Online Assistant

Recently, the following happened to me: I wrote my regular weekly newsletter and posted it on my site. Since this was a longer URL, like millions of other webmasters, I used a URL shortening service to make this link more usable and manageable.

I posted this shortened URL to Twitter and placed it in my weekly email posting... immediately I started getting emails from my subscribers and followers... the link doesn't work, you must have made a mistake.

Which can be easily done, but when I checked the link, I found that the shortening service was not working properly and giving the dreaded "Page Not Found" response. To compound the problem, I was using the Google URL shortener Goo.gl and since it was Google everyone assumed the mistake was on my part. I mean Google is Google.

In the past, I had been using bit.ly but had switched to Goo.gl, well - because it's Google. And everything works better with Google; this was the first time something I used with Google had not worked as planned. And it just wasn't my links, none of the links with Goo.gl were working. No big loss, unless you were linking your Black Friday and Cyber Monday traffic through these shorteners. Ouch.

A URL link shortener works by redirecting your shorter link to the longer one you have entered into their database. If this is a permanent 301 redirect, then your SEO benefits should pass through to your longer link. No harm done. But if the shortening service uses a 302 temporary link then SEO is not passed through to your longer link since the search engines only read this link as temporary.

All the top URL shorteners such as tinyurl, bit.ly and goo.gl use 301 redirects so they are SEO friendly, if they're working!

From this SEO perspective, there is no reason not to use these shortening services, besides they are great for sharing links and getting your links out there.

I only started using those link shorteners because of Twitter which only gives you 140 characters to make your point. These shorteners are also good for sharing and spreading your links around the web. However, in one way using a URL shortener is not a smart marketing move because you are giving up control of your link, putting it in someone else's hands, in this case Google's.

If it goes down, or they decide not to link to your content for some reason, you're in trouble. Same goes for bit.ly, they are in control of your links. Maybe it doesn't count so much if it is a general link, but if you a have an affiliate link in there, you can't change or alter it. Or just imagine, you have 10's, even 100's of thousands of these shortened links spread all around the web, bringing valuable SEO PR back to your site. Suddenly the service or company goes under and all your links disappear from the web overnight.

Web services and sites go bankrupt or change directions all the time, so the above scenario is not out of the question. If you're using and depending on these shortening services to deliver both traffic and SEO to your site, then you should ask yourself.

One of the unwritten rules of Internet Marketing, always control your links and route them through your own domain which you control. Especially if you place these links into viral ebooks, articles, videos... make sure you are linking through a URL on your site. This way you can easily alter the link if anything changes.

By using these URL shorteners, even one run by Google, you really are giving up control of your links. Granted, Google and Goo.gl will probably be around for the foreseeable future and until last week I didn't hesitate to use their shortening service. Now I am not so sure about using their service and question my usage of any of these shortening services in general, despite all the great benefits they give your online marketing.

If you do use one of these URL shorteners, make sure you completely check out the service and its history before you start using it. Actually, if you're going to use these shorteners, it would probably be a good idea to use three or four of them so that all your eggs/links won't all be in the one basket. Better safe than sorry.

Have you had any similar experiences with URL shorteners? Please share your experiences and your thoughts on using URL shorteners as comments

Creating keyword stemming (the ability to have a page returned for multiple results) is accomplished easily through using synonyms and alternative keywords for inbound and internal links.

To promote this SEO tactic simply:

1. Map out the keyword cluster that best corresponds to the root phrase.

2. Make sure the initial keyword is utilized once in the first 25 words of the document.

3. Contextually integrate the secondary keyword 1-2 times into the page.

4. Make sure the page has 500-750 word min. so that search engines have enough context to identify the pages primary and secondary topic.

5. Use both the singular keyword variation and the alternative variation in the title if possible (or in the title+meta tag) - such as keyword1 in title, and keyword 2 (singular or plural in meta data).

