my code.

Shortly after this change, my search engine traffic grew dramatically and I haven’t updated the content in over a year.  I also haven’t actively promoted this site in several years.

Coincidence?  Could be.  I’ll never know for sure.

It would be very irresponsible for me to assume this change was the sole reason.  Please read that last sentence again because the last thing I want to do is mislead you.

Nevertheless, why wouldn’t you want your content to appear as close to the top of the page if you understand how search engine bots read web pages. (They view the source code from top to bottom.)  To me, it just make sense to make this change.

This is especially true for those of you with long, busy navigations with a lot of links, ads, etc.

And even if it only moves your pages up a few spots in the rankings, multiply that impact by hundreds or even thousands of different keyword phrases your site gets found for every month. Think about it.

This tip is probably not going to impact your rank for most competitive keywords, but could have the greatest impact on long-tail (less competitive) keywords. I don’t know about you, but long-tail keywords make up the majority of my search engine traffic.

Watch the video below and tell me what you t

Can’t see the video?  Click to watch.

Good News for Thesis and Site Build It! Owners

If you own Thesis (blog) or SBI! (static website), both of their default templates code the content before the left navigation by default. There may be more themes/products out there that do this, but these are the ones I own so I can only speak on them.

The reason I had to change my SBI! site is because I use a template that I created from scratch.  So if you use the basic float: left attribute for your left nav (CSS sites), more than likely this is true for your site too.

Earlier this year, I asked you about your top referral traffic categories (search engines, direct/bookmark traffic, referring sites, etc.)

So I thought it would be cool to see what specific sites send you the most traffic.

My top 5 traffic sources in the past month were…

1) 2CreateAWebSite.com

2) YouTube.com (From my two channels combined)

3) WebsiteBabble.com (My forum)

4)  Twitter

5)  Google

Just a few notes…

1) A lot of people assume I get more traffic to my blog, but my static website outperforms this blog by far when it comes to traffic and earnings.

2) Even though Google is ranked 5th for traffic referrals for this blog, it’s ranked 1st for my static website.

3) Regarding Twitter traffic, I do not have my blog address in my Twitter profile.  (I use a Twitter landing page because it’s more personal.)  So my Twitter referrals for this blog are coming from announcing my blog posts through Twitterfeed and RT’s (retweets) from my generous followers.

I used the Google Analyticator plugin to retrieve my “top 5 referrer” data.  I love it because it shows a quick overview of your traffic (top referrers, searches, etc.) right on your WP dashboard.  It’s nice because I don’t have to login to Google Analytics just to get a quick overview.

What were your top referring sites in the past month?

For months, I’ve been toying with the idea of letting people rent a sub forum to promote/announce their sites/services on WebsiteBabble.com.

Now that the forum has been upgraded to the new platform (vBulletin 4.0), I am almost ready to move to the next step.

But first, I need some feedback from you.

Who Can Rent a Forum?

In the beginning, I will only open this up to people who have sites related to web design, development, programming and other technical web services.

So if you have a logo design company, you could rent a forum to showcase your latest work, offer deals and generate new business from other Website Babble members.

WebsiteBabble.com receives about 75,000 page views per month and has an average Alexa Rank of about 14,000.  The forum also uses the vbSEO plugin, so every post is promptly added to the XML sitemap and submitted regularly.

Many newbies come to my forum and need help with design, development and other programming services.  So this is a great promo opportunity for people who offer such help/services but don’t have enough traffic/exposure.

Benefits of Sponsorship

- You will have your own sub forum to promote your site (latest blog posts, products, services, etc).

- Ad revenue opportunities within your forum (AdSense, banners, etc.)

- Owning a sponsor forum means more dofollow backlinks to your site from another relevant, trafficked site (major SEO benefit)

- Website Babble will also promote and list the WB Sponsor forums in other locations on the forum

The WB Sponsor will be billed monthly (subscription service through PayPal) and can cancel at any time.  I haven’t decided on a price yet, but I do have some numbers in my head.

I was hoping to get some feedback here before I announce the official/final cost.

Sooooo, what do you think?   I welcome feedback from everyone, but I’m especially interested in hearing from those who would qualify.  So based on what I’ve revealed thus far…

- If you are interested, what is the most you’d pay (per month)?
- What other benefits would entice you?
- Any other questions or comments?

A product like this could be a big win/win for myself and the sponsors involved so I’d love to get as much feedback as possible before I launch.

I probably won’t allow sites/programs related to “making money online” (unless they are purely tutorial related).  There are so many scammy/sketchy sites out there and I don’t want to appear as if WB is endorsing such sites.

