Improve your website traffic and the money will follow, that’s undoubtedly the principle that millions of site owners hold in running their sites. It is true that the money is in the traffic but with a large number of information and methods available in the internet, it becomes quite difficult to find the sure ways to increase traffic to your website. If you think that increasing traffic is a difficult task, think again because there are many simple strategies you can implement to drive traffic to your website. This article will outline 5 simple ways to drive traffic to your website.

1. Provide well written content for visitors
All successful internet marketers agree that “content is the king” to increase traffic to website. If your website does not have well written content that provides value to your visitors, you can lose potential visitors very easily. If you cannot write compelling articles for your website, there are many talented writers that you can hire.

2. Use social media
When you visit many high profile websites, you can easily notice that they pay attention on the use of three social media giants like Facebook, Google+ and Twitter to enhance their popularity. Facebook recently announced that there are more than 800 million people who are actively using its platform. These facts give signals that a social media campaign is a good way to enhance your website traffic. Create accounts in those three social media giants for your website to further promote your website. Social Media is a great way to circulate your well written content and get readers interested in what you have to say.

 
3. Find the right keywords
Choosing the right keywords is the very basic method to drive traffic. When internet users want to find information, they will type certain keywords in the search engine box. If the articles in your website have the highest relevancy then your website has the highest chance to appear in the top of the search results. Due to a large number of keywords in every niche, you have to sort keywords in your niche and choose competitive keywords that have the highest traffic. There are many tools in market that can help you to find competitive keywords in your niche. You can try Google Keyword Tool, which is one of the most-used tools in market and it is free.

4. Implement search engine optimization
Implementing SEO (search engine optimization) is a great way to increase traffic to your website. It might take some times to understand and optimize SEO for your website. However, just like creating content, you can outsource the search engine optimization task to a professional.

5. Hold contests
People are always interested with contests. Hold a contest or two on your website and offer valuable prizes to the winners. Start off by blasting your contest out on your social networks, after that people will get interested and spread the news for you. Be sure to have a pretty cool prize to give away. As a result, there will be a bunch of visitors to your website to find out information about the contests. In this way, your website will get a huge buzz from the online community.

Driving traffic to your website is actually simple but it takes hard work if you really want to get profit from your website. If you keep implementing the five ways to increase traffic as mentioned above, it won’t take much time for your website to get lots of traffic. Be creative and have fun!

1. Facebook
Facebook is the most used social media site around the world; it has close to 750,000,100 monthly visitors. Harvard student – Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook in October 2003, during those days it was known as Facemash. Facebook is a social media website where users can create a profile and share information about their personal and professional life, upload their pictures, and share their thoughts in the status bar, comment on other posts and status updates. Facebook also allows users to connect and chat with friends. It also allows users to share links to videos and articles from other websites.

Facebook helps businesses increase their online exposure and popularity free of cost. Businesses use Facebook to get in touch with people and share educational information within their field. Facebook allows individuals and businesses to create topic specific groups and pages without charging any fees. It is important to remember that if you are putting your business on Facebook to create a specific page for that business. Another beneficial way of gaining exposure through Facebook is with their targeted Facebook ads. These ads are not to be taken advantage of and require a certain amount of attention once one has been built.

2. Twitter
Twitter is the second most used social media site around the world. Twitter was launched by Jack Dorsey in July 2006 and allows users to create a profile, upload their photos and stay connected with their friends. Users can express their thoughts in 140 characters and post them as tweets. Users can also share videos and links from other websites. Businesses around the world also use this platform to communicate and convey important messages to the public. It is important to Tweet often and share great content. An easy way to lose your followers fast is by selling to them, so don’t ever sell directly on Twitter. Be creative and be social, after all it is Social Media.

3. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the third most used social media website. LinkedIn offers a free profile and a premium profile. However the premium profile has a fee attached to it. It is widely used in offices and by business owners around the world. It allows users to create a professional profile which talks more about the user’s work experience, life experience and educational background. It also allows users to share content, videos, and links from other websites.
LinkedIn is a resource for those doing research about the people they are doing business, often used to find out if they are qualified and to see all of their success. Recruitment and head hunting companies often use LinkedIn to find and select candidates as per their requirements.

4. YouTube
YouTube is a video sharing social media site. It allows users to create a profile which is also known as you YouTube video channel. Users can upload their favorite videos on their channel and share it with their friends. Users can also like or dislike videos uploaded by other users.
YouTube helps its users earn money by allowing advertisements on popular videos uploaded by them. Businesses use YouTube to upload videos about their products and services. Almost all top brands around the world have their video channel on YouTube.

5. Google +1
Google +1 is a popular social media website from the search engine giant Google. Google +’s features are just like Facebook’s features. Users can upload pictures, videos, links to other websites and comment or posts made by others. By using Google +1 you are giving your approval to that blog, restaurant, or website. +1 allows you to help others find the best stuff on the web.

6. My Space
My Space is another popular social media site which has around 70,500,000 monthly visitors. My Space has features like Facebook although there is a larger variety of musical talent on My Space. It allows users to write posts in “Bulletin board” and share it with friends. Users can create issue specific Groups and Pages, share links to other videos and websites.

7. Klout

Klout is a site that measures your social influence on a scale 1-100. The higher your score is on Klout the greater your influence is. When you share, create or even recommend, you are impacting people. Klout provides you with opportunities to earn your perks. Find out how to earn these perks by starting an account with Klout, and see how you can increase your social
These are the Top 7 Social media Sites being used today. It is very important for businesses to be on at least few of these sites to increase your online visibility.

We are currently living in a world where social media marketing is gaining more momentum and power with every passing minute. In this world we live in, social currency is vital to your business’s success.

Social currency can be defined as a person or a brand being a credible source of information, and the more value one provides to the consumer, the more the consumer is opt to listen to them.

Valuable content includes a simple thought, review, recommendation, photo, video, blog post, tweet, or any other piece of content that is used in social media. When you provide this value to a person, it helps put your name and “brand” in their mind turning them into a potential customer.

Building social currency for your business is easier than you may think and best of all it is a completely free way to engage in marketing and advertising.

Typically, there are six factors which determine the value of social currency:

1. Affiliation – People feel like they are part of a community of some kind.

2. Information – If you consistently share information that people find valuable and they then share it with others, your business will reach far more people.

3. Utility – This is providing something of use to people, or to put it another way, providing value to people.

4. Conversation – Being the go to source of information helps others to start talking about your business.

5. Identity – Your effort to provide value to others can help people express themselves by purchasing and using the products or services you offer.

6. Advocacy – Providing value means that prospects and customers are more likely to speak positively about your business and might recommend it to others which is a powerful source of marketing and advertising.

To take full advantage of social currency you must develop a social currency strategy which is best suited for your business. For example, a fitness club should focus on providing useful fitness tips which people will then share, whereas a car dealer might share videos and photos of new models.

A good example of social currency is American Express providing the service of OPENForum.com which is a web based community connecting business owners with similar needs and interests. This is of course is a business working with a grand budget on a grand scale, but one can learn from this innovation. Remember, you don’t have to be large to be creative.

Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin, all terms that were alien, yet today they are the buzz words of modern marketing.  Social media has transformed the perception that the consumer has on a business’s credibility, accessibility, and trendiness. With that being said, why is there a certain amount apprehension and resistance for businesses to include social media within their strategies to better connect with consumers?  Perhaps business owners may not believe that their business could benefit from social marketing or they may be uncertain of how to access and utilize these technological advances to their advantage. If you haven’t considered the benefits of social media for your business then you should ponder the following five points of information.

1. Casting a bigger net.

Concluding the year of 2011, Facebook recorded over 845 million active users from all over the world, Twitter had over 1 million daily users, and over 150 million professionals were using LinkedIn.

Key Take-Away: People are less and less concerned with privacy as the numbers are constantly increasing.

