48HoursWeb

Are you interested in the topic of traffic generation? In this article I would like to list some traffic generation ideas that I got recently:

-Include your URL on your business cards. This should increase the number of visitors you receive, especially if you hand out your business card to many people.
-Building a community around your blog is probably the most important thing. Regular visitors can constitute the majority of traffic. Make sure you offer some valuable content to your readers. It is important to build a strong reader base.
-Submit your articles to EzineArticles. Articles that will be accepted will be a good source of traffic as well. Makes sure you link to your own website from the submitted articles. Submitting articles on a regular basis will ensure that your website will receive a steady flow of traffic.
-Getting involved in sites similar to MySpace can boost the number of people visiting your site, especially if they have similar interests corresponding to your niche. Nonetheless, you should make sure that you are not doing anything that is considered spamming.
-Answer questions in Yahoo Answers while including your website’s URL. If you are an expert on some topic, then Yahoo Answers can help you attract many visitors. This strategy can also work for LinkedIn Answers.

There are probably many other ways you can attract traffic; however, the important thing is that whatever you do, you keep doing your best. Eventually there will be many visitors coming to your site.

Blog, Web

I got inspired to write this article after visiting another website. That website belongs to a completely different niche; however, the author of that site had some interesting thoughts that I think are worth mentioning. Anyway, I would like to discuss the idea of waking up early. I believe that waking up early is a good habit for bloggers, because blogging requires a lot of work. If you get up early then you can accomplish a lot more things. This is definitely the biggest argument as any successful blogger will tell you that you will need to invest a lot of time if you want your blog to be popular. I also think that it is easy to write a lot of posts in the morning, as for most people it is harder to do any work in the evening. I mentioned that this applies to most people and not to all, because I know that a lot depends on the individual. Some bloggers have the most work done during the night. On the other hand, since for most people it is more natural to work in the morning, our productivity would increase if we were getting up a little bit earlier. Try to get up earlier, and see how it works for you. It may be a good idea to write one post each morning. I am sure you will be surprised how much work can be done in the morning straight after you wake up. You will be rested and that is why your productivity will increase.

Blog, Web

Some time ago, I heard of a website that allows sending medals to people. I wonder if you will find it as interesting as I did. There are many medals to choose from, some more hilarious like “Irritable Panda Bear”, ”Mid-Air High Five”, or “Icy Cold Beer”. There are also some more serious like “Educational Blogger Award” and “Interesting Blog Award”. There are also some rude ones like a “Dead Cockroach Award”, which I guess are good for a prank, or you could also sent it to somebody who you do not like. Visit this site, and I am sure you will find some hilarious awards, although before you send a “Dead Cockroach Award” to anyone make sure that it is really what you want to do, and make sure that the person you are sending it has a sense of humor.

You can find the medals at www.justsayhi.com/bb/awards. All you have to do is choose an award, input the recipients name, email, URL, and provide your own name, email, and optionally URL, if you are a webmaster. What I like about this site is that it is directed towards bloggers, so if you are a blogger yourself, I am sure you will appreciate it. There are not many sites like this on the Internet.

Blog, Web

Have you ever wondered why Craigslist achieved such a success? The site is the seventh most viewed site on the Internet. Not bad, is it not? Even though the website is originally based in San Francisco, it operates worldwide. The idea behind the website is very simple. People like to buy and sell used things, and Craigslist allows them to sell items in a very convenient way. There are thousands upon thousands of classified ads on their site, no wonder that the site has so many visitors. People will always need to be buying and selling various items, and this is why sites like this will always stay popular. These days Craigslist is so popular that almost everyone knows what it is. I remember seeing Craig the founder of Craigslist on TV some time ago. While he seems like an intelligent person, he is also in many ways an ordinary guy, which proves that anyone can achieve success on the Web. Of course, not every online entrepreneur will achieve success, but it is definitely worth trying. Do you have any ideas for an innovative website? Who knows, maybe your website will become one of the most popular sites on the Internet?

Biz, Web

Submitting your website to different blog directories is an excellent way to increase your website’s Page Rank and to attract new readers. If you want to be a successful blogger, it is very important to have your website listed in many places. Each submission will give you a backlink, and each backlink will increase the popularity of your blog.

It might even take a couple of days/weeks to submit your blog to many directories, as there is really a lot of them. It is unfortunate that a lot of directories that are still being discussed on the blogosphere no longer exist, are not accepting registrations, or you have to pay to be included there. I would like to share the result of my work with you by providing a list of directories. They should be up to date, and are free unless something has changed recently. A lot of bloggers are submitting their sites to them, and they are generally considered to be a great place to be listed. Some of them will require your blog to have at least a few posts, in order to eliminate blogs which may not last a long time. Here is the list of the directories: technorati.com, findory.com, blogflux.com, blogarama.com, bloogz.com, globeofblogs.com, blogdigger.com, 2rss.com, blogstreet.com, bloghop.com, icerocket.com, readablog.com, weblog-index.com, bloggernow.com, fuelmyblog.com, blog-search.info, findingblog.com, blogintro.com, blog-search.com, blogdir.co.uk, lsblogs.com, 5starblogs.com, daytimenews.com/submit-rss-feed.aspx, blogmad.net, nodp.info, blogcatalog.com.

