Here's several ways to maximize your Internet presence and get traffic to your site:

* Email signature lines

* Websites & Lead Capture Sites -

The question most often asked on the Internet is, "How do I get more traffic to my site?"

You would think that an answer for this question would be extremely simple, but it really isn't. It isn't that it is so hard to get traffic to web sites. The problem is that there are so many different avenues of traffic generation you can choose from for your site.

Some thing to pay attention to when preparing your site(s) for traffic -

• 10 second rule - People generally make their decision as to whether ot not they will stay and read a site in the first 10 seconds. So you basically have 10 seconds to make a great first impression, or they will move on. So put al your best ammunition within the first 10 seconds of what they see, so they will stick around to read the rest.
• Call to action - Your site needs to have a call to action... something that encourages them to do something now. You should make sure you have payment buttons ready, and maybe a Step1, Step 2, Step 3 for them to follow.
• Explicit directions - They call it browsing for a reason! They are not really focusing or studying your site, and it is really easy for them to get distracted or lost. So give them very specific instrcutions on what you want them to do when they get to your site. For exmaple, tell them to "Print the Profile, and then click on the testimonials".
• Permanent domain names - You need to own a domain name. It's important to have a permanent name you will always have, and you can point that name to wherever you want. What if the website system changes down the road? You don't want to have thousands of prospects with a website URL that no longer works.
• Customized Cover page options - You have the option of putting your picture, your story, special instructions, links, html code, and payment buttons on your site. Make your site unique. Put things on it that wil help your prospects feel like they know you and give them the information they need.

Write good sales copy. Your site is basically one big sales letter. Here's the infamous 'Top 10' checklist - does your sales letter do the following?

1. Does it engage the reader on a personal level? Write like you're talking to your best friend, your grandmother, whomever your target market is. If it's not personal, it's useless.
   
   Use the words 'you' and 'your' whenever possible - try to forgo the words 'I' and 'me.' After all, it's not about you -- it's about them.
2. Try to incorporate your target market into your headline. If you're going after car enthusiasts, say 'Car Enthusiasts Usually Disagree... Except On This One Thing.' If you're going after dog lovers, it would be 'Dog Lovers Usually Disagree...Except On This One Thing.'
   Do everything possible to make your reader identify with the subject matter, to hook them into reading more.
   
   
3. Always use the KISS principle when writing (Keep It Simple Stupid). Don't get lost in your own words - this is not the time to impress with your astonishing vocabulary - write for the common man/woman. Don't bore them into clicking away.
   
   
4. Do you use stories to illustrate your point? Ever notice how CEO's and politicians always use stories in their speeches? They're communicating through mental pictures, to get their ideas across in another way.
   
   Everyone has a different frame of reference - try using a personal story to produce that 'yes! they're talking about me!' reaction.
   
   
5. Break it up with bullets. For those readers who are into skimming, organizing your most important points in bullet form helps to communicate the benefits FAST.
   
   Put your most important points at the top, in case the person doesn't make it to the bottom. And there's no rule that says you're only allowed one bullet list - put one close to the top of the letter, and perhaps another towards the bottom.
   
   Test, and keep whatever converts best.
   
   
6. Use benefits over features. Always. They don't care that the refrigerator has a big vegetable bin or automatic icemaker. They want to know that it keeps their vegetables from drying out, and their beer/lemonade refreshingly cold on a hot summer's day.
   
   
7. Write in your own voice. We're not talking 'Masterpiece Theatre' here. Formality is out; friendly is in. And I give you permission to start your sentences with 'And' (note how this sentence started!) and 'Because.'
   When writing for the real world, write like you speak.
   
   
8. How long are your paragraphs? If longer than 2-4 lines, break them up. And keep sentences short - even 2-4 words are ok. Like this. Short, quick 'eye bites' communicate faster when you're racing against the clock.
   
   
9. Focus on one product/service per sales letter. Period. No exceptions.
   
   
10. And, finally, watch the grand, sweeping statements. Using 'Earn $1 Million In Two Days While You Sleep!' won't help build your credibility. Or conversion level (click!).
    
    

If you incorporate these ideas into your sales letter, you're bound to beat the clock and begin building a better conversion rate.