6. Build internal links using the alternative keyword variations to supply the foundation of link flow.

7. Build inbound anchor text to the page (from other relevant pages) with the alternate variations of phrases you want the target page to rank for ( i.e. rates, pricing, fees, prices, cost) as an example of semantic stemming.

8. Wait for all the changes to get indexed.

9. Continue building internal and external inbound links until the page reaches the top 10 for one keyword, then reduce the inbound links for that keyword and focus on alternative variables so all the keywords are sufficiently nurtured.

10. Enjoy stemmed keyword rankings over time.

This works particularly well in the event that you are optimizing an array of keywords based on a semantic cluster (group of related words) and wish to use the synergy they create to provide buoyancy across multiple keywords simultaneously.

This simple, yet effective SEO technique can represent the difference between ranking for 10 keywords, 100 keywords or 1,000 over time, depending on how you scale this process across multiple pages in your domain.

A bounce is when a visitor visits your website and then hits the "back" button in their browser or types a new URL to leave the website within a specific length of time. This means that the visitor only visited one page on the site. The length of time in a session varies depending on the analytic software that is measuring your site. There is no industry standard so every search engine has their own way of determining a bounce.

To improve your bounce rate, you need to increase the number of page views that the majority of the people finding your site visits. The search engines use averages to determine your bounce rate. The formula considers the number of bounces in comparison to the number of visitors to the your web page and the number of page views.

1. Improve your website load time. One of the biggest reasons that visitors do not stay on a page is a slow loading page. People are impatient and they will not stick around to wait for graphics, videos and scripts to load. If you must run some of these, you need to understand how to order the placement of these elements to keep the slower loading items further down your page. This will allow the text to load before your video or images. Thus giving you a way to grab the visitor's attention while they wait for other elements of the web page to load.

2. Make your site easy to navigate. If the information your visitor is looking for is not easily found they will move on. Give them very clear ways of finding their way around your site. Make it known that there is more to your site that may interest them than the first page.

3. Divide longer articles into smaller chunks. Use a "more" link to naturally lead them to the next page or label the pages with very easy to find "Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, etc" Guiding your visitors to more related material will make it easy for them to visit more than one page on your site. Any time it is possible to break their actions down into "steps" should be an opportunity for you to divide information into more than one page.

4. Give clear instructions on where you want them to go next. One of the biggest failings of most websites is not telling your visitors what you expect them to do next. By ending an article, blog post or page with a "Visit this page to learn about..."

5. Internal contextual links. There are many advantages to using inline anchor text links. Using text links within an article or page content leading to another page within your website on the topic will give your readers an easy way to find more information on that particular subject. It is also an effective way to gain keyword relevance for search engines.

6. Make your keywords and meta descriptions relevant to the page content. You should avoid using site-wide keywords and descriptions. Create your keywords and descriptions based only on the content of that specific page. One of the quickest ways to lose a visitor is to bring them to a page that does not contain the information they are searching for. You will receive much more targeted traffic by accurately describing what you have to offer. If you have a gardening website and your visitor is looking for information on container gardening, they will quickly leave if you bring them to a page about how to do landscaping.

Creating a positive experience for your visitors will improve your site bounce rate. Organize your site with your viewers in mind and you will reap the benefits of improved SERP and increased page views. These are just a few tips on improving your website.

With Microsoft and Yahoo combining their muscle in the search space, it is imperative that you do not ignore it in your search engine optimization efforts, especially since it will be the Bing search engine that works behind Yahoo search as well. There have been countless articles written online and in technology magazines comparing Bing to Google, but you need to know the differences between how these two search engines rank their pages so that you can optimize your web pages for both of these as well as Yahoo.

Why Would You Rank Higher in One, but Not in Another?

Most small business owners get frustrated that their site either ranks highly in Bing, but poorly in Google or vice versa. Here are some of the reasons why this may be happening and more importantly some workarounds to tackle this problem.