2. Time and Money.

Advertising your business can be very expensive if you have to rely on hard media such as magazines, pamphlets and newspapers for example.  Using social media can be far more cost efficient.  It doesn’t cost anything to join Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and many other prominent social networking sites.

Key Take-Away: Investing time and investing money both hold value; the relationships that you build with social media are permanent, where as your advertisement in a magazine is temporary.

3. “Stop it!”

Remember when the first computer came out? What about the first “smart phone”? Well, the consensus was “it looks too complicated to use”. Now, the average house hold has 4 computers in it and nobody uses a “dumb phone”. Was there a learning curve? Yes. Here comes social media, something that will take time to learn. How will you react to this challenge?

Key Take-Away: We learn what we choose to, stop creating excuses and limiting your business.

4. Competition, competition…

The world of business must have competition. If you were asked, “How are you staying ahead of the competition,” would your answer be compelling enough to close the deal?

Key Take-Away: Social Media can also allow you to see what your competitors are doing, so get creative and one up them.

5. Keep it trendy.

Whether we like it or not, social media is here to stay.  All analysis points to growth; the days of using hard copy paper advertising are numbered and the days of relationship building to better connect with your audience is going to be key to business prosperity.

Key Take-Away: Take advantage of the best relationship building social media tool that is available.

According to recent studies if one is heavily involved in text messaging they are more likely to acknowledge and respond to a text message ad then most. It would be obvious that a younger generation would be an ideal target market but even the older generations are slowly getting more and more involved with technology as business shifts to a stronger need for cell phones. Marketers are constantly trying to find out new ways to reach their market and cell phones are definitely in.

Read the full story here : http://www.marketingforecast.com/archives/10652

Tracy was a semi-professional gamer on the side. When she helped a student who wanted to be a game designer, she ended up finding her dream Master’s Degree program at Carnegie Mellon, applying, and cashing out her career. During her years at school she worked both on an alternate reality game and on the Activision “Quantum of Solace” project. While finishing the program, she came up with the idea for “Get In Line Games,” which is the concept of entertainment while you’re waiting for a concert, event or movie to start. Her goal was to make the waiting experience “worth waiting for” and to harness attention during those times. Throw in brand connections and you get the Evil Genius part of the story.

Evil Genius’ 5 employees and extended team have created a platform that enables people with mobile devices to play a shared game around a common screen. If you have a phone, wifi-based iPod or Nintendo, it can be your game controller. Their first experiment, at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) conference had 7,000 people playing while waiting in line for two hours to get in, being exposed to brands and products, and thanking them afterwards for a fun game.

Skip forward to last summer and Evil Genius Designs applied with over 500 other companies to be part of the PepsiCo10 Competition. According to Pepsico, the company is partnering with up to 10 emerging technology start-ups, helping them execute pilot programs with PepsiCo brands. “We were looking for shovel-ready tech that we could partner with in four strategic areas: motion video, social media, mobile, and digital in-store,” said Bonin Bough, Global Head of Digital and Social Media for PepsiCo. “We wanted to find companies that changed the way we connect with our consumers.”

The 500 submissions were distilled down to 20, who all presented across the PepsiCo organization to brands including Pepsi-Cola, Frito-Lay, Tropicana, Quaker Oats and Gatorade, and to every area from package design to legal and marketing, letting the entire organization see all the tech possibilities. “As a way to add value to the companies participating, we brought in venture capitalists, mentors, and guides for these 10 companies and we exposed them to our agency partners as well,” said Bough.

The top 10 finalists were given a pilot to run with a brand. For Evil Genius, their task was to help people spend their waiting time while providing utility and monetizing that time with brand exposures – in other words – to entertain people around a brand experience. They created the Super Shopper video game experience, which I tried at SXSW. It is a very Microsoft Xbox 360 kinect-like game that takes place as a shopper “runs” down an aisle. By moving my body right and left – with full hand motion and leaning – I picked up products in the aisle by rolling my “cart” past them, avoiding spills and abandoned carts that slowed me down. (You can see my picture – but note the camera seems to have added a few pounds. Really. I came home from SXSW down 5.) I got extra points for grabbing SunChips, which was the featured product in this demo.