* Getting the Clicks and Traffic

Getting traffic to your site is like putting gas in your car. You can have a great engine, but it won't go anywhere without the gas. Likewise, you can have a perfect sales letter - but without traffic, it's just pretty to look at.

Set Up 'Multiple Streams of Traffic'

Key words & Meta tags

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Search Engine Submissions

Almost everyone starts right here. They know that search engines bring 84% of the traffic to most web sites, so they know they have to submit to them.

To achieve the top rankings in the search engines will take some serious work. You have millions of competitors, but you have an advantage. You are willing to learn and do what it takes to get to the top.

To achieve the top traffic building positions, you will need to study everything you can on search engine positioning and meta tags. Then, you will have to test. Use a tool such as Web Position to check your rankings, examine your competitors who are beating you, and then edit your pages.

If you are willing to keep going through this process and learning each step along the rise of your rankings, you too could soon be generating 100s of hits daily from top search engine positions.

* Pay-per-click

One technique is pay per click advertising, or PPC. You write out and place an advertisement in a search engine, list yourself under keywords of your choosing, and bid on the placement of your ads. This narrows your field to the people who are actively searching for your products and services.

If someone finds the ad and clicks it, that person goes to your website, and you pay the bid price. As a rule, the higher you bid, the higher your ad goes in the list of search results for a certain keyword, and the more people will go to your site.

PPC can be used to widen your reach, but it can be very expensive, especially if people click your ad only out of curiosity, or if you bid on more keywords than your budget can handle. However, PPC can get you customers and increase your profits. If done well, it can earn you money.

Here are 7 tips to get the most out of PPC.

1. Get 10 Specific Keywords. You don't want to pick something general like "home business", because there will be hundreds of thousands of other bidders waiting to jump on those same keywords. Be specific. Try "home business mom computer" or "best work at home business mlm ." Select a maximum of ten words or phrases, just to test the waters and see how your potential customers respond.
   
   If the first ten keyword phrases succeed in getting you clicks, then you can research additional keyword phrases which are not as specific. However, if your first try yields less than satisfactory results, then try another set of keywords. Be prepared to spend money until you find what works.
2. Write truthful, meaningful ads . Don't make outrageous claims or giveaways. If you do this, web users will click on your ads and storm the site. The customers click, you pay, but the customers may not buy. So, you lose.
3. Write a short, but sweet ad that avoids vague language. Avoid using words such as "free," "low cost," "extremely effective," and "cheap." Tailor your ads to fit the keyword, and if you can, include your prices on the ads. This way, you will get a buyer who is ready and willing to actually buy a package, instead of curious passer-bys.
4. Budget Your Bid. It's tempting to go all out and set your prices, especially if you think you'll make money. But what if you don't? Set a monthly budget of about $100 for your bids, and bid just right – bid too high and you will run out of money, bid too low and your ads won't show up.
5. Avoid getting into bidding wars. This can be an especially slippery slope... especially with another advertiser who has a much larger budget than you. Don't waste your time thinking about your bids. Instead, invest your time in designing what your ad is linked to.
6. Know When to Stop. PPC ad campaigns can lead more buyers to you, but take care to check profit against spending. If you have already spent double your advertising budget, but have had little or no sales, consider dropping your campaign. You can also measure your progress in clicks. A total of 300 clicks is average for any ad. If your ad has reached 300 clicks and you have made no sales yet, then terminate your PPC project.
7. Don't give up too easily - Equally as important as knowing when to stop is knowing that all is not yet lost and you can still go on. Running a web-based business means investing time, money, and effort, so keep your PPC up and running as long as you are raking money in. PPC, after all, may first mean pay-per-click, but, if you're successful, can soon mean Profiting Perfectly in Cash.

* Emails & Autoresponders

It's a FACT that 81% of website sales occur between the 5th & 7th contact from the seller.

Who wants to do all that follow-up with hundreds on leads? An Autoresponder saves you tons of time by following up for you.

An AR is a set of pre-written letters you would want every new prospect to receive. Let’s say you have a set of 10 favorite letters you like to send your prospects. Well, instead of sending those same 10 emails over and over, the system does it for you. It keeps track of exactly what letter they need and when they need it. It works around the clock.. Even while you sleep.