1. Amount of text: Bing places a lot of importance to content, so if your pages have more than 350 words, then you have better chances of ranking higher in Bing. Not so in Google, for which it doesn't seem to be of importance. So, you need to optimize each and every page individually to meet Bing's page score requirements.

2. Natural Language: Bing places a lot of importance on relevancy, so if your website is optimized with LSI keywords, then you are likely to be ranked higher in Bing. Google is soon catching up, so maybe it's a better idea to optimize based on LSI rather than mindlessly repeating exact keywords. You can also get a firm offering professional link building services to help you out here.

3. Title tags: Bing places more importance on title tags than Google, so make sure that your keywords appear in your title tags as often as possible.

4. Back links and outbound links: Bing places more importance on links in general than Google, and the higher the number of relevant back links you have, the better your chances of a good ranking in Bing. Google used to penalize sites with a large number of outbound links, but Bing likes them, and so you may want to have a judicious amount of these as well in your site. Here again, if you get a professional to work on this area, their link building services team would identify the right places to place links for you, so that it actually translates to a better page rank.

5. Domain age: Both Bing and Google seem to favor older domains, so if you are trying to start off on a new business, it is better to purchase a domain name, that's been around for some time.

As a business owner, you would want all the traffic that you can get whether from Bing, Yahoo or Google and the best way to do this is to optimize it for all the major search sites out there. The best way out is to hire professional link building services to help you in your optimization efforts. If you do not do this, you may miss out on a sizeable chunk of traffic as more and more users start using Bing for their searches.

Most niches are so competitive, that on page search engine optimization and good content is no longer enough to rank well in the search engines. To achieve high positions in search engine results, you need back links. Not only do you need back links, but you need them to come from a diverse range of sources to achieve the best results.

Focusing all of your link building efforts on just one source, and on just once anchor text, will appear unnatural to search engines, and you will lose out because of this. You should spread you links between a wide range of sources to encompass directories, blog comments, article writing, social bookmarking, web 2.0 profiles and blogs, and forum posting. Even more valuable than this is obtaining links from high page rank relevant sites. This can be tricky for most small new websites though, if not impossible. Therefore webmasters of these sites should concentrate on obtaining links that are attainable.

Directories are website that list links to other websites based upon categories. For example, a directory may have a category on food, which will in turn have sub categories on Asian food, European food, and so on. You should submit you website URL to the category that best describes your websites content. There are large amounts of directories in existence, a link from a directory is not worth much, but when you have several links from several directories, the link power soon adds up.

Blog comments are a great way to direct targeted traffic to your website, as well as build links to your website for search engine rankings. You can search for blogs that are related to the theme of your website, and post a constructive comment on one of their articles. Within that comment you should post a link back to your website. Other readers of the blog may choose to follow this link and visit your website. These links can be very powerful for improving your search engine ranking, particularly if they are on high page rank blogs.

Article writing is my favourite method. You submit original content articles to article directories such as ezine, on a wide range of subjects. Within the article, you place a link back to your website. Not only is this method great for driving traffic, since the article directories have a huge reader base, but you also get a high value link for search engine rankings. Just a few of these links pointing to one website is enough to improve that websites ranking, provided the niche is not too competitive.

Social bookmarking your URL in sites like digg and reddit will again not only drive traffic from readers of those sites, but also give you another valuable link for search engine rankings. You should post your URL in a relevant section with constructive comments. If your link is considered spam it will be deleted.

Forum posting is also an extremely successful way of driving traffic and gaining links. Join a forum on a subject related to your websites niche, and start becoming a valued member of the community by posting helpful information and advice. You may be allowed to leave a link to your site in your signature. As your online presence grows, you will soon see traffic coming from the forum, and the links will also help improve your search engine rankings.

Finally, another of my favourite methods is creating a blog on web 2.0 sites like hubpages. Links from these sites are very powerful, and the online blogging community is huge. If you create a valuable interesting blog, many people from those communities may also choose to visit your website.

