So you’ve got your own website… Now all you need to do is drive mass amounts of traffic to it, turn that traffic into qualified sales (or leads), and make enough money to retire in less than a year, right?

FACT: An average of less than 3% of all traffic to your website will actually result in a sale or lead conversion. LESS THAN 3 PERCENT!!!!

While it’s true that a minuscule percentage of website owners will ever become millionaires, you can still have a successful website and use it to promote your business and ultimately make money as a direct result of it. Basically, your website should be the top-producing “employee” in your company, meaning that it needs to work for you…

Does your website actually work for you? If not, then you probably should have saved your money, instead of WASTING it on web design, development, and hosting fees. If the general public can’t find your website, what’s the point of owning it?

How do you resurrect it into becoming the hardest-working, most efficient employee on your team?

The easy answer is “Learn all you can about Search Engine Optimization and just do your own SEO to make it rank higher in Google.” Everybody knows that ranking #1 for the most competitive keyword in your market is more beneficial than using a billboard on Main Street to advertise with. Unfortunately, most people aren’t SEO pros, nor do they have the time to learn the craft and practice it everyday. Or they might not have the budget to hire a professional SEO firm to launch an aggressive campaign.

So… How do you drive 1000’s of unique visitors to your site without being an SEO expert?

There are many FREE resources and mediums that you can utilize to drive that traffic to your website. And the best part is: you don’t have to know a damned thing about SEO to do it

In my experience, I’ve found the following to be the most useful:

1) Social networking.

Social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, are definitely one the best ways to promote your business for free. You don’t even need a website to harness the power of social networking! In fact, you can simply create a Facebook fan-page for your business (for free) and use it as your official web-presence.

Every time I look at the traffic stats for my websites, the social networks run right behind the major search engines, as far as sending the most visitors to me. Facebook and Twitter send A LOT of traffic my way. And they can do the same for you.

2) Article marketing.

Article marketing kicks ass! You can write an article on virtually any topic, product, or service that you are offering to the world. And most article sites will let you place up to 3 links that point directly to your website or landing page.

One of the biggest benefits to article marketing is the fact that it allows you to actually make your sales pitch before the reader ever clicks on the link to your website. When done correctly, you can actually have someone sold on your product or service before they even go to your site.

3) Craig’s List.

Craig’s List is another awesome way to send people to your website. I like it because of their category system. If someone is offering real estate services, they can post their website address and contact information in the “Real Estate Services” section.

It works the same for just about every other business type you can imagine - computer services, web design, auto repair, furniture stores, jewelers, lawyers, etc. - the list goes on and on. And the possibilities are endless.

4) Press releases.

Press releases are great because most of the press release domains have a lot of “authority” in the eyes of Google. Basically, you can write a free press release about your business (and it doesn’t even have to be “press-worthy” news) and as long as you focus on a keyword-rich topic or market, you’ll be able to get a decent rank from it.

For example, I can write a press release and use “Branson web design” for the topic. All I have to do is make sure I focus on how my business offers “Affordable Branson Web Design Services“  and I can almost guarantee that the press release will rank well for those keywords.

Press releases are another source that allows you to place direct links to your website inside of them.

5) Word-of-mouth.

Yeah, I know it sounds cliche and old-fashioned. But it’s true! Word-of-mouth advertising can be powerful.

How many people do you know? And how many people do each of them know? The numbers grow exponentially and it’s one of the best ways you can promote your website for free.

The only drawback to word-of-mouth advertising is that you need to have an easy to remember domain name for your website. Instead of picking www.ihaveadomainnamethatissolongthatpeoplewillnotrememberit.com, you should try to get www.easytoremember.com. Friends, family, and associates can all help to spread the word about your website and send a few visitors your way.

You don’t have to spend tons of cash on SEO. If you have the time, you can use any of these methods to get some traffic and generate serious income from your website.

When it comes to website promotion and online marketing, just remember one thing: If it’s free, go for it!

We can help you generate more leads, get more sales, and see a larger return on your investment!

Please contact us today for more information about our affordable SEO services.