For example… let’s say you got 10 new leads today. Well, you’d want all 10 of the to get letter #1 immediately. Well, let’s say tomorrow you get 15 more new leads. You’d want those 15 to get letter #1, since it’s their first day, and you’d want the previous 10 leads to get letter #2, since it’s their second day. Then let’s say the following day you get 20 more new leads. Well, those 20 would get Letter #1, the 15 from yesterday would get letter #2, and the original 10 would get letter #3. And all that happens automatically, without one single thought from you. The computer software system does it all. And to top it off, it inserts the prospects’ names and signs your name and lists your website and phone number at the bottom so it really looks like you wrote it yourself just to that one person.

You can get a great auto responder with letters already written at www.networkercentral.com . The are one of our official lead vendors, and they will gladly drop any leads you purchase from them directly into their AR system for you so you don’t have to do anything at all.

Some people will use an AR when they can’t get ahold of people. It's a great way to reach someone you have not been able to reach by phone to let them know you have been trying.

Just be careful of the new spam laws… be careful not to import leads from one place into another place or another autoresponder. You need to use the autoresponder that is attached to the lead vendor you purchased the lead from, or use a stand-alone autoresponder like Aweber that will allow you to let prospects subscribe themselves directly to you. (see link below)

Resources:

• Networker Central Autoresponder & Management system - www.coastal.networkercentral.com. Get 10 free days to try it out and 10 free leads... just for checking it out!

* Ezines

The biggest bang for your marketing buck will come from classified advertising in ezines. For $10 - $50 per classified ad, you can reach thousands of potential customers in your targeted market.

With thousands of different ezines available, you can expand into hundreds of them once you find a classified ad and follow-up system that works for your product or service.

By testing your little classified ads and expanding into more and more ezines every week, you could quickly start reaching millions of people weekly and earning an income to match.

* Internet Classified Ads

There are tons of places to put up classified ads that will get good exposure, and thousands of sites that are really cheap or even totally free. You can check out sites like AOL, Yahoo, Excite, Craig’s List, etc. One way to find a great place to advertise is to go to wwe.google.com and search for "work at home classifieds"... or something like that. That will turn up tons of sites you might want to advertise on.

* Banner Ads & Exchanges

What is a banner ad? It is a picture or image that people see when they go to a website that advertises your site and they can click on it and go see what you have to offer.

Banner Ads on Individual Sites

When people think of banner ads they almost always think of the major search engines or major sites online. Well, I have been advertising lately with banners, and I can tell you something.

Making money using banner ads on these high traffic high cost sites is extremely difficult and risky.

These sites will charge you $20 per 1,000 impressions to general audiences and $50 per 1,000 impressions to targeted markets.

By seeking out individual sites who get high traffic (50,000 hits to 1,000,000 hits a month), you can actually get rates of $1 - $10 per 1,000 impressions of your banner ads. By finding 10 - 20 of these sites, you can quickly build yourself an overwhelming river of traffic to your site for a much lower cost than the major search engines.

Participate in Leveraged Banner Exchanges

Regular banner exchanges don't work that well. Although they can produce a few extra free hits a month for your site, they never seem to give you the kind of traffic building leverage you need to grow to hundreds of thousands of hits a month.

A new wave of banner exchanges is growing though at unprecedented rates. What they do that separates them apart is that they will give you a 5% to 20% credit of banner impressions of anyone's site that you refer. If you refer a site which gets a million hits a month, you would get 200,000 free impressions a month extra.

(One of the best is Bannerz4Free at http://www.bannerz4free.cjb.net, not only they are one of the best banner exchanges but they are also giving away 1,000,000 impressions to one lucky member each month.)

* Reciprocal link exchanges / Trade links

If you develop a strong content oriented site you can persuade thousands of other webmasters to link to you or to trade links with you. There are even a few consultants online who have developed linking campaigns and have achieved a million hits a month or more for their customers within 90 days by linking with the right sites.

You can do this yourself. The key is to develop content people want to link to and then get out there and make the contacts by visiting people's sites, sending out personalized emails to webmasters you have visited, and networking in discussion groups.

Why would you want to do this? Because the more sites that link to you, the more popular your site looks to the search engines, and the higher score your site will receive. The higher score it receives, the closer your site will appear towards the top of the search results. So getting others to link to you is a great strategy to help you climb the ladder quicker.

* Posting & Message Boards

* Instant Messaging - Autoresponses