Traffic generation

Here we’ll look at some primary ways of driving quality traffic to your niche site. Keep in mind the phrase QUALITY traffic is important – we only want the visitors who might buy our products and make us money – we don’t want freebie seekers in this business model.

The first and best way to generate traffic is to do as I’ve described in the previous article, which is to produce content based on long tail keywords from your niche. After optimizing your page well for this term, and using the built in pinging function to notify other websites of your new content – you can be ranking and getting traffic for uncompetitive terms within the first few days of your site’s existence.

After this, there are many ways to approach your traffic generation.

1. Article Marketing: This is essentially (though often misunderstood) the process of having articles you’ve written, published on websites other than your own, for the purpose of including a link back to your site and funneling traffic from their site to yours. You can do this with article directories or with other blogs and websites by contacting the site author. Either way, the extra exposure from these sites can drive through important relevant visitors to your pages.

2. Ongoing Keyword research and SEO: The reason I believe in having a big focus on SEO is that the people who have a specific problem and are looking for a solution, tend to gravitate toward a search engine. Yes there are millions of web viewers who don’t go near a search engine but they can be harder to target and can represent not as high a quality traffic. In other words they don’t tend to make you as much money.

Continually finding new keywords that represent relevant traffic for your products, and continually creating content to target those visitors is about as smart as you can be with ongoing traffic generation.

3. Link Building: This is both for the purpose of boosting your search engine rankings and increasing exposure to your website. You have probably heard that links back to your site from relevant websites indicate your site is more trust worthy and worthy of better SEO rankings. At the same time, a link on a relevant website, whether in a piece of content on a sidebar, can increase visitors to your website. You should make it a point to continually do activities that motivate similar sites in your niche to link to you – or even if not in your niche, sites that could send you relevant visitors.

4. Using Social Networks: Using the myriad social networks like Digg, Mysapce, Facebook, Stumbleupon, etc. can be another great way to increase traffic to your website.  Just by submitting all the posts you make to your blog to site’s like Digg and Stumbleupon, you can earn yourself extra backlinks, and the potential to have your content seen and then shared by new members of your target audience.  As is becoming clear, almost EVERYONE online hangs out at some social network for some reason, and if you can find where your target market is hanging out and leverage that, your traffic can increase exponentially.

Finally, remember when trying to generate traffic to your blog, you should consider your niche before deciding which methods to utilize. As I’ve said before, using a social network might be great, but certain niches might be too technically unadvanced to know about social networks, and they only use Google. Some niches might be more easily approached by use of visual media like video rather than article content. The bottom line of traffic generation is where are my target market hanging out, and how can I get my site in front of them in a way that contributes value to their lives.

The 4th and final article in this series of setting up a profitable blog or mini site we’ll look at the management of a successful blog.

Joyce Jacobsen

In this post I’m going to talk about one such tool, Firepow Blogging Software,because I believe it might just be a cut above the rest in terms of it’s flexibility of use, and overall effectiveness in accomplishing the three primary aims of blogging – creating a blog, managing it or maintaining it, and getting traffic to it.

It was hard to know where to start with this post because there are so many individual features of this software that could be mentioned.  To give you a brief overview of how it works…

Firepow is based on the Wordpress platform, and allows a user to install a fully customized and functioning wordpress blog with a few clicks of the mouse.

If you’ve used Wordpress before, you’ll know one of the best things about it is it’s ability to be enhanced by third party plugins. You’ll also know it’s not hard to get LOST in all the plugins and potential feature additions that CAN be made.

The first thing great about Firepow from my point of view is they have done the plugin work for you. The best 50 or so plugins from around the web have been programmed into the software so as to be automatically installed when your blog is.

That’s a good feature, but it’s even better when you consider while these plugins normally require manual fiddling to get installed, tweaks made to your theme CSS code and more – the software actually does that part for you too – so you click the button, and you have the function of that plugin added – VERY time saving!

The “Create” part of the process is also helped by the ability to create your own custom wordpress theme completely from scratch, with more functionality than we’ve seen from free theme generators EVER before – not to mention the ability to create your own categories from scratch, automatically create the perfect permalink structure for SEO, and more.

