When I first heard about VistaPrint* a few years ago, I couldn’t believe that any company will really give away free business cards. But, I thought I’d give it a go anyway.

So, I printed out some business cards to promote an old online business. And, I was very happy with the results. Sure, the free business cards ran a small ad for Vistaprint at the back. But, it’s not too bad. And, the quality’s pretty good. Besides, for a few extra dollars, anyone can choose to remove those ads. Extra dollars will also create more customization options. But, the free version’s still all right to me.

In fact, I liked it so much, I still use VistaPrint for other projects that promote my online work.

The company also offers other promotional products like postcards, T-shirts, address labels, rubber stamps, and magnets, among other things. You can even create all of these products with matching designs, if you wish.

In any case, if you’re considering promoting your online shops, blogs, websites, and other businesses, I think VistaPrint* is worth checking out.

Let me know if you try it out!

*affiliate link

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

VistaPrint: Promote Your Online Business with Free Business Cards

While reading yet another info-packed blog post by Seth Godin, THE marketing guru, about focused intent traffic, it reminded me of the importance of increasing pageviews.

However, this time, Seth mentioned about bounce rate. It’s another site traffic measure that gauges the percentage of the people that leave your site as soon as they get to it.

Seth’s tips are about engaging your existing users more deeply and turn them into ambassadors, which makes so much sense. Why not focus on what you already have rather than obsessing on your bounce rate, right?

But for those who can’t stop obsessing about their Google Analytics stats, yeah all of you, er, us, there is a solution to your bouncy traffic. Make your content as focused as possible. How? Post as much relevant and yet interesting info that your site promised to offer, whether through your site’s title (if it’s obvious, more on this later) and/or domain name.

But what if you think your content’s focused enough already? Hmmm…

A large percentage of site traffic bounces for many reasons. A few of the factors that make traffic bounce off easily include:

- Too lengthy articles

This one I’ve learned from providing off-page marketing service to one great writer who produce really long articles. No matter how well-written the writeups are, readers get easily overwhelmed when they see a 1000 to 3000-word article. So my suggestion here is make articles easy to digest by writing shorter ones. But if that’s not your style, you can write long and short articles alternately to mix things up.

- All-Text Content

Images, Images, Images. Don’t blame all the visual addiction to men – it’s human nature to enjoy eye-catching images so include some relevant images on your site.

- Overly Clever Titles

Oftentimes, easy reads (meaning not too many brain hemorrhage-inducing paradoxes, oxymorons, hyperboles, metaphors) score more cookie points than being too snarky. Just imagine if I wrote “It’s Your Right to Get the Right People Whom You’ve Been Long Writing For to Notice Your Site” instead of this post’s current title. Wait, that’s not a snarky title, it’s an uber-long title, which actually sounds stupid to me. But I hope you get the picture…

The main idea is keeping things simple and just quickly giving the needs of the traffic that the search engines (yep, another SEO technique) drove to your site. Titles and subheadings that say what the content is all about greatly helps here. I call it WYRITTIWYG.

And the rest of the pageview-increasing tips might be of help as well.

What else can you suggest in keeping site bounce rates low?

image credits to sxc.hu

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

How to Get Focused Traffic to Your Blog

Pageview is dead! – This is so 2 years ago, I know. But do you really believe that using pageviews (one way to measure a site’s importance by using stats tools that count the number of views a page on your site got from one visitor) is really dead?

I don’t. Why? Here are some major reasons why pageview is still in:

- Direct advertisers still use it as a metric in determining if the ad spot is worth the squeeze

- Blog networks still pay bloggers some good money if they up their blogs’ pageviews

- YOU still check your pageviews stats.

Like Google Pagerank, Pageviews is still one of the metrics that weren’t dethroned yet as ways of telling if a site is engaging enough. It still makes money for many – sweet and simple.

