A well-designed website is the best method I can think of to generate a steady flow of new ezine subscribers. And new subscribers who join your ezine’s list through your website tend to be of higher quality than those who find you through other means (ezine directories, announcement lists, etc.). One primary reason for this is that new subscribers that come through your website were quite possibly seeking out the type of information you offer, especially if they found you through a search engine.

Search engines and web directories (such as Yahoo! and LookSmart.com) are one of the best sources of targeted web site traffic. Recent changes in the functionality and submission process of several search engines and directories are detailed below. 

The biggest change in the search engine landscape has been a move towards paid submissions by several services. While some may consider it a bad thing that services that were once free now charge for submission, it’s actually an improvement in many ways. Most notably, the time it takes to get listed is usually drastically reduced with a paid service, meaning your site can start receiving traffic within days of submitting. And the potential traffic you can receive from the various search engines that use paid submissions usually far outweighs the cost. That’s more than can be said for most other marketing efforts, which carry a much higher risk. 

One of the biggest recent announcements of this kind is that search provider Inktomi has recently added a paid submission. For prices starting at $20, Inktomi guarantees they’ll spider your Web site every 48 hours for a year. Inktomi search results are used by 125 partners, including HotBot, AOL, NBCi, MSN, and others. 

Information on paid submissions to Inktomi is available at: http://www.positiontech.com. This service has just been released; as I find out more and test its effectiveness, I’ll mention my findings here. 

Yahoo! has for quite some time featured its “Business Express” option of paid submission. LookSmart.com recently moved to accepting only paid submissions, doing away with its free submission process altogether. However, if I were going to spend only $199 to market a Web site, I would spend it on a LookSmart submission. LookSmart’s data is used by MSN, Excite, AltaVista, CNN.com, and others, and the results have been very good in my experience.

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Today, the biggest problem that new website owners have is: “How they can get traffic to their website?” Significant amount of time and energy is spent today on this single task. You or your webmaster needs to commonly focus on:

• Get ranked well on the most important search engines (Google, Yahoo, Msn, Ask.com, etc.)
• Pay Per Click (PPC) programs
• Per Click (CPC) programs
• Link Exchanges
• Directory Submissions
• And more… 

All of these methods are valuable for getting traffic to your website. If you are not competent enough to rank well your keywords, you can obviously hire a SEO (Search Engine Optimizer) for this work. From search engines you can get a very large portion of traffic to your website.

Today, everyone wants to know the big secret to driving traffic to their website. Every day I see an article or an ad talking about driving people to your website; driving traffic to a website has become the “holy grail” on the Internet. People are realizing that if you build it, they won’t come… unless you give them a reason. Website traffic just doesn’t happen by itself. Your website is just one of many millions on the web and people rarely just stumble upon your site by accident.

There are many ways to drive traffic to your website. You can buy traffic from vendors that will pummel your website with hits from automated programs. This will increase your hits but will it increase your bottom line? Probably not. You can set up blogs that spider (connect to) your website increasing your traffic count. Does this drive users to your website? Only if your blog is so interesting that people are reading it. There are thousands of blogs posted on the internet and your blog is just a needle in the internet haystack.

Another trick is to create RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds for your website and subscribe to other RSS feeds. This again will increase your hit count but will do very little to drive potential customers to your website unless you’re providing valuable information. Tricks will increase your hit count but do very little todrive potential customers to your website.

People often turn to traffic exchanges. Quite simply, a traffic exchange is a program where you sign up and agree to surf sites in exchange for some credits. These credits are then used when other members of the exchange surf to your site. This traffic is not highly targeted traffic. In fact, if this were your only method of advertising your website, you’d probably fail. BUT it is a great method of getting traffic to your site in addition to the other methods listed above.

So, why do people use traffic exchanges? Here are a few of the benefits:

• Increase your Alexa rating! Did you know that some search engines factor your Alexa rating into their algorithms? More traffic means higher search engine placement!
•           Increase your branding awareness. Any marketing expert worth his salt will tell you that branding is extremely important to stand out amongst the billions of websites out there. More traffic equals more sales. A percentage of people surfing will be enticed by your ads and click on them to find out more information. Another source of revenue. Many traffic exchanges will actually pay you money to surf. More importantly, as you refer other people to the network, you’ll earn a percentage of the money that they earn! It may be small amounts but if you work the system it could amount to a lot of money.

Now, before you head over to Google and search for Traffic Exchange, I’d recommend knowing a few facts:

• traffic exchanges are simply out to get money from you and will refer very little traffic to you.
• traffic exchanges have poor systems in place to stop cheaters from running programs to increase their credits faster.

Finally, some traffic exchanges will allow popup, active x controls, site rotators, etc. in their network. Any of these can stop your auto surfing from working, or even worse, allow your computer to be infected with a virus.

The best part about Traffic Exchanges is that you really have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The worst thing that could happen to you is you get a little bit of traffic which increases your Alexa rankings and you don’t get any money.