Your thoughts pleeeeeeeease?    I may provide a free trial to people (with relevant sites) who offer great suggestions and feedback.

Hello fellow website builders. Here is by far the best advice I can give anyone who wants to increase their traffic and visibility.

Interview people!

My website was growing ever so slowly until I started interviewing people for my website www.tips4running.com. Now my traffic has quadrupled in the last six months.

Here’s why interviews are so effective…

1. Interviews are unique, original content.

2. They create a lot of traffic.

3. It’s a super powered link exchange.

4. You can find new ways to monetize your site!

Want the details on all these points?  That’s outstanding!  Let’s review shall we?

1. Instead of rehashing other material that is found on the web, create your own buzz by interviewing people in your niche. Don’t be afraid to go after some big fish too.

All you have to do is send out a kind email. If they don’t respond, you lost a minute of your time. If they do respond, you’re on your way.

Probably 50% of the people I ask to interview agree. I target two specific groups. The easier group to get are people who have their own websites. I interview runners who blog about their running or have a website dedicated to some aspect of running.

The other group is famous distance runners. I have been lucky enough to get some great interviews with great collegiate and Olympic runners.

2. When I post an interview on my site, my traffic numbers explode. I’ll give you one example. I interviewed a very good collegiate runner and an excellent collegiate coach.

When the interview was up on my site, I would post a link to it on different running forums. People then start talking about the interview on these message boards, which means more and more people who didn’t know about my site are visiting to read unique, original content.

3. An interview is a super powered link exchange because you might end up with more links than you ever imagined. Here’s how I got two mega links!

First, I went to Alexa and looked at the most powerful sites in my niche.

In the running category, the third most popular site is called LetsRun. After a bit of reading and research, I found out this site is run by two brothers who are running fanatics. I emailed them and requested an interview.

One of them, Weldon Johnson, agreed.  After some more research, I sent Weldon about 15 specific questions.  When I finished the interview, I posted it at my site, and he did as well.

That day, I had a huge spike in traffic. Of course, days later the traffic receded, but the baseline was much higher than before.   Also my site was linked to one of the major running websites.

Fast forward two months.  Matt McCue, An author of a new running book contacted me.  He found out about my site from the interview with Weldon Johnson.

He asked if I would read his book, An Honorable Run, and review it.  I said yes if he would also do an interview. I read the book which was phenomenal by the way, and then interviewed him over the phone.

He had some great contacts for me that he shared with me after the interview.  I sent the interview to these people, and the interview was linked to by Runner’s World. According to Alexa, Runner’s World is the number one running website.

4. Another interview that I did led to some serious money. Marius Bakken is a former Olympic distance runner. He has a few running websites. I interviewed him and we exchanged links.

A few months later Marius contacted me because he wrote about running the marathon. He told me he was selling this book using Clickbank. I read it and reviewed the book for my site and became an affiliate for Marius Bakken’s 100 Day Marathon Plan.

Now I make more money selling his eBook than I do with Adsense.  I didn’t even think about selling eBooks until he contacted me. Marius Bakken would have never asked if I didn’t interview him either.

Need any more proof that interviews are an avenue to pursue?

A while back Lisa posted about her experience selling advertising through the OIOpublisher marketplace.

I am also using OIOpublisher, but the marketplace hasn’t been a source of ad sales for my site, torontoshopoholic.com.

Not all of us have a recognizable brand like Lisa or a mature website.

Instead, I’ve had to think of other ways to attract advertisers.  So here are my top 5 ways to attract advertisers or sponsors to your website and blog.

1. ASK – When I was researching how to attract advertisers I came across a problogger video.  At first glance, it wasn’t very profound, but it did motivate me to start asking.

When businesses contact me, I ask if they would like to see my media kit.  I ask stores when I go out to do reviews.  And every once in a while I just put it out there on Twitter.

I just keep asking. And if someone says “no”, I don’t get offended because they may support my website in some other way like providing a link or a giveaway. I simply move on and ask someone else.

2. ASK – I put ask on the list twice because not only do you have to put yourself out there representing your website and ASK advertisers to support your site, but you also have to target who you ask. It goes without saying that you should ask people who are relevant to your niche.

Also, if your website is young, start out with smaller businesses first. If you have priced accordingly there will be plenty who will be interested.

You can jump right in and try to attract national brands, but it’s probably prudent to wait until you have higher traffic levels and some ad selling experience under your belt.

3. Price – Price setting is very important and should be relative to your traffic levels. Lisa already posted a great article on this so I won’t go into great detail.

However, I will say this.  My ads are relatively inexpensive compared to the competition, but I feel they are appropriate given my traffic levels.  This has helped attract so many small businesses to my site.