These are some of the cornerstone methods that new webmasters can use to build links. The key is to ensure that your postings are relevant and not spam. If you provide useful content to accompany your links, you will surely be on the road to search engine ranking success.

Free quality back links simply don't exist. If you don't have a budget to spend you must invest a considerable amount of time getting them.

The reason is obvious - besides building quality content that interest other marketers, you also need to run a strong promotion campaign for the community to notice your work.

The best approach is to quit chasing links and focus on creating timely content that a) interests, b) draws attention and c) builds interaction/controversy around it.

You're probably well acquainted with the classic link sources but in this article I'll try to broaden your perspective with a few more pieces to the puzzle:

1. Alternatives to classical content syndication

2. More elusive methods of building links from private websites

3. Social media as a link provider

Although linking opportunities may be sprinkled in every corner of your niche market, in most cases your eagerness isn't met with the same feelings by your potential partners.

Instead of barging in with your one sided proposal, a better approach is to show your available for creating a unique piece of content to be added on their site, with the afferent link pointing back to your own site.

To prove your expertise, consider rendering a fragment of the future article. This shouldn't be a discarded advice due to the fact that today's web content is ninety percent repackaged information.

If you lack the qualities for producing a block buster article, but still have a solid understanding of your market, consider hiring a ghost writer to put your thoughts in print.

Lack inspiration or just want to exploit your existing work? Give it a thorough rewrite. This way you promote your writings to new readers and further enhance the site's relevancy due to keyword variation.

Article and press release directories should remain on your list of content destinations. The reason why I suggest supplementing them with topic related sites is because with some ADs, approving and indexing your content by SEs takes up to 2 weeks.

Plus, working with private blogs you can enjoy a certain doze of exclusivity, a rare commodity for directories with hundreds of registered writers.

I highly recommend making sure you target well positioned sites. Check their Alexa rankings and authority (PageRank) before contacting them.

Tip. One of the easiest way to find the best sites and directories to publish your content is by tracking established authors and get your content on the same sites; that's called piggy backing on their resources.

When providing a testimonial, the recipient, invariably, must embed a link back to your site. If they don't, you might as well retract your feedback.

Also testimonials can be translated in reciprocal promotion within an established marketing partnership.

At all times, be sincere in your appraise because promoting junk products could hurt your credibility.

Just promote products and services from recognized marketers which deliver results.

Social bookmarking sites are an easy-picking source for free back links, granted that you don't "succeed" in getting you accounts canceled for promoting exclusively your own content.

The top social bookmarking platforms have strict rules regarding abusive behavior, but this benefits you in terms of fast indexing by search engines and link juice or authority as they're well regarded by Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Apart from social bookmarking you can use social media platforms like HubPages and Squidoo where you create useful tutorials and "how to"s of interest for your niche.

HubPages and Squidoo ranking power is often neglected but the truth is that young business websites don't stand a chance against even newly launched pages (or lenses) on these two domains.

So, in order to expose your content rapidly, publish it on these sites, then improve the authority of these pages with a basic link building campaign. Finally, point some back links from these platforms back to your own site.

Avoid bookmarking on sites powered by open source software like Pligg and Ning because they don't get indexed on a regular basis by search engine.

It's never been harder to keep up with the latest web trends - with the expansion onto mobile platforms, the growth of social media and the need for start ups to be aware of new SEO techniques. Constructing a mobile website, creating social media campaigns and selling online are just some of the challenges businesses will face during 2010.

Here are top online trends for the next 12 months.

Every web-savvy business knows smartphone use is on the rise. But few are actively developing for mobiles by creating websites specifically used for handheld devices.

As more and more mobile users flock to gadgets with larger touchscreens and internet browsers, such as the iPhone or Google Nexus One, the mobile space will become bigger and SMEs need to get on board. If your website isn't accessible through a smartphone or app, users will give up and go somewhere else - losing you traffic and potential sales.