Kiren Raj from Chennai recently took up the position, in an effort to provide new levels of service and client satisfaction. Mr. Raj has over 2 years experience in the search engine optimization and search engine marketing industry. Well known as an authority in his field, Mr. Raj brings in loads of fresh ideas and a whole new marketing concept to the table.

His expertise in social networking and the field of social media optimization will benefit every client of ours by helping businesses generate multitudes of traffic, leads, and revenue through the World Wide Web.

We wanted to be able to offer our clients a new and exciting way to gain traffic to their websites. And we also wanted to be able to take advantage of the latest forms of online collaboration. Kiren’s talent will definitely enable us to accomplish all these goals and serve our clients much more efficiently.

Currently, we have already helped over 200 clients achieve first-page rankings for targeted keywords in the major search engines. And with the addition of Kiren Raj to our team, we expect our number of clients to more than double in the next 2 years.

Our clients come first. We strive to deliver results and insure the highest level of client satisfaction. Kiren’s marketing power will enable us to take it to the next level.

To contact Kiren:

Email: kiren@ozarkscompu-tech.com

Phone: +919962177583

Vacation Services of America is an excellent business located right here in the heart of Branson, Missouri. They have  a really outstanding company with great people.

They have an excellent office and very friendly staff. We recently held a meeting with them to inquire bout purchasing a vacation and travel package. They gave a very informative presentation and explained the details in a very thorough manner. There was no rush, no hurry, and absolutely no hassle.

We were also impressed by the way Vacation Services of America offers travel discounts and benefits to multiple locations across the United States,  not just in Branson. Vacation Services of America has inclusive packages in other countries, as well.

The dates of availability that Vacation Services of America provides are so good that we can travel on virtually any date of our choosing. This fact makes their program stand out from the rest and should be a major incentive to anyone who is looking for a quality travel club program.

I highly recommend their services and the travel club program they offer.  In fact, I’ve already recommended them to my friends and family. And I’ll continue to do so with every opportunity that arises for those who are in need of affordable travel rates and good deals.

The program offered by Vacation Services of America includes several awesome discounts on condos, fine hotels, restaurants, rental cars, and even airfare. Now we can travel anywhere and enjoy our vacations much more comfortably with the help of Vacation Services of America.

Are you an avid traveler? Do you want to learn how you can save tons of money and travel more frequently? Then head on over to Vacation Services of America and join their travel club program!

Have you ever wanted to know who owns a particular domain? Ever looked at a website and became curious as to who it’s registered to?

There’s a simple way to find out the registrant for any domain. It’s called “WhoIs”.

WhoIs is basically a database query protocol that was implemented to determine “who is ” assigned various resources on the Internet. Back in the day, all WhoIs commands had to be ran from the command line prompt. But today, there are several websites that offer WhoIs information as a free service.

My favorite is located here at Domain Tools. I prefer it because they offer a lot of other useful features, in addition to traditional WhoIs record information. Specifically, their SEO text browser. It allows you to view a web document in the same manner as a search engine.

Why are WhoIs records valuable? For me personally, I find  it valuable for link exchanges. When I’m scouring the web for related sites to obtain links from, I’ll go to the WhoIs and pull up the domain owner’s email and contact information. From there, I know exactly who to talk to.

Of course, there is always the possibility of a domain owner to opt-in for private registration. If they have domain privacy in place, you won’t be able to get any of their contact details. However, domain privacy costs extra during the time of registration and many webmasters don’t use it.

Whether you are using WhoIs to assist in link request missions, discovering who your competitors are, or if you’re just plain curious - it’s definitely a valuable tool!

There has been a lot of controversy over the Meta “keywords” tag throughout the SEO community. Many webmasters obsess over it. Others believe that search engine optimization revolves solely around it…

But the truth (and fact) of the matter is that the keywords tag is dead and virtually useless.

To back this statement up and prove why it is dead, I’ll be referencing a case study that was conducted by SEO guru Paul. He is a world-renowned SEO professional in the UK. His site is located at: Making Money On Sitepoint.