Of course, for the system to work, you’ve got to make sure that you do some surfing yourself. The makers of the exchange programs realize this and some of them even have an auto surf feature where you get a reduced number of credits while your browser happily loads page after page every 10 seconds or so.

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This article explains the Top 10 reasons why you should be using RSS as part of your marketing strategy and how to get started.

RSS(Real Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) is widely becoming a VERY powerful marketing tool on the NET and for Internet marketers around the world, the question is…

… “Are you using RSS to syndicate your content?”

When I first stumbled across RSS syndication while surfing the net, it piqued my curiosity to the point where I couldn’t help myself, but, to look into this new form of site promotion further.

What I found out about this new technology will absolutely change the way you keep in touch with your subscribers and/or readers, in many ways, for years to come.

Just to keep up with the times I recently built a webpage for my website specifically to promote my RSS feed in order to take on new subscribers, and… most important of all, to put this new technology to the test.

Here’s what my webpage looks like if you decide to build your own dedicated webpage for your RSS feed. I highly recommend you do, but, that’s just me.

If you do decide to build one, make sure you give your subscribers and/or readers options.

http://www.internetwondersezine.com/rss_feed.html

Now, for those of you who aren’t quite up to speed on what RSS is, here’s a quick definition for you:

RSS is an acronym for “Really Simple Syndication” or “Rich Site Summary”, and the XML extension is the format used for distributing your news headlines via the Web, which is known as Syndication.

Syndication is where the TRUE power of RSS is unleashed, getting your message across the web in an Instant to your subscribers and/or readers.

That’s the basics of RSS(Real Simple Syndication).

Now, for the rest of this article I want to focus on the “10 MOST Powerful Reasons WHY You Should Be Using It”.

So, with that said, let’s go to reason #1.

Reason #1. RSS Streamlines communication.

RSS streamlines communication between the publishers and readers making it easier for the subscriber to receive your content.

Reason #2. Readers can Opt-In to feeds.

RSS gives the subscriber the ability to Opt-In to the feeds they are interested in and the ability to Opt-Out if they wish through there RSS reader just like an auto-responder.

Reason #3. You don’t have to maintain an RSS feed.

This is a great time saver for the busy marketer because RSS is a great communication supplement that doesn’t burden the publisher with having to maintain a “List” or having to follow strict privacy rules.

Reason #4. You have the ability to Syndicate your content.

This is where the TRUE power of RSS comes into play because RSS gives you the ability to Syndicate your content to your subscribers and website owners in an INSTANT giving your content the exposure it deserves.

Reason #5. Broadcasts your Sales and Specials.

RSS gives you the ability to broadcast your Sales message and Specials to a wider audience in less time it would take to set-up an email broadcast.

Reason #6. No filters to worry about.

This is the next best feature to RSS feeds because you don’t have to worry about your message being passed through some email filter.

By using RSS, your message gets delivered to 100% of your subscribers.

This is a very powerful feature.

Reason #7. No more “Spam” complaints.

This is yet another great benefit to RSS because you never have to worry about “Spam” complaints or “Privacy Policies” again because they have to add your feed to there reader, not the other way around with email.

Reason #8. You get INSTANT credibility.

By publishing your own RSS feed your establishing yourself as an expert in the eyes of your readers as someone who knows his/her industry which will build “Trust”.

Reason #9. Multiple ways to read your feed.

RSS is very versatile because it allows you to view the feed in many different media platforms.

Some examples are, Browser Based readers, Software Based readers, and the ability to view feeds on different operating systems like windows and mac.

Reason #10. Free and Easy site promotion.

I like to save the best for last because RSS is a great way to get free traffic to your website without the need of spending money on advertising.

This benefit alone will save you hundreds, if not, thousands in advertising expenses a year in costs to advertise your online business.

Well… are those enough reasons for you to get started with RSS?

I certainly hope so because they sure get me excited everytime I read through them.

Just imagine for a minute your same message you worked so hard on that you were going to send via email getting to 100% of your subscribers INSTANTLY — On-Demand — via your own RSS feed without ever having to worry about email filters.

Your response rates would Double, if not, Triple, meaning MORE $$Profits$$ in your pocket with less work.

Internet technology at its Best.

As I mentioned early in my article, the best way to take advantage of RSS… Starting TODAY! … is to set-up your own dedicated RSS webpage on your website.

If you don’t have time to set-up your own webpage I recommend you set-up an account with Blogger.com — http://www.blogger.com — and then head over to FeedBurner.com — http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/home — and set-up an account there.

FeedBurner.com will auto-generate you a RSS subscription page with whatever RSS feed URL you choose.

Well… there you have it, “RSS… And The 10 MOST Powerful Reasons WHY You Should Be Using It” and more.

In conclusion, publishers using RSS as a communication vehicle for their business are able to create keyword-rich, themed content, establishing Trust, Credibility, and ongoing communication with current and prospective subscribers and/or customers without the worry of email filters getting in the way and GUARANTEE’s 100% delivery.

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