Using search engine algorithms in order to get your site on "page one" has been a tactic used by online businesses for years. But SEO experts say the process of getting a website known will become even harder in 2010 with the rise of personalised and real-time search.

Social network Twitter sparked a trend when it designed the first popular real-time search engine. When users search for a term, the site would update that search with new "tweets" as they were being made.

Google has recently introduced a real-time search function of its own, complete with indexed tweets, while Microsoft Bing has made a deal to show tweets in search results. B

Facebook and Twitter were the standout social networks from 2009, and their popularity will surge in 2010 with both introducing new features, including paid accounts for business.

But businesses need to pay attention to the trends on these sites. Creating a social media strategy is no longer optional, it is vital to the health of a company and its ability to tap into an online user-base.

Some experts say if you aren't engaging online, you're missing out on a huge opportunity to gain new customers and fans who will effectively market for you if given enough reason. 2010 will be the year in which businesses must jump on social media or risk being left behind by the competition.

More and more Australian businesses are selling online, but compared to the US they have a lot of catching up to do. Online spending has grown from 1% to 3% of overall spending over the last 10 years, compared to the American equivalent of 7%.

The internet advertising industry continued to grow in 2009 and will do the same in 2010, but the next 12 months is expected to see the ongoing development of mobile advertising.

Last year the Interactive Advertising Bureau forecast the online ad market to pass $2 billion by next month, representing a 27% increase from 2008. While the downturn forced spending down in 2009, it's safe to assume that figure will rise in 2010.

The mobile advertising scene is fairly new, so naturally few SMEs are actually investing in the sector. But Apple's recent acquisitions of Quattro, along with Google's purchase of AdMob, shows the big players are serious about the mobile space.

Most businesses are at least operating a website, but even those rejecting the online space need to be aware of how fast rumours and allegations can fly in the digital age. Several companies have had their reputations tarnished within hours from the activities of either rogue employees, or a botched advertising campaign.

Last year, Domino's Pizza landed itself into trouble when two employees posted a video of themselves handling food unhygienically on the internet. Cotton On experienced backlash on Facebook when it continued to sell baby clothes with slogans such as "They Shake Me".

While mobile advertising may be taking awhile to heat up, many businesses are developing new and interesting mobile marketing campaigns to draw people into their stores.

Google has developed a system whereby users take a picture of a barcode with their mobile phone and use the search engine to find information. But it isn't just big companies which are using mobiles for marketing. Peter Shipman, who owns a casual Mexican restaurant in the US, bought ads in university newspapers to advertise a barcode sent through text messages used to claim discounts.

US company Jagtag is now developing a technology used to identify barcodes through camera phones, when it is then sent via text message in order for the user to receive a discount code.

The growth of the internet has allowed businesses to publish content of their own, including blogs, pictures and even videos.

Once upon a time, businesses wouldn't trust open-source programs in favour of branded, more trustworthy software solutions. But now open-source has given SMEs a way of operating high-end programs without substantial costs.

With popular programs such as Mozilla Thunderbird, Open Office, WordPress and Joomla now gaining notoriety, organisations are beginning to realise open-source programs aren't just technically inferior rip-offs, but legitimate alternatives.

A number of organisations, including the British Government and the French police force, have openly supported open-source, while Gartner research from late-2008 indicates the majority of businesses in the Asia/Pacific region took up open-source in 2009.

And with the development and popularity of open-source Android operating system continuing to grow, open-source is likely to play a major part in a business's IT strategy in 2010.

Two years ago "cloud computing" was viewed by many businesses as a buzzword with no particular meaning, used by tech-heads who didn't quite know what they were talking about.

Now, using cloud services has become an essential for businesses. Whether they are backing up their data or using a piece of software hosted on external servers, cloud computing is now a part of everyday operations for many SMEs.

Cloud services have branched out into three main categories: applications, also known as software-as-a-service, infrastructure, used for data backups, and internal service providers for businesses with customised apps and programs.

