One of the best ways to promote a Website inexpensively is to write articles about your Websites topic and submit them to free content sites. These sites are easily found; just type submit free content into your favorite search engine. Each article you write will have a resource box that includes your name, a brief bio and a link to your own site. These articles are shared with other Website owners to publish them, and soon, your name and links to your site will propagate throughout the Web. The system works well, since search engines respect incoming links to Websites as indicators that the site is important. The more links you have to your site, the more highly the search engines regard your site. Many authors realize that writing articles will generate links, but most write a few articles and then give up. The reasons vary, but most authors will probably say that it simply becomes tedious to spend time writing articles without direct compensation, only to give them away with the faint hope that Website traffic will come about as a result of the work. It is indeed difficult to maintain the discipline to continue writing articles day in and day out, but there is one thing that motivates me on a daily basis readily observable statistics that show that writing articles is generating traffic for my sites.
There are several easy ways to check if publishing articles is generating incoming links and traffic. One way is to go to Google and type in link: name-of-website.com (without quotes.) Google will return a list of sites that contain links to your own site. Usually, these links will come from your published articles, and you can browse through them to see how your articles are weaving their way through the Web. Its fascinating to see how your articles appear on Websites youve never even heard of! If you do such a search on a daily basis, you will almost certainly see the number of links increase daily. Its a great source of motivation to see that the site that had 20 incoming links yesterday now has 200 today. Each of those links represents a place that someone can click to come to your site, and 200 links is nice, but why not 2000 The more the number of links increase, the greater the incentive you have to write more articles. More articles yield more links, and more links yields more traffic.
I started writing articles about eight weeks ago and Ive been astounded at the results. One of my Websites went from zero incoming links to 1000 incoming links in just ten days! Once I saw how quickly the links were increasing, I vowed to write at least one article per day. I begin each day by using a link popularity check software tool to count my incoming links. Such tools are freely available;; Link Popularity Check is one such tool. These tools show link counts for several different search engines at once. Ill also check the stats through my Web host to see where the incoming traffic to my sites is coming from. More often than not, the visitors came from a site with a published article! Once I see the days link and visitor count, I am usually motivated to find a topic and write the article for the day.
Writing articles is a great way to generate incoming links to your Website, and the results can increase daily if you just keep up with it. It only takes a few minutes per day to write an article, and the time is well spent.
Copyright 2005 by Retro Marketing. Charles Essmeier is the owner of Retro Marketing, a firm devoted to informational Websites, StructuredSettlementHelp.com, a site devoted to structured settlements and LemonLawHelp.net, a site devoted to information regarding
Web analytics. Dont worry, its not as boring as it sounds. You may know the concept by another name, such as Web analysis, site traffic statistics, visitor statistics, site hit reporting, Web tracking, Website metrics or various other terms. Web analytics is basically a technical term for methods to monitor your site traffic and usage, ranging from simple hit counters to advanced Web site traffic reporting. I like the term, Web analytics, because it sounds important. And with good reason -- it is extremely important to the survival of any Website.
Before we go any further into our subject, I first need to ask a few critical questions that I wish I had been asked a few years ago ... Do you know how many visitors your site had yesterday, or last week Not generic hits but actual page views Do you know what keywords are used by your site visitors to find you Are you aware of which search engines visitors use to find your site I hope your answer is yes. If not, you are missing out on vital information needed for your Website to perform.
A Website does not do much good others do not see it. You need site traffic (visits) to sell your product, convey your message, offer your support, etc. It is a fundamental truth that without visits to your site you might as well not have it online. The entire purpose of a Website is to be viewed!
Site owners spend countless hours with search engine optimization (SEO) and various site marketing strategies. Many of us invest important dollars to pay for advertising; others spend priceless time rather than money to boost traffic numbers, seeking to increase their ROI (return on investment). But, do you know whether your efforts are getting results This is where Web analytics steps up to the plate and bats a homerun. By using a good, real-time site tracking service or tool, you will be able to see what strategies actually pull visitors to your site, what pages are viewed, whether your content calls your visitors to action and how effective your efforts are.
To get all the vital statistics, you want an analytics site that offers more than hits. You need more comprehensive information to really get an advantage and to truly track your marketing efforts. If you want to avoid software hassle or set up headaches, look for a hosted analytics service. I have found many advantages of hosted analytics over log-based versions. Log analyzers are not typically real-time and require access to server logs and software downloads (time, expense and headaches I dont need). I want a click-and-read system, and this is where hosted solutions appeal to me. I log-in and all my reports are immediately available, allowing me to adjust my marketing or content in real time.
When you are looking for a good hosted analytics service there are a few minimum features you want to be sure are included, such as visitor traffic numbers, per hour, day and month; referral links, which show you the link someone used to get to your site (this is great when you do link exchanges and shows you what search engines have you ranked); and page popularity, to allow you to see what pages in your site are visited most. There are many other features available, but these are the important basics.
The beauty of Web analytics is that there are many incredible tools that offer invaluable information such as Clickstream (Click Path) reports, page Visit Duration, and if you can find a site that offers search engine statistics, you have found a potential marketing goldmine, especially when using pay per click advertising.
With this type of real-time statistical data available on demand, you will no longer waste time -- you will clearly see your effective site marketing efforts, increase your ROI and have what you need to see solid results. Without accurate and timely visitor statistics, your marketing and SEO efforts are working blind. A solid hosted Web analytics report solution removes the blinders and gives you a clear path for optimizing your site marketing time and efforts. Can you really afford to miss out on such a valuable, vital tool
Copyright 2005
Cherie Davidson is content and marketing manager for VisiStat.com ( ). VisiStat is a detailed, real-time site traffic and Web analytics report service that is focused on ease of use and user-friendliness. VisiStats goal is to help site entrepreneurs make the most of their site marketing and search engine optimization efforts -- to be a virtual goldmine for marketing. Learn more at or write Cherie at