So how do you increase pageviews on your blog? Darren Rowse wrote about 11 tips to help visitors stay longer. I’m highlighting 7 of my favorite ways to increase pageviews:

1. Emphasize related posts – I sometimes add short descriptions of the related posts to introduce them to new visitors.

2. Interlink within posts – my favorite way of increasing site pageviews. You can link to categories and search results as varieties of this method.

3. Highlight Key Posts and Categories in your Blog’s Hotspots – this will need the cooperation of your site’s design. Creating a list of Top 10 Posts on your sidebar is one way to do this.

4. Compilation Pages – This is similar to tip no. 3. But this one requires a separate mother page for your top lists of posts. It’s like making a differently organized sitemap. I remember Darren also calling these as “Sneeze Pages” since they help propel readers to read those compilations of related links. One top blogger that does this very well and quite often is Skellie.

5. Series – This is what Shai is currently doing with the A-Z of Making Money Online

6. Build an Interactive Blog – aside from applying tip no. 7, this one can be accomplished with the help of plugins like Subscribe to Comments and these traffic-building tips

7. Quality Content – is still king. ‘Nuff said.

I’d like to add including appealing images (I know because I fall prey to this) and social network marketing as other effective ways that will drive more eyeballs to your archives.

Got something we don’t know about increasing blog pageviews? Feel free to share them.

image credits to sxc.hu

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

7 Ways to Increase Site Pageviews

Thanks to social network sites, Internet marketing is quickly becoming easier to do nowadays. One of the recent projects I got involved with required tapping MySpace as a marketing tool. While looking for methods to shorten the learning curve, I’ve found this useful video. It is actually the second part of a mini-course on how to make money online with MySpace created by Marcus Schroefel of High Integrity Marketing. It’s basically about learning how to look for groups that might be interested in your products or services.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

How-to Video: Niche Hunting on MySpace

It’s nothing new – since time immemorial, Google has been hitting websites that used to be doing well in earning organic search traffic with its now-no-more-traffic-love whip.

What could be the reason behind this Google action? Google folks will usually say that you violated its policies and others would mention many other reasons why all of a sudden your site does not get any decent traffic from Google such as PageRank-passing link selling or the selling of links on your page without using the no-follow attribute, the use of duplicate content or putting same exact texts on different websites, robots.txt, meta-tags, etc.

How do you get a site re-indexed? Google can only recommend that you submit a reinclusion request after you’ve complied to all its rules if your site’s diagnosed to have violated any policy. However, this step does not seem to work well.

Because if it does, gazillions of owners of sites that have become de-listed won’t complain how in the world they’re still not getting same amount traffic before Google de-indexed their websites when they have already done everything that Google told them to do.

Oh and if the reinclusion request works so well, College Startup’s owner/s won’t offer a $10,000 bounty to anyone who can get one of his sites re-indexed.

So are you up for the challenge?

image from sxc.hu

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

You Can Get $10,000 if You Know How to Get a Site Re-Indexed by Google

Social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Sphinn and Propeller are taking the Internet by storm, and it’s because they’ve been helping Internet marketers promote their products and services quickly and efficiently. Social bookmarking has become one of the best modes of viral marketing, not to mention the best fallback method of traffic building during this Google dance season.

However, not a lot of people do understand the very nature of social bookmarks. Thus, they can’t make the traffic that comes from these sites to linger and make most of the site. What are the right ways to do it then? Here are some tips that can maximize the traffic that comes from social bookmarks:

1. Use common SEO techniques – Make sure your headline can draw attention. Your title should create an impact, if you want your targeted audience to click on your articles and bookmark them into their own bookmarking sites. You should also focus on your description. It doesn’t have to be provocative, just enough to capture their curiosity. Nevertheless, it’s always important to never resort to exaggeration only to increase their interest. Creating a title such as “5 Ways to Cross the English Channel Alone” may only merit your article as a joke.