Analyst firm Gartner recently named cloud computing as one of the top strategic technologies for 2010, saying it could be exploited in a number of different ways to customise programs and apps to a particular company's needs.

"Using cloud resources does not eliminate the costs of IT solutions, but does rearrange some and reduce others. In addition, consuming cloud services enterprises will increasingly act as cloud providers and deliver application, information or business process services to customers and business partners."

In order to succeed and combat the competitive online world, you need to maintain a good reputation online. A good reputation does not only require a good website design but a lot more to build confidence, to grow sales and ultimately leads to better revenues and higher profitability.

In today's Internet buzz nasty rumors, wrong opinions and incorrect news spread rapidly and if not taken timely action to handle the news properly, you may face a serious threat to your online business and credibility.

Here are some simple measures you can take to maintain your website's reputation:

1. Responding to customers

Being open and responsive to customers is an important part of creating a positive impression and managing your website's reputation. If someone asks you a question, answer it there or through e-mail. Be quick in addressing your customer issues before the word spreads.

2. Giving humble responses to negative comments

Be real, not everyone is satisfied with your work and services. If these people are among the ones spreading negative comments about you for whatever reason like delayed service or unfriendly attitude, answer them instantly to terminate the issue right there!

Be very polite when putting your point of view in front of such people and you'll sure succeed in saving your reputation. Answering negative remarks modestly can be a great way of turning a bad situation into positive one.

3. Creating official online profiles

Create your own platform for users to share their experiences they've had with you. Create your own profiles and websites complete with the kind of information you actually want to be available about you. Let users communicate with each other and comment about your products or services, whether positive or negative.

4. Reporting stolen material from you

It's very well possible that online competitors may steal material from your website to increase their ranking and traffic. This may lose your credibility among your users, making you "not-so-unique" in their eyes. To control such theft, you can report their site through strict action.

5. Blogging

Writing blog posts are extremely effective in promoting your business. Through blog reviews and blog comments, you even increase your chance of getting high traffic volumes to your website.

If you or any of the experts in your business have important knowledge like instructions, guidelines, tips and tricks that can be useful for the users, share them through writing blog posts, let say you write blog for "basic tips for web design". This will greatly enhance your online reputation.

6. Using Search Engine Optimization

Majority of the internet users accept results from Google searches or any other search engine as highly credible. Therefore, to maintain a good website reputation, don't forget to optimize your website. You can consult professional search engine optimization services for this purpose.

7. Using the social media

Setting up social media networks in order to maintain your website's online reputation is a great thought. To begin with, set up your profiles on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace. Once you have your accounts setup, you will need to do the following things:

- Create a complete profile by putting all the information

- Engage and Interact with the members

- Monitor comments for both positive and negative remarks

You might have spend good time and money for your website design and building up your website's good reputation, so it's important not to let anyone drag it through the mud. Follow the above given tips to maintain your positive reputation among the online community. Keep active in social networks even in emergency situations so that everyone who have been associated with you know you are still around. If your clients find you handling difficult situations rather than running away, they will be more confident of working with you more and more.

A standard social media campaign helps spread the word about you and encourages other people to as well.

An explosive social media campaign has inherent viral exposure, inspires community driven communication, helps make the web a better place, and even brings joy to people, however fleeting.

When you share in social media, if your goal is just to get more people to see your links, you're on the right track, but at the same time, you're limiting your potential. You may think that getting explosive results from social media will take more time, energy and money, but this doesn't have to be the case.

If you're a business owner, you know that working harder doesn't necessarily mean better results - what if you're working hard on the wrong thing?

Sometimes the remedy is working smarter. Here are a few small changes you can make to your social media approach that can propel your social media results from lukewarm to smoking hot.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #1 - Hot Content

The cornerstone to any social media campaign is the content. If you get this component wrong, it doesn't matter if all other elements are perfect. Study what's going hot in your targeted topic and find a unique angle to tailor your content into what people already like, without stealing their ideas.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #2 - Niched Network Nuances

The more tightly focused your submissions to social media sites are, the more likely they are to go viral, whether they are links you share by other people or yours. Here's the logic.