Then there was a challenge round – me versus the computer disgused as an evil shopper – and I almost won. I also found out by collecting items that there were a few products I didn’t know came from PepsiCo (Stacy’s Pita Chips, for example). So the game increases customer awareness, exposes customers to brands, and provides a fun experience. There were free SunChips for me to taste in the booth after my “workout.”

Brown said “For my company, participation in this PepsiCo 10 has raised awareness that large brand company sees value in our platform. In addition we think it is valuable to talk to brand managers in the company, and to Pepsi’s agency partners. I get to refine our offering with people in the industry and it puts more credibility behind our small startup. It also gives us a case study when we talk to other companies and investors.”

She hopes to take the company to the next level using this demo to get some new contracts and attract investment. Bough informed me that the PepsiCo 10 is launching in Europe soon. Are major consumer packaged goods companies like PepsiCo the next filters for digital innovation? Let us know what you think about sharing your product with a company in the comments below.

You hear about fashion companies doing pop-up stores. There was even a PopTart pop-up store in midtown Manhattan recently. But a software store for a small Danish software company? And in San Francisco, where there are a huge number of programmers?

"The company is starting our US operations with a store," said Madsen-Mygdal, "and we’re launching our next version. We’ve run lots of workshops with customers, and we love meeting people who will use our products. This is a place where we can run seminars and have a location for people to walk in and ask questions."

What is Podio? "We used to be able to create simple Filemaker templates or macros in Excel, but we lost that somewhere when we started moving to the web. Podio brings back the ease of creating your own applications. It's a web-based platform where you can build your own applications and use the tools for what you need to do. Instead of 20 web applications, you have everything in one environment. it is our attempt to build the next generation of simple tools for your own needs. These tools exist within a social space, so everyone can collaborate. They're designed to scale from small teams to company intranets. Tools can be used within your company or across companies."

Podio will be free for the first 10 users in a space or project. There will be a flat fee per month plus a small fee per user after the initial 10, so small businesses can basically try this for free. Currently, all the apps in their market place are also free. But if someone creates an innovative module in the app store, they will get value as others improve it or as they are able to consult on it. Podio will highlight their best developers and feature them in seminars or workshops. And in the future, they'll have a way for developers to charge money for modules they create.

Madsen-Mygdal gave me an example of a woman who runs a magazine. She used the plaform to create a production flow, a database of freelancers, a task management app to delegate tasks and to stay organized. This non-technical user was able to create an application to run her entire company in less than 5 hours, and it fit her company's needs better than piecing together other tools. Users can create their own modules, or get them from Podio's (on-line) application store.

The real-life store has that Northern European design feeling, which Madsen-Mygdal assures me is due to "a few trips to Ikea and our team's do-it-yourself ethos." The pictures show a design that combines an Apple store-like asthetic with a hip cafe. "We flew in our team from Copenhagen, and yesterday, we did a hack day. Today we had 80 people come by for a lunchtime meetup who are Europeans living in the SF area. Anyone can walk in from the street and get help building their own app if they want it."

Creating a store is certainly one way to get attention for the launch of a new product. "Usually you do a party and have a band. We're doing that too. But this is more about becoming a part of the local community instead of just having one evening event. For now the store is open for a few weeks, and then we’ll evaluate whether we move to regular office space, or to keep our offices in the store and use the space for a place to do events and create community around our software."

What happens if the store concept takes off? "If we like the way it works out in SF as a prototype, we may open more stores in Copenhagen and potentially in other cities as well."

