The success and failure of your Internet business depends on how targeted your traffic is. For example, if you are running a billing software company, you want to be sure who your target prospects are. Are they doctors, retailers, or software vendors? These are the people you are trying to market to. If you have a website that converts well, you don't need a lot of traffic to make money. Expert marketers have realized that even with a few hundred unique visitors per month, they can still create a profitable business. How do they achieve this?
Imagine having a software that collects recurring monthly revenue. Each customer is probably worth thousands of dollars to you. Even if you acquire 10 customers each month, the profits can still be a substantial amount. So never underestimate the value of targeted traffic.
Recently, many expert Internet marketers have been talking about more advanced techniques such as Web 2.0. These techniques definitely do work. But what you must remember is that you have to have focus. Don't go running off to implement the next traffic method when you haven't mastered the method you are currently using.
SEO is probably one of the most well known traffic generation method in the industry. It is fast becoming an industry standard, and even the big G has released official information on search engine optimization techniques. Apparently, SEO is no longer black hat or grey hat. If you find Google releasing information about SEO, you can be sure that it's 100% white hat!
The essential element that you must know about SEO is that you must build inbound links with your targeted keywords in them. For instance, if you are targeting "billing software", you must build links with the anchor texts "billing software" in them. And you don't want your links to appear on just any website. Link farms will probably hurt your site rankings. What you want, is inbound links from relevant websites or web pages. These sites have content that is of similar theme with your business. The more inbound links you have, the better.
Squidoo is a very popular website that allows you to create content on the site. Each page you create is called a Lens. On the Lens, you can promote your own products and services. Of course, be sure to give something back to the community by offering valuable information in your Lens.
Creating content on well established websites like Squidoo will help your sites to rank well in the search engines very quickly. Soon, you will be enjoying a stream of targeted traffic from the search engines everyday!
With all the information online about tools and techniques available to help someone effective manage and run an online business, how do you ever decide which ones are truly useful to have in your business management toolkit? Here's my listing of the 20 indispensable tools that I cannot live without:
1. Article Marketing: SubmitYourArticle.com automates the article submission process by allowing you to submit up to eight articles each month and then distributes the articles to hundreds of web sites, article directories and ezine publishers. Without a doubt, this has been my most effective online marketing tool that has produced tremendous results for my business.
2. Audio Recording/Podcasting: AudioAcrobat.com makes audio streaming fast and simple, whether you want to add an audio greeting, audio testimonials, podcast or videos to your website or send out an audio postcard or record a teleclass.
3. Backup: Carbonite.com offers an unlimited amount of data storage for $50 per year. Carbonite is very intuitive and went directly to my email files and Roboform files to back them up without me having to manual select the backup files. I frequently use this service to find the original version of a file that I've accidentally overwritten, as well.
4. Blogging: Typepad.com is both simple to use and powerful. You can set up as many blogs as you desire with a Pro account, and you can customize your blog in an infinite number of ways. Once it's set up, the online interface makes it a snap to make new posts to your blog.
5. Bookmark Manager: SPURL.net makes managing a moderate to massive amount of bookmarks very easy. You create any number of categories in which to file your favorites, and adding a favorite website is as easy as clicking a button.
6. Color Matching: Pixie is a tool that I use daily to help me match a color exactly for a document that I'm creating or a color I'm trying to replicate on a website. Run it, simply point to a color and it will tell you the hex, RGB, HTML, CMYK and HSV values of that color.
7. Content Management: Edit.com is a website maintenance service that makes your current website editable so you can change the content yourself. They handle everything to get your site set up and provide you with a phone training to walk you through your first edits. There is no software to install because it just uses your web browser. At no charge, you can have them review your website to ensure that your site is compatible with their service.
8. Email List Management/Autoresponders: aWeber.com is a great service for creating, mailing and reporting back on the success of your newsletter as well as to subscribe your readers to a sequential autoresponder, either associated with your newsletter or with another product. I love to be able to see how many readers opened my newsletter, who opened the newsletter, and what links they clicked on from the newsletters.
9. Fax: MaxEmail.com lets you send a receive faxes through the Internet/email and makes your need for a fax machine obsolete. The faxes arrive in PDF format, so you can easily share you faxes with others as needed. They also offer voice mail on your fax line, and the voicemail message arrives as an audio file in your email inbox.
10. Graphics Program: SnagIt.com lets you show someone exactly what you see on your screen. Select and capture your screen image. and send it to SnagIt's editor to add professional effects, edit the image (resize, adjust color), and or drop it into your favorite application.
11. Hosting: Aaces.com offers the ability to buy a hosting plan in which you can host and manage a large number of websites through one account rather than buying multiple hosting plans for each website for your business. And, their customer service can't be beat.
12. Idea Management: With EverNote.com you can easily store and quickly access typed and handwritten memos, webpage excerpts, emails, phone messages, addresses, passwords, brainstorms, sketches, documents and more! A free version or a 30-day trial of the paid version is available for download.
13. Merchant Account: PracticePaySolutions.com offers an all-in-one ecommerce solution that helps you take payment online. The coolest feature that they offer in this service is the ability to do batch uploads of charges, so if you have a number of clients on retainer that you invoice every month, you can simply create a spreadsheet and batch upload the data rather than entering each client's information individually.
14. Publicity Tracker: Google Alerts let you type in an unlimited number of search terms, like your name, your company name, your industry, the name of your competitors, etc. Google will then deliver an email alert for any mention of your search term online. This is a wonderful way to track your own PR as well as industry trends.
15. Password Management: Roboform.com is the top-rated password manager and web form filler that completely automates password entering and form filling. You'll never have to remember a password again! I maintain both my passwords and user info and that of my clients in this program.
16. Shopping Cart: KickstartCart.com is easy to use and setup, and offers the ability to create affiliate programs, follow up with prospective and current customers with autoresponders, create coupons for limited-time offers, as well as enable buyers to immediately download electronic purchases (ebooks, audio files). There is a free 30-day trial, but don't sign up until you have the time to test drive it--30 days goes by fast! Get your free ebook here, How to Pick a Shopping Cart System That Makes You Money.
17. Spyware: CounterSpy.com will protect your computer from spyware, adware, Trojans and other malware threats.
18. Teleconference Line: LiveOfficeFreeConferencing.com lets you meet with colleagues, associates or even family members through a teleconference bridge line that can bring up to 250 people together at one place over a teleconference phone line. You can use the line to conduct classes and training and record your calls, as well as manage your participants from an online interface.
19. Time Tracker: TraxTime.com has helped me keep track of my consulting projects for years. You simply create projects and clock into and out of them, with the ability to write memos about how you've used your time.
20. To Do List Management: Accomplice.com works online and offline, integrates with Outlook and other software you already use, and syncs with your PDA. What I love most about this software is that I can create in-depth, hierarchical to-do lists (tasks and sub-tasks of a bigger project) very easily, and add additional tasks on the fly as they occur to me. I can see at any point what are my more important tasks and what is coming due soon.
Try out these tools with the trials offers provided and see how your business becomes easier to manage!
Both Gen Wright & Donna Gunter are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Gen Wright has sinced written about articles on various topics from Terrier Dogs, Acne Treatment and Lose Weight. Premium Submission Packages - Create and. Gen Wright's top article generates over 1220000 views. to your Favourites.
Donna Gunter has sinced written about articles on various topics from Internet Marketing, Property Investment and Nutrition. Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps self-employed service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, Tu. Donna Gunter's top article generates over 246000 views. to your Favourites.