People follow other people with similar interests. They're on sites like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Delicious and Digg actively looking for new content. Put those two things together and you have a whirlwind of clicks happening. The only question is, will it be your link that gets clicked or passed over?

Having 5000 connections on Twitter or Facebook is useless if you are connected to people who don't want your broadcasts, and you're just as useless to them if you don't want theirs. If my interest is in improving my existing business and you're trying to get me to sell your network marketing products, it doesn't matter how many times you ask me. If I'm not interested, your continued broadcasts will be ignored, or worse yet, blocked completely.

It's about the perfect balance of quality AND quantity.

And if I'm not paying attention to you, I can't and won't spread your message. If you are in network marketing, why not go after people who love the network marketing concept but can't seem to find the right company? That's a perfect match, and can dramatically cut down your search for the right partners and prospects.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #3 - Simplify Sharing

It amazes me how many people miss this one.
You've got great content. You've got a massive, niched network.

Why feed them content that's hard to share? Does that report have to be in PDF format? If so, does it have to be behind an opt-ín wall if you're spreading it among people who have Already opted in? Anyone connected to your business through its Facebook page, or your Twitter stream is also part of your opt-ín list. Yes, it would be best if they were on your email newsletter list, but what faster way to get them there than to show them you don't need to hold them prisoner there?

If your whitepaper is of such high value that you don't want it to spread, well, that's something different. But if you're sharing it so other people will spread it, make it easy for others to share.

Put a few sharing links on your page.
Make it easy for them to Retweet.
The easier it is for them to share, the more likely they are to do it.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #4 - Consistency

And now we come to the area I fail at the most. It's one of the things I know I need to do, but I haven't quite gotten the hang of how to brainstorm, create and distribute quality content consistently, and still give the best possible service and support to my customers and clients. I always err on serving people who have bought from me, figuring that next blog post can wait until tomorrow.

Then at some point, I noticed a decline in return traffic - people weren't coming back because they'd already heard everything I had to say. The solution? I got help for my content creation process. The ideas are still mine, but I was able to barter help for research, transcribing, and editing. I am also able to get audio and video polished much less expensively than I thought, though I don't always use this option due to time constraints.

The other thing that helped a lot was getting over my perfectionism complex. Release your content as soon as you can. I can't tell you how much money I've left on the table from my old fear of the typo and grammar police. Not to mention the fact that I felt like I was leaving my audience hanging.

You subscribe to something because you want to get regular updates. If your favorite daily news show started coming on once a week, you'd probably switch channels. If you're inconsistent without explanation, your audience numbers will drop and your network will fade.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #5 - Think Engagement

Measuring your results by page view alone is a thing of the past. When the web was mostly text and images, it made some sense that how many pages a visitor viewed at your site was a true measure of engagement.

Nowadays this isn't the case. You want to look instead at how long people are at your site. The exception, of course, is when customers are coming to your site to buy, and the order processing system takes them off your page. But if people aren't leaving your site because they're ready to buy or subscribe, you truly must look at why they aren't paying more attention to your content, and what changes you can make to get them to stay.

This is critically important in understanding which content will go viral naturally. What posts are people staying on your site to comment on? When do they take a few extra seconds to retweet? Are they watching your videos all the way through?

Your website can have a million hits daily, but if the visitors don’t become customers, then those hits are worth very little.

The fact is you must pay attention to conversions for your businesses to survive. In general, the basic e-commerce formula works like this:

1. Driving traffic to the website.

2. Converting the traffic to leads.

3. Converting leads to customers.

4. Generating repeat purchases from your customers.

Bonus products can be an essential variable in converting your visitors to customers. However, offering bonuses are more than just putting the words “But wait – there’s more,” in your offer. The key is to know what types of bonuses will have the strongest effect on your prospects.