2. Sustain their interest all throughout the paragraphs. Oftentimes you’ve heard of suggestions to concentrate on your first paragraph. Ideally, that’s the way to go. However, it doesn’t mean you have to forget the remaining ones. One of the best ways to sustain their interest is to settle for short paragraphs. This way, the white space can provide comfort for their eyes, and they don’t easily get tired reading your articles. Most of all, be personal in your approach. Talk as if your audience is just in front of you. Being conversational always goes a long way.

3. Add bookmarking buttons on your site. StumbleUpon, Digg, del.icio.us, and other social bookmarking sites all have buttons that you can add to your site, or even in your articles. This will make it very much easy for visitors to bookmark articles and eventually share those articles to their network.

4. Choose the right category. There are times when you can never be found in social bookmarking websites simply because you have chosen the wrong category or you haven’t picked any. Categories make it very much convenient for your targeted audience to search for articles and sites that they can add into their bookmarks. Hence, don’t pick Technology if you’re talking about Diabetes. If you can’t find any category, feel free to contact the social bookmark sites’ webmasters.

5. Build your network. Being a lonely wolf doesn’t get you anywhere. There are a number of average stories that gain popularity simply because they have solid network of friends who are helping them in Digg-ing or Stumbling for traffic. Thus, ensure that you can have time to take a look at other people’s profiles and start building your contact list.

6. Don’t submit stale news. Remember what they say, “Old news is already history.” . Gather stories that haven’t been talked about yet or add a twist to that topic. You can even go for something controversial as long as you remain objective. Go for how-to’s (StumbleUpon traffic magnet). They’re timeless.

7. Make your RSS feeds subscription chicklet, button, or link and email newsletter subscription options obvious. You can tweak your blog’s layout and set your single post pages to have all the tools that help convert traffic to regular visitors readily available or accessible.

8. Make it a point to understand what type of content your network of social bookmarking friends love. StumbleUpon stumblers (as mentioned love lists and how-to’s) differ from Diggers (games and tech news). See what works for your site and keep on providing relevant content that’s tailored to a certain social bookmarking site’s traffic.

Now rinse and repeat!

So would you mind adding this post to your bookmark of choice?

image from sxc.hu 

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

8 Ways to Increase the Chances of Making Traffic from Social Bookmarks Stay

It’s 2008 and what better way to start the year than learn or simply implement bigger ways (since none of ‘em is new) to generate traffic to your site.

Tip #1 If you’ve got the knowledge and skills for it, create a simple Java or Flash game that’s related to your website theme. It has to be fun of course. But more than that, it must also let your visitors know more about your website and hopefully, convince them to pay attention to what you’re selling. If a Flash game’s too far-fetched, how about a Flash-y QnA or a survey?

If you don’t have the programming knowledge and skills for it then consider hiring a programmer. If not that, just stick with a text-based game. As long as it’s fun to play, the game design won’t matter that much.

Tip #2 Think widgets. For the uninitiated, this is the collective term for various applications, programs, or tools installed by the blog owner for several reasons. Some are designed to provide readers a better time navigating their way around the site, others add visual appeal, while a number of widgets improve the blog’s search engine ranking.

Browse the Internet for its collection of widgets and see which ones you can “borrow” and use on your website.

Tip #3 Consider hosting a forum on your website. Managing a forum will require you to learn new skills and knowledge but it’s well worth the traffic that your forum will generate in the future. A forum gives visitors a formal place to hang out and talk. If it’s your forum then you can also do whatever you want with it and if you’ve read my mind then you already know that means free advertising.

Of course, building and managing a forum is simpler said than done. Firstly, you’ll need to acquire extra web space. Then you’ll have to learn how to manage it. Next, you’ll need to promote the forum so that your target market would know there’s a new place online they can “chill”. Consider inviting forum guests once in a while to generate traffic to your website. Be ready to initiate conversations all the time – if the conversation dies, the traffic disappears as well.

Tip #4 Create a podcast. A podcast takes advantage of people’s recent fascination with MP4 players. Podcasts are audio files that discuss anything under the sun. Creating podcasts is just like creating infoproducts, but this time you include advertisements for your website in the content. It’s better to place the ads in the middle of a chapter so that readers won’t be able to skip them.