Before even getting into the Wordpress panel of the site Firepow creates you’ve also got a site management tab where all your blogs can be managed from one place, an SEO tracking tool to monitor the search rankings of all your sites, and a task manager that tells you what needs to be done to maintain your blog/s and when.

I dare say though the best things happen once you’re actually IN the blog.

Here you have crazy abilities to make your post content better, easily being able to add relevant images, videos, or trackbacks (automatically building backlinks to your site) to your posts... and even that’s leaving a lot out.

OR the crazy abilities to monitor your blogs success, like being able to split test the results of different posts, monitor your traffic through in depth reporting (utilizing Google analytics), monitoring your search spider activity, the popularity of your posts, the terms people are searching on your site, and more still.

I feel like I’m getting too salesy in this post to you but I can assure even with everything you’ve read here, I haven’t even really touched the surface of what’s going on inside this thing called Firepow – heck we didn’t even get to the promotional tools.   (Look for another post tomorrow.)

I hope you’ve found the information here valuable, and don’t hesitate to leave your comments on Firepow here to share with others.

I stress – even what I’ve mentioned here isn’t close to all of the tools Firepow gives you to drive traffic to your site. And it’s for that reason among many I’m recommending all my blog readers to check it out for themselves.

Oh and I could also tell you if your into blogging and you don’t, you’ll probably regret it big time.   Hopefully this gave you a general idea how POWERFUL FIREPOW is!

Here’s the link:   FIREPOW!

Google Friend Connect is live. After seeing it in action on Suzanne Franco’s money making ideas blog, I thought it would be well worth putting to the test on thatMLMbeat.

Currently, the team at thatMLMbeat consists of 6 internet and network marketing professionals, so Google Friend Connect might be a great way for the team to communicate with all our readers.  Click here to see more.

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Everybody, no matter what they do or who they are, can benefit from a plan for the management of stress.  We have to face the facts, stress is part of our everyday life no matter if you are a powerful CEO or a stay at home parent.  Even elementary school kids, college students, nurses, lawyers, dentists, business owners, bartenders, and waitresses deal with different types of stress everyday.  The doctor who has to tell someone they have a terminal disease, or the fifth grader who has a history test, and the waitress who has to deal with unhappy customers is all part of their everyday life.  

There are different approaches you can incorporate into your stress management plan.  These could include physical exercise, a body massage, or even a nice hot bubble bath.  You might even consider doing some different techniques such as acupressure, acupuncture, hypnosis relaxation techniques, meditation or some other form of activity tailored to fit your individual need with a stress reduction program.  It’s important to incorporate some form of relaxation into your daily or weekly schedule.

Please keep in mind no matter who you are – yes, you can benefit from stress management and you will reap the benefits of a healthier you!

Keep lots of love in your heart and hug your family everyday and keep them close.

Blessings to you and yours.   Joyce Jacobsen

We can all reap the benefits of laughter.  I am sure you’ve heard the saying, “Laughter is the best medicine”.  This theory is more true than most people realize.  We have come to realize how much negative impact stress has on our body both physically and mentally.  Laughter has many positive health benefits which can help counteract the stress response of the negative affects.

Laughter helps to increase the functioning of your immune system by helping the body fight off disease and illness.  Case studies have shown laughter helps by increasing the production of endorphins and catecholamines.  These chemicals, when released into the blood stream by the brain during laughter, increase feelings of happiness and well being.

Laughter also decreases the secretion of cortisol which makes it very beneficial in stimulating the body’s immune system.  During laughter, the flow of oxygen in the blood increases.  This helps the arteries to relax and lowers blood temperature and heart rate.  Blood circulation increases and the skin temperature rises causing a physical response which has a beneficial effect on both respiratory and cardiovascular health.

Laughter can help speed healing, increase overall health and well being if you make it part of your stress management plan.  Include laughter in your stress management plan as an exercise to be performed with rigorous laughing several times a day.

Make laughter a part of your everyday well being.