As your traffic grows, feel free to increase your rates. Some advertisers may pull their ads, but many will stick around if you are delivering great promotion for their brand, traffic and conversions.

4. Over deliver – From the moment you deal with someone who is a potential sponsor, over deliver in every way. Have a professional media kit and rate sheet that shows your website is more than a hobby.

If they ask questions, provide them with all the information they need. Someone may not advertise today, but if you over deliver, they may convert tomorrow.

Be careful, however, and recognize those who are just using you for free advice or promotion and those who will be potential advertisers. You want to concentrate your efforts on those who are genuinely interested in your site.

5. Excellent Content – Great content goes without saying when building a website. You build content that will appease the search engines, directories and of course your visitors.

But let’s look at it from a different angle. Your content not only has to win over your visitors, but also your advertisers.

I’ve had a number of supporters tell me how much they love my website concept and content. The content attracted them to torontoshopoholic.com, and eventually converted several of them into sponsors!

Lisa’s Comments: Great points, Jane! I love that you mentioned going OFFLINE.  Even though this strategy may not be ideal for every kind of site, too many people are missing opportunities right in their own backyards.  It’s amazing what can happen if you just get out and talk to people!

You’ve also proven that it’s possible to find advertisers/sponsors when you have lower traffic levels.  The key is to be upfront about your traffic, make sure your prices reflect your traffic levels, and target smaller businesses.  You’ve done just that!

Larger, more established businesses may not be interested in advertising on sites with low traffic levels, but they may be a perfect fit for start-up businesses looking for exposure.

Also, great job on the media kit.  It’s short, sweet, to-the-point and provides information advertisers want.

One of the most popular ways to promote your site is through social networking.

However, many of you are taking the “social” part out of the equation because you are relying too heavily on automation.

By automation I mean using various online tools and apps that automatically post content to multiple social networking sites at once.

Don’t get me wrong, automation has its place and it can be immensely convenient, but it’s not always the best way to announce all your content all the time.

I just created a FaceBook fan page last week and I’ve spent a great deal of time researching other successful/active pages.  One thing I’ve noticed is that most successful pages have the right mix of automation and personal interaction.

FaceBook vs. Twitter

While many people use FaceBook and Twitter to interact with people and websites, there are thousands of people who hate FaceBook but love Twitter and vice versa.  Not to mention, people use these sites very differently.

A lot of people like Twitter because they can get quick updates on their favorite people/sites.  They don’t necessarily want to engage in lengthy discussions (not to mention the character limit makes that challenging anyway).

Then you have those who love FaceBook because of the personal interaction, and they love giving their opinions, getting involved in discussions, etc.

So while an automated tweet about your latest blog post is fine for Twitter, perhaps there’s a better way to word this same update on your FaceBook fan page so you engage your fans.

You may want to manually post this update to FaceBook and follow up with a question or comment.

This often sparks comments, questions and discussion which can make your fan page more engaging/interactive (if that’s your goal.)

This is about knowing your audience.  As a whole, FaceBook users have different expectations and behaviors than Twitter users.  So it’s up to you to find the right mix and balance so you’re getting the most out of each social networking scene.

Automation Isn’t Always Bad

Now, I realize there may be times when automation is appropriate.  That’s why I love the Selective Twitter FaceBook app.  It allows you to post selected Twitter content to your fan page by simply adding #fb to the end of your tweets.

You can install this app by visiting this link and selecting “Add to My Page.” Then follow the instructions for linking it to your Twitter account.

It’s easy to fall in love with all the apps and tools that automate content publishing, but don’t rely on them so much that you appear too robotic and impersonal.

Remember, it’s called social networking for a reason.

If you’ve been involved in affiliate marketing or AdSense for at least a year, you’ve probably received at least one free Google AdWords credit.

For those who don’t know, Google AdWords is a pay per click program (PPC) that allows you to bid on keywords, and you only pay when your site gets a visit from the phrases you bid on.

The more popular the keyword is (volume of searches), the more it will cost per click.

You can view the AdWords ads by doing a Google search for almost any keyword phrase. The “Sponsored ads” are the ones that show up on the right side of the page or directly above the natural/free results.

(See example for a query on “web hosting”.)

Many hosting companies offer free AdWords credits from time to time and Google has been known to send them out directly.  In fact, this past December, they sent $100 credits to many AdSense members.

I don’t talk a lot about PPC and that is mainly because I’ve never taken the time to learn and master it.

So when Lisa of Christian-Single-Woman.com asked me to do a blog post about this, I was somewhat hesitant.