1. The Web Traffic to Conversions Process.

As a business owner, you have several tasks to make your business successful. First, you must drive traffic to your website. In addition, once you have website visitors, you must convert those visitors into clients or customers. While a lead does not necessarily equal a sale, it does equal a future potential sale. Once you have a prospect’s name and email address, you’re able to move into step two – converting them to customers and making sales.

Bonus products work very well as a tool to build your opt-in list and offering a free giveaway in exchange for an email address is a common lead generating mechanism. What you offer and how you offer it largely depends on your target audience.

In cases where you’re selling an expensive product, a substantial bonus product or a series of bonus products can help convince your prospects them they’re making the right decision.

You can use bonuses to build your sales in a number of alternative methods. Here are just a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing:

• One way to do this is to tier rewards so that the more the customer buys, the more bonuses the customer receives – for example, increasing membership status from silver to gold and gold to platinum.

• Consider giving away bonuses to customers who help you build your opt-in list. For example, you could reward every email a friend gives leads toward a bonus.

• Consider giving away bonuses to prospects and customers who are active and participate in your online community.

2. Why Do Bonuses Work?

In general, bonuses are defined as products or services you give away to incite a purchase, a subscription, a referral, or even an opt-in. You’re probably very familiar with bonus items, so let’s take a look at why they’re so effective.

Bonuses tap into several psychological triggers, including:

• Reciprocity. Reciprocity is the tendency we have as people to respond to something in kind. Bonuses are the epitome of positive reciprocity. Customers receive a free guide, a free video, a free e-book as an opt-in bonus – now they’re feeling grateful.

• Commitment and Consistency. Psychologists tell us that we’re more likely to say yes to something big if we’ve already said yes to something smaller. In short, it gets your prospects in the habit of saying ‘yes’.

• Liking. Who doesn’t like someone who gives them something for free? People buy from companies they like, and from personalities they relate to.

• Scarcity and Urgency. Use a limited bonus or give an extra bonus to customers who act quickly. It motivates people to purchase now rather than wait and possibly change their mind.

3. How to Create Bonuses for Your Target Market.

Even though your business may involve a niche topic, your customers are probably diverse and have diverse personalities, interests, and technological capabilities. We all have our own motivations and behaviors influenced by our personality. Learning to meet the needs and wants of the characteristics can help you create bonuses that cover a range of personalities.

Keep in mind that your customers will likely include many or all of the following ‘types’:

• Emotional Personalities - Many of these people make decisions based upon their feelings.

• Thinking Personalities - These are the people who like to plan, schedule and solve situations.

• Extroverted Personalities - These are the folks who tend to be open and comfortable in new environments.

• Introverted Personalities - These want to take it slower and make personal connections.

• Intuitive personalities - They have a natural ability to think outside the box.

Remember that each prospect has their own personality. Give them options and consider creating one great bonus to be packaged in a number of different formats to appeal to more people.

4. Creating Your Bonuses.

This is where many people drop the ball - they throw together sloppy bonuses or simply by resell rights to something that’s been distributed by a million other websites – in short, they stop taking their prospects into consideration.

Let’s take a look at three primary ways you can create eye catching and valuable bonuses.

• Resell Rights/PLR. The internet is full of companies and websites that mass-produce bonuses for you to give away on your own website.

• Creating Your Own Product. While creating your own eBook, video tutorial or software program can be a bit of work, it can also be tremendously rewarding and you’ll be sure you’re creating the quality products your prospects and customers deserve. If you already have a stockpile of great content, you can repurpose it to create new and valuable bonus products. Creating multiple bonuses from one packet of information is a great way to accomplish that task.

• Outsource The Job - Hire A Company Or Individual To Develop Your Bonuses. When outsourcing there are a few success tips: Determine in advance exactly what you want the freelancer to accomplish. Outline your project in advance - it will ensure communication is clear and the project is done the way you want.

Armed with this information, you can start planning and preparing the bonuses that will give you more paying customers.