The store is at 224 6th Street near Howard Street in San Francisco. Would your small business be more likely to create a custom application if you could go talk to the developers in a store about how to customize it? Is this a good stunt or a potential future trend in software retail? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Imagine a world where the apps on your mobile device knew not just where you were, but knew the context around your location—the weather, the time of day, the neighborhood, and more—and delivered customized information based on those factors. This year an even more potentially game-changing idea is the use of location awareness in any mobile application—providing a layer of information that's relevant in the context of your location, neighborhood, time of day, and more, at the time you use a tool.

At SXSW 2011 I spoke with the founders of SimpleGeo, a company providing this data. CEO Jay Adelson is most well known for co-founding Digg, Internet web studio Revision 3, and data center company Equinix. The company was the result of a brainstorm from the 2009 SXSW conference when co-founders Joe Stump and Matt Galligan thought about the idea of augmented reality games that could exist "on top" of the real world. Galligan told me he quickly figured out that games weren't his forte, but the location infrastructure required to create such a game would be valuable to a range of companies. In other words, he could build a database of place and location data that others could then innovate around.

Adelson says: "Application developers should be able to focus on creativity of their own products. Storage and scale is not what they should think about." Adds Galligan, who is chief strategy officer, "Four or five years ago, everyone was concerned about building social graphs [the connections between friends on networks]. Now it's just assumed that you can have someone log in via Twitter or Facebook and give you that information." SimpleGeo is working on a similar service for app developers now—so that location data about an area is assumed—and developers can just make what they need.

In fact, SimpleGeo is so passionate about the location data being available to all developers that their database of places is free to other developers. They’ll make money by charging for use, and by allowing others to store data about these places that are unique to the service they’re creating.

As an example, travel site Hipmunk uses the data from SimpleGeo as a local business information database. "We look up bars, restaurants, and nightclubs and then create our own "heat maps" based on SimpleGeo data and other data to determine where the items of interest in a city are located,” said Hipmunk co-founder and CEO Adam Goldstein. You can see this very clever filtering in its app (described in their blog) that helps searchers find the kind of hotel that also has the amenities and neighborhood atmosphere that makes them comfortable.

Adelson says: "The problem we're solving is, give us the coordinates of a device, we'll give you the data and make it relevant. We also want to provide some of this data free and unencumbered." SimpleGeo raised $10M in funding between seed money and Series A, and now has 24 employees. Its founders have an interesting take on a marketing strategy; Galligan reports they’ve been marketing the company to consumers and techies, rather than as an "infrastructure" play. They're working on a "Powered by SimpleGeo” effort to generate credibility for their service as well as the apps that work with them.

For small businesses just starting up, I think this trend in location awareness is important as it emphasizes the need to have a great online presence in places like Google Local and similar sites, so that companies like SimpleGeo will find you and include you in their database. Does the idea of a location database that leads customers to your business appeal to you? Do you have app ideas that need location? Let us know in the comments below.

The “why should I care” part for your growing company is that you can list several types of software your business needs, add the services online, and connect them like building blocks so your invoicing, email marketing, and customer relationship management (CRM) system, for instance, are all connected. And you don’t need tech support to make it happen. Many of these companies also support Google’s Apps Marketplace, allowing a company to integrate tools via the sign-in they already use to get email.

The Small Business Web has grown from my reported 70 companies last year to 168 this year, according to co-leader Sunir Shah, "Chief Handshaker" of online invoicing service Freshbooks. Not all the companies integrate with all other companies, since some integrations don’t make business sense. But all signed the manifesto indicating that they believe, among other things, that “small businesses should have access to the same tools and technology that big companies have.”

And there are competing companies involved, according to Michelle Riggen-Ransom, Director of Communications for small business CRM provider BatchBlue. “We have email providers MailChimp, Icontact and Constant Contact as well as other competing CRM providers.” The tools range from mail and CRM to customer support and project management, with new categories being constantly added.

Shah added “If one cloud-based service succeeds, it benefits everyone in our industry. An increasing market helps all of us. ” That market is only beginning its growth. According to an IDC Research report quoted* in the Wall Street Journal, “only about 7% of small-business owners were using cloud services, but that number is expected to grow to more than 10% by mid-2011.” (UPDATE: Direct link to the research, behind a pay wall.)