A little history: a few years ago, Google and the other major search engines put a lot of weight into a web page’s keywords tag. The keywords that were listed inside of this meta tag told the search engines exactly what the page was about (and therefore helped to add relevancy to the page, boosting it’s spot in the SERPs).

But it didn’t take long before people started abusing the keywords tag in order to manipulate the search engines.  The practice of “keyword stuffing” became common. And webmasters began to repeat the same keywords, over and over. Or they would even jam 1000+ keywords inside of the tag, in an effort to fool the search engines.

Google quickly caught on to this and began to devalue the tag as a whole. It didn’t take them long to finally quit “paying attention” to it. And it’s probably not part of the ranking algorithm anymore (nobody can say that for sure but based on the following research, it’s clear that they don’t use it in their algo).

Take a look at this page: http://www.word07.com. Once you view the source code for it, you can see that the meta keywords tag reads: <meta name=“keywords” content=“Microsoft Word 2007, free tutorials” />
And since the web page is all about free Microsoft Word 2007 tutorials, the keywords tag is clearly relevant to the site’s content. Right?

But if you do a Google search for the content included inside of the keywords tag, the site does not come up anywhere: Click Here To See. The same results are shown in Yahoo and MSN (Bing).

If the keywords tag could alter the SERPs and actually help a website rank higher, then why wouldn’t Paul’s Word07 site show up in the above search? It’s obvious that Google isn’t including it as a determining factor for ranking.

I’ve even went as far as completely removing the keywords tag from some websites before, just to see what would happen. And even after a couple of months, they still held their rankings for the same keywords that were being targeted.

If anything, the keywords tag could potentially hurt you. I say that because all a competitor has to do is view the source of your page and then they can see the keywords you are targeting and try to go after them to beat you.

But Paul says:

“What I normally do is include a keywords meta tag just for completeness but have the expectation that it has no effect…”

So you might decide to keep it in place, just to stay on the safe side of things. The day may come when the search engines start to value it again.

Still to this day, it cracks me up when I’m doing SEO analysis on a website and see that they have 50 keywords placed inside the tag. But it only goes to show how little the webmaster knows about what is really important (relevancy and links).

Honestly, if you hire a company to do your SEO and they have stuffed your keywords tag, you might want to consider firing them on the spot A stuffed keywords tag is a clear indicator of an uneducated person….

If someone truly knows SEO, they know that the keywords tag is NOT an element of the SEO process.

Thanks again to Paul for all of his efforts and researching!

I can’t believe it! Never before have they made 3 updates to the toolbar PR in such a short amount of time. For those of you who don’t know, they normally do the update only 3 or 4 times per year. This being the third update of the year so far is totally out of Google’s norm.

It makes me curious as to what exactly is going on at the big G. What is Matt Cutts up to?

The really odd thing is that after the toolbar update that occurred last December, Google claimed they would not be doing any more toolbar updates in 2009. Is anyone else scratching their heads about this one?

To read more aobut the way the toolbar PR system works and about the 2 previous updates that happened earlier this year, please reference: www.thebransonpro.com/google-toolbar-update and www.thebransonpro.com/another-google-page-rank-update.

It already ranks #1 for a couple of my secondary keywords and it is climbing up there for my main keyword. But it still has a ways to go before I’ll be happy.

We’ve already seen a good response from advertisers here in the Branson area. And we are getting some people to list their boat slips for sale. I think it will be a big success in a short amount of time.

At the start of next week, we are going to go out and do some “grassroots” marketing for it. My friend already has the business cards and red-tape in the works.

Needless to say, we are very happy and excited about it. And honestly, there’s nothing like building an income-producing website for yourself.

After doing some research online, I have found that many people have received mass amounts of un-solicted emails from the same Robert Sexton joker that contacted me earlier today.

And apparently, there have been some people who paid Star Position for their #1 spot in Google but never got it as promised.

For more information, simply do a Google search for the keyword: star position scam. And also, do a search for:star position spam.

There are many other people complaining about them.

Let all of my readers be aware - steer clear of Star Position!