Tip #5 Since you’ve already taken advantage of the weakness of the iPod generation then why not go full circle and hone in on the weakness of the YouTube nation as well? Create fun and informative videos that will tackle topics related to your website. They’ll forgive short advertisements about your website is the content’s good.

Tip #6 Enter joint ventures with other websites. Contact a joint venture broker, relay your problem to him, and let the broker find ideal JV partners for you.

Tip #7 Last but not the least, shed your cheapskate ways. Most basic traffic-generating tips are free to implement but you’ve graduated from that already. You’re entering the big league now. Find an ad network company to help you run your first paid advertising campaign.

Any of these traffic-building methods too bold or too old for you? Got other more effective tips? Kindly share your thoughts.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Advance Traffic-Generating Tips for Your Website

If you think the list of top methods of making money online this 2007 is old school. How do you plan to do it on 2008? Are you going to continue what you’ve started this year? Or are you planning to explore other ways?

I noticed that e-courses and coaching programs are gaining more traction each day and they might be the trends next year. Other ways of monetizing website traffic won’t just die down easy as well. So I’m sure that we can expect more online startups offering innovative ways to make the most out of traffic. If so, this means yay! for all SEO professionals since they won’t run out of projects.

Web content writing and copywriting will continue as sizzling hot online careers because of the value of web traffic. Check out this news about copywriters being in-demand.

Speaking to FreelanceUK, a majority of creative recruiters said pay rates have leapt because demand for exemplary copywriting skills on a temporary basis outstrips supply.

Good news for those who are already serving the industry. For new freelance writers, it may take some time because of the need to build a portfolio.

So many make money online methods, so little time? So what are your plans next year?

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

How are You Going to Make Money Online Next Year?

If you are planning to be more serious with your blog marketing efforts next year, it will be helpful to stock up on the knowledge now on how to improve your blog’s search engine ranking to build traffic. Here are two great reads for you:

How to Market Your Blog with Conversations from Yaro Starak, one of the online entrepreneurs I follow. It’s actually a sample lesson from his Blog Mastermind e-course and has a bunch of great tips and tricks for blog marketing newbies.

Blogger’s Guide to SEO from the SEO guru himself, SEO Book author Aaron Wall and his beloved wife Giovanna Wall. It’s a well-written piece on the essentials of making a blog stand out not only for the search engines but of course, for the human readers.

These will definitely help me fine-tune my blog marketing plans for next year.

Enjoy reading!

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Blog Marketing Resources

If you’re not one of the e-tailers laughing all the way to the bank during the Holidays, nor one of those virtual assistants who actually consider the holidays as one of the busiest times of the year, how do you make money online before wrapping Christmas gifts for everyone?

Do you have a blog? Optimize it.

It’s a no-brainer if you have been in the online publishing industry for quite some time. But if you’ve just started with your niche blogging, tweak, tweak and tweak to make it useful for people looking for some gift ideas and you’ll see your ad earnings shoot up in no time. Or if you dislike AdSense, how about affiliate products? Any blog or website with a theme will most probably have an affiliate product match.

Got gadgets you no longer use? Auction them off on eBay.

I find myself collecting stuff that I don’t really use these past few months. And I’m sure this bit of advice from Chris Pirillo might work for me, too, if only eBay Philippines has the same enthusiastic buyers as that of eBay US.

Are you blog savvy? Be a part of the Problogger Community Consulting 2.0 project.

This is Darren Rowse’s version of paid blog review. Darren will charge $250 and part of it will go to one of those people who add his or her two cents worth of advice. I don’t think someone’s going to get just two cents though. Here’s one of the reasons why Darren’s charging $250:

It will enable us to offer the wider ProBlogger community an incentive to participate (there will be a prize for one person who gives advice).

Who knows that one person might be you, right?

image from sxc.hu

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

How to Make Money Online During the Holidays