Please note that the order of the list is completely random. While some directories may cease to exist at some point, or do not allow registrations, I hope that most of them will be accepting registrations for a long time. Feel free to leave a comment recommending any other blog directories you think are worth being listed here.

Blog, Web

Affiliate Marketing can be the biggest source of income for any webmaster who is interested in marketing in general. This way of making money is quite popular the Internet. Under this system a merchant is letting affiliates sell his own product and services, in exchange for a commission. A situation where a customer buys a product or service thought an affiliate link is often called a lead. This type of advertising is also often called “cost per lead” based. There are different ways an affiliate can direct traffic to a certain product, including links, banners, or even product reviews. Commission Junction and ClickBank are considered to be one of the most popular websites for affiliate marketers, but there are many others which you will find by searching in Google. Overall, Affiliate Marketing is a quite interesting business opportunity for those who know how to attract traffic. That is because in order to make money with affiliate marketing you will need to have a lot of visitors to your site. Another aspect which is important is that the traffic should be targeted. The visitors coming to your site and reading about various affiliate products should have a genuine interest in the niche.

Biz, Web

There are many dangerous things on the Internet and it is important to be prepared for everything. This time I would like to warn you about the danger of pyramid schemes on the Internet.

Pyramid scheme is a type of a business model that is doomed to fail. It involves the exchange of money mainly for referring other people into the scheme. Very often no products or services are actually being delivered. It has been known to come under many different forms in order to trick people. The reason why it is doomed to fail is that for people to earn money out of it, you would actually have to enroll more and more people in the scheme without an end. But there will be an end, because at some point the number of people necessary to be involved for anyone to make money would exceed the population of Earth. Usually, only those who have many referrals make money with such programs. The problem is that once news spreads that a particular program is a pyramid scheme, then it is very hard to acquire new referrals. That is why all of the other people are going to lose money.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with making money by obtaining referrals in case of programs that are not pyramid schemes. If you refer others to join services that are actually useful, then everyone involved is going to benefit from it. Nonetheless, it is important to be aware of the existence of pyramid schemes.

Biz, Web

AdSense can make you a lot of money. However, there are several problems you might encounter when it comes to AdSense. Let us take a closer look at them, and try to find a solution if that will be possible:

-Your readers might simply recognize AdSense blocks and do not click on them. This usually happens when they are not integrated very well within the website. Try making the AdSense blocks fit more naturally into your website. Try changing the color for example. AdSense blocks have to be an integral part of your website.
-In some cases ads pertaining to your niche might not pay very well. I do not think there is anything you can do about that, as changing your niche would be a dramatic step. That is why not all websites can really benefit from AdSense.
-Having a lot of traffic from sources which tend to lower your CTR. This would include social media sites. A lot of visitors from social media sites simply tend not to click on ads. Try acquiring some traffic by exchanging links with other blogs. You can also try linkbaiting as this method usually works better.
-If you notice that some on your ads have very high CTR, try to investigate it. There is a chance that your competition is artificially inflating your CTR, because they want Google to ban you.

Biz, Web

What is a dictionary? It is simply a reference book containing an alphabetical list of words with information about them. Almost everyone knows that, but I am sure that most of us from time to time need to look into a dictionary to find the meaning of a rarely used word. If you are one of those people, you can save a lot of money by using online dictionaries, instead buying traditional ones.

OneLook is a website that allows you to look for definition of words in dozens of high-quality dictionaries like Oxford English Dictionary or Encarta World English Dictionary. The search for the word “dictionary” gave results from 50 different dictionaries. You would have to spend a fortune to own that many dictionaries, and it would take you a long time to browse through all of them. Apart from saving time and money, OneLook offers technical dictionaries including computing, science, and technology. All of them are for free. I think that those who spend a lot of time surfing the Web might be able to notice an emerging trend. I am talking about the fact that many resources are being offered for free. Do you think that eventually all resources on the Web will be for free?

Web

Sometimes it is impossible to access some websites, because there is restricted access to them. The tips I am about to present to you will be especially helpful to you if you want to access some of the pages from your workplace and the administrator banned them or restricted access to them. Another possible situation that comes to my mind is that maybe the government of your country banned some of the sites so that its citizens do not have access to certain “politically incorrect” sites. Such situations occur in China and in some other Asian countries. There are at least two methods to access your desired websites:

1. Search the banned website through Google or other search engine. After finding it, enter its cache copy. This is a very popular method and it is very easy to do. However, this may not work for websites or pages that were never cached. That should not be the case with popular websites. Most websites have many of their pages cached so you should not have problems accessing pages this way.

2. In Google or any other search engine type this keyword: ‘cache:URL name’. This will take you straight to the cache copy of that website. This method is very similar to the previous one. You should use this method only if you know exactly the URL you plan to visit. If you make even a small mistake while typing the URL, then Google is not going to list any results.

3. Try to connect using a proxy. This may not work for all websites, but it may trick many servers into thinking that you are from a different country. There are some free proxies out there that you may use and one of them is YourFreedom. It might help you access some websites that otherwise you would not be able to visit.

Education, Tech, Web