Some lifestyle choices and behaviors affect your level of stress.  Maybe not directly, but they could interfere with the way your body releases stress.  Make sure you:

- Eat a well balanced diet and increase your immune level
- Have a good nights rest since your body recovers from the daily stress while you are sleeping
- Limit your alcohol intake
- Don’t smoke
- Get moderate exercise at least four days a week
- Most of all balance your work, family and personal obligations

Accept the social support from friends, family and the community.  Strong social support makes for a strong relationship between physical and mental health.  When an event triggers negative thoughts, you may experience insecurity, depression, guilt, fear, or rage.  Dealing with negative thoughts and how you see them can help you to reduce the levels of stress.  Avoid exagerating these negative thoughts and interpreting the event incorrectly.

Stress is one visitor in your home you need to give the boot to and get it out of your life.

Running away or hiding from a life of stress are usually those who use alcohol or drugs to “escape”  or “avoid” their problems.  For example, the teenager who stays away from home, or someone who stays at work, are ones who are attempting to escape their problems.  Procrastination can be a form of anxiety and worry.  The “fear” of what will happen if you face the problem often leads to  “putting off the inevitable”.  This behavior can also contribute to stress for the mind rather than from the situation.

Even tho facing things head on can sometimes seem too difficult, it is definitely the healthiest way to handle the situation that would otherwise create anxiety, worry or fear  Getting the answers and addressing the problem instead of speculating or denying, or running away and hiding from them, is the only way you will be able to reduce the stress of these type of situations.

Take the anxiety and worry out of your life and save your health.

Joyce Jacobsen

Stress is the major and minor underlying cause of many different illnesses.  Both mental health experts and physicians agree stress reduction can prevent many different illnesses, disorders and also increase patients abilities to heal a variety of major health problems.  The human response to stress is triggered within the brain, which produces a physical and chemical change throughout our body.  This affects every aspect of the brains functioning.  This chemical change can increase blood pressure, heart rate, cell reproduction, and suppression of the immune system.

Unmanageable stress over time, can lead to digestive problems, the development of ulcers, heart disease, even stroke and heart attack.  Your immune systems ability to fight off disease and infection is inhibited, allowing for the onset of viral infections and various illnesses.  Case studies have show Diabetes and Asthma and other chronic conditions have been linked to stress.

Extreme stress is related also to many emotional and mental disorders, such as anxiety, depression, panic attacks and extreme phobias.  Learning how to manage stress in a healthy way can reduce these chemical changes that occur within the body and brain, thereby improving both your physical and mental health.  Taking a high quality nutritional supplement to build your immune system will also prove to be very beneficial both physically and mentally.

Click here for several free reports and take back control of your life.

You can begin your stress management plan by writing down some of the activities you enjoy participating in.  An example could be sitting in front of the fireplace curled up with a good book, taking your pet for a walk, strolling on the beach with your spouse, or maybe just soaking in the hot tub with a cup of hot cocoa.  You can include any hobbies you enjoy or maybe another option could include something you have dreamed of doing, but have never taken the time to do, or something you use to enjoy, but haven’t taken the time to do lately.  Make sure nothing on your list is related to work or to a different source of stress in your life.

Next make a list of at least 2 things you do you shouldn’t be doing, or things you can probably live without doing.  This list might include things like cooking a large meal after a busy day at work, bringing your work from the office home, doing laundry for your college teenager.  In other words this list are things that won’t cause the world to come to an end if you no longer do them.

Next make a list of at least 2 things you have put off doing you should have done already, like your taxes, or maybe some problem you haven’t wanted to deal with directly.  If you’ve been putting off calling your mother-in-law, or cleaning out that closet, put those things on your list.

These 3 lists you’ve just compiled will become a goal sheet to reduce your stress.  So now your stress management plan should look something like this:

- Each week spend at least 15 – 20 minutes doing one or two of the things you enjoy from list number one.
- From list number 2 eliminate at least 1 or 2 tasks of things you need to do by accomplishing those tasks.
- Next from list number 3 tackle at least 2 things you have been putting aside and finish each one.

Hang in there – you can do this!

Joyce Jacobsen