Then I decided to talk about what I’ve learned from my experience, and hopefully keep others from making the mistakes I made years ago.

Not to mention, others can chime in and discuss their experiences as well.

You Have the Free AdWords Credit.   Now What?

When you get one of those free credits, it may be tempting to sign up with AdWords and use it right away.

Many people make the mistake of bidding on their most important keyword phrases and use up the credit without even tracking their return on investment (ROI). That’s what I did years ago.

Remember, the point of using AdWords is to make a profit.  If you spend $200 on keywords then your goal is to make more than that on your traffic. So before you go and exhaust your credits, you need a strategy.

The Squeeze Page Strategy

Many people who’ve mastered PPC have done so with the squeeze page strategy.

Let’s say you promote a book on ClickBank where you earn $65 per sale.  You would bid on specific keywords related to that book, and create a benefit-rich landing page that has a goal.

That goal could be to offer a related, free download (teaser) in exchange for an e-mail address.  Now that you have e-mail addresses you can send them follow-up e-mails to help PREsell the ClickBank product.

Usually it takes multiple exposures before someone buys a product, so that’s why having an e-mail list can be so valuable. This is especially true if you learn how to use it to your advantage.

So if it costs you $35 worth of AdWords clicks/visits to get one sale for this book, your ROI is $25 ($60 commission – $35 spent on AdWords).

Congrats, you would be making a profit with this campaign!

Note: Google is big on quality and gives each page a score. So the days where you could submit a small page with nothing but a form to collect e-mail addresses are over.

If you are going to create a “squeeze page”, it should have substance and useful content. If your page is too pitchy, it may not receive a good quality score, which could hurt your ranking potential.

Why AdWords is Tricky

Google knows what they’re doing by sending out so many free credits.  They realize the average person has to spend way more than $100 to return a profit with AdWords.

So that free credit is just to get you started.  They know most people don’t figure out AdWords right away.  After all, it takes a lot of campaign testing (headlines, copy, keyword selection, bid price etc.) before you develop the right ad to return a profit.

I met a lot of people at the Affiliate Summit who do PPC full time.   Many of them earn 6 and 7 figures per year (Yes, seriously.) But they all told me they shelled out at least $1,000 before they began to return a profit.

They also spend hours per day monitoring every single detail about their campaigns. One extra word in their ad title may increase their profit by hundreds of dollars.

So if you want to master PPC, you have to be prepared to track everything and lose some money.  And if you are fortunate enough to turn Google’s free gift into a profit, that’s great!  You are definitely in the minority.

Is Using AdWords for Additional Traffic a Waste?

Many people use AdWords just to draw traffic to their site.  They scope out long-tail (very targeted, low-cost) keywords to bid on and set a small, daily budget to minimize their costs.

If you can afford to do this, fine.  Just remember, if you aren’t tracking what those visitors are doing then you could be wasting money.

All traffic is not necessarily good traffic and you really have to take the time to learn what keywords give you the best return on your investment.

Be Cautious of AdWords Gurus

There are a lot of people making a ton of money with AdWords.  As I mentioned, some are earning up to 7 figures annually.

So this kind of success breeds many self-proclaimed AdWords gurus who want to sell you the “secrets to AdWords”.

Think about it.

Why would they sell the secret if it means creating more competition for them?

I’m not saying there aren’t good resources for mastering AdWords. Just remember, if something sounds too good to be true, it often is.  You may get some general guidelines, but no real AdWords master is going to tell you everything.

The bottom line is, AdWords can be a fantastic program to help improve your traffic and sales.  Just understand it’s going to take time, patience and probably more than that free Google credit to master it.

Don’t Be Scared

I am not trying to scare you away from using AdWords. It can really help your business if you use it right. Just understand you will probably have to spend more than what Google gave you before you make a profit.

Make sure to map out a strategy before you haphazardly bid on any ole’ keywords. Also, monitor your campaigns closely (see the Google Analytics Installation Guide) and set a daily spending limit.

So what about you? Have you ever used AdWords? What was your experience like?

I receive traffic from numerous sources; from my e-books to YouTube, social networking sites you name it.

But when I look at my traffic stats and review my top two sources, they have been the same for many years…

1) search engines

2) bookmark traffic

Of course, the percentage of traffic I receive from these various sources has changed. For example, my bookmark traffic has increased by quite a bit over the past few years.

Nevertheless my top three sources have typically been search engines, bookmark traffic and voluntary inbound links.

So I thought I’d open up a discussion about traffic here. What are your top two (or three) sources right now and how have they changed over the months/years (if at all)?   Noticed any patterns?

Let’s talk!

There are certain techniques that I put into the worthless, “busy work” category…

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?