The fact that the products integrate is really important to Shah. “At Freshbooks, we’re 3 times more likely to have a customer go from a free trial to paying for our service if they use any of the integrations with other Small Business Web partners.”

The Small Business Web effort got a boost recently when the Small Business Web received support from American Express OPEN. “OPEN is about small business doing more business,” said Eric Jepsky, Vice President of Business Development. “Small businesses really have a strong need for tech companies focused on them. We appreciate their focus on making small business’ lives easier through interoperability.”

OPEN has it’s own set of Small Business web apps, but these apps currently do not integrate through open API interfaces like those used by the companies in the Small Business Web group. Jepsky said such interfaces are “TBD, but the Small Business Web is an innovative, best of breed group that we wanted to be a part of.” This group will likely continue to grow with the support of OPEN and other companies.

Does your small business need some of the tools provided by the almost 170 companies in the Small Business Web? Are you working with them? Let us know your story in the comments.

(*IDC’s report is behind a pay-wall and they were not reachable for comment. UPDATED above.)

Entrepreneur Susan T. Spencer grew her first business in the late 1960’s when her self-designed tennis dress caught on in popularity. A divorcee with kids to support, she took on a partner who drove her business into the ground – by selling too much!

“Cash flow and partnerships are key lessons I learned early. Don’t ever go into a 50-50 partnership if you don’t have a great lawyer and a clear understanding of where the business is going. In fact, you should probably never have 50-50 ownership. Come up with a list of responsibilities each is willing to take. If 99% are on one person’s side, and the rest are on the other side – that’s a problem with that partner – don’t do the deal.” Spencer’s partner, a man, refused to listen to her and the company was unable to supply the product to stores.

On cash flow, Spencer said “One of the most important things about cash flow, and I was in business for 4 years before I figured this out, is to know the terms companies are setting, what they’re going to pay you, and when. I didn’t know at the time that department stores paid net 90 days, and that sunk me.” Spencer’s book, Briefcase Essentials has a number of tips that women can use to leverage their talents and abilities to help them grow their own businesses or careers. Her site also has a link to some of her useful YouTube videos.

Spencer went on to a career as the first Woman General Manager of an NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles (admitting that her dad owned the team and let her work up through the ranks.) From there, she bought and built up companies in the meat industry and the trucking industry, both stereotypically male fields.

Spencer told me “I think women have a need to understand that when they are in a business, they need to grow it, not baby-sit it. If you don’t grow, you don’t have power. When you grow, when you add employees and grow your bottom line, you get opportunity to do what you do well and let others do their work.”

Carol Roth, business strategist and author of the The Entrepreneur Equation, isn’t a fan of having women-only networking (or women-only business books.) “Women shouldn’t have a league of their own,” said Roth. “What we’re up against is an old boys network in a new digital age. Look at the Web 2.0 company boards, and there are no women, even though it is widely quoted that more women than men participate in social media. The concept of women’s groups can be damaging for your career as it singles out women as a “special needs” group. It’s like sitting at the kids’ table during holiday dinner. Instead of joining the women’s group, don’t be afraid to grab your seat at the men’s table, even if you are the only women. You need to establish those relationships if you want to play in the same league.”

Having played in the real big leagues, Spencer would definitely agree with that last point. “Do not try to be a man. It’s not effective and it wastes your talent,” Spencer told me. “If you do homework and you’re disciplined and detailed, you’ll succeed with male suppliers and customers. When you’re the expert, men will come to you for information and will rely on you for it.”

Roth’s book drops on March 22nd, and Spencer’s book was supposed to be on sale next week (but I see it listed as available via several online book sites.)

What do you think would be helpful to women starting businesses? Let us know in the comments.

A note: I’m doing some interesting stuff this week over on Twitter and increasing my interactions on my Facebook Fan Page – are you following @HowardGR?