Successful internet businesses all depend upon one common factor. That common factor is traffic. Traffic equals sales. Sales equal profit.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that a successful business must make sales and a profit and in order to make sales and profit it is essential that there are customers.

Getting website traffic is exactly what all the fuss is about when marketers are discussing SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

The higher a site ranks in the search results that search engines provide to those using key words to find products and services, the more visitors will visit. More visitors = more sales = more profits. It is just as simple as that.

Blogs have proven themselves to be very, very useful tools in the drive to creating more and better website traffic. People love blogs. Web 2.0 is built upon the idea of a user driven web and users want a voice.

Blogs give them that voice. It is a simple technology and it can even be found free on the internet. If you don’t have a blog site or a blog on your website, you are simply missing the SEO boat.

The popularity of blogs has, of course, increased the number of blogs on the Internet many fold over this last year or so.

With the increase in numbers of blogs online comes an increase in competition for visitors to those blogs and, of course, stiffer competition for PageRank by search engines.

So, the question, “Why do I need audio/video/podcasting on my blog?” is one that can be answered rather easily. You want visitors. You want a high PageRank. You want sales and profits. That’s why.

Successful blogs are all about content. You’ve been told a million times that, on the internet, content is king and it is true. Search engine spiders consider content as one of the factors that determine page rank and there are two parts to content that are considered.

The first is how often the content changes. This is why it is very important that posts be made to blogs every single day…multiple posts are better than one long post. Key-work density is the other content factor that is considered by search engine spiders.

Links found on the Internet to your website by search engine spiders is another factor that determines PageRank. That is the reason you should always make use of social bookmarking sites and add the links to your blog posts.

Each time you make a post the search engine spiders count it but the number of links to that post is even more important.

You can create one link but when others pick that link up and add it to their own favorite’s lists more links are created for search engine spiders to count.

You probably already knew those things but did you know that the duration of visits to your site is also considered? Most visits to websites last thirty seconds or less. You can even actually see this statistic in the web-stats for your blog or website.

Search engine spiders like for visitors to websites to stay longer than thirty seconds and you like that, as well. The fact is the longer a visitor stays on your website, the better the chance is that he will make a purchase.

That begs the question, ‘how do I get them to stay longer than thirty seconds?’ The answer to that one is audio/video/podcasts. It is a very simple calculation.

If a visitor is watching a video that lasts for say two minutes, how long will they stay on your site? Two minutes! Videos and podcasts are mesmerizing.

When a visitor begins to watch either, they will stay awhile. Search engine spiders love that and the longer they stay, the longer they are exposed to your advertisements for products and services that you sell. The longer they see the advertisements, the more likely they are to make a purchase.

Now you should be aware of the fact that search engine spiders cannot ‘read’ audio and video content.
That is audio/video is not going to aid you in search engine optimization but it will help with the length of the visits made to your website.

The fact that search engine spiders can’t ‘read’ audio and video content also eliminates the duplicate content problem.

How do I get audio and video for my blog?

Just to set your mind at ease right away, you don’t have to shoot your own video or record your own audio.

You can do that, of course, if you want to and if you have the equipment and the know-how but you really don’t have to.

There are an abundance of sites on the internet that will happily (and freely) provide video and audio for you. All you have to do is download them, upload them to your site and tag them. That is pretty much it.

Google has videos that you can use. The link is right there on the Google search page. Recently Google purchased YouTube for a reported one point six billion dollars.

You can find free videos there on almost any topic that you can imagine and likely a few topics that you would hope to never imagine.

You can find videos on topics that are related to the topic of your website or your blog that will be of interest to your visitors and when visitors are watching videos they aren’t surfing away from your site.
How Do I Get Podcasts For My Blog?

Now, podcasts you do have to create yourself. The good news is that is a fairly simple process that can be done without a lot of technical knowledge or ability.

The term ‘podcast’ was actually coined by Ben Hammersley in the Guardian on February 2004. The word is a blend of the two words, ‘ipod’ and ‘broadcast’ but you don’t have to have an ipod to see a podcast or even to create a podcast.

Very simply; podcasting is a way to publish audio and video online which lets software automatically find and download new broadcasts over a period of time by using RSS feeds that contain a link to the multimedia broadcast file.

You can create and publish your own audio program or video program or audio/video program and feed them to your audience who can then listen to or view them when they have to time or are so inclined.

With nothing more than a personal computer, some software and a webcam if you are doing video, anybody can create a podcast and publish it. It isn’t rocket science.

What Will My Blog Visitors Think About Audio, Video or Podcasts?

The short answer is that they are going to love them. A term that is sometimes used is ‘User Enhancement Optimization’.

You know what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is but it is possible that UEO (User Enhancement Optimization) is equally or maybe even more important.

Remember…it is all about content. Content is what keeps a visitor on your website and content is what makes them make return visits to your website. It is a well known fact that purchases are seldom made on initial website visits.

A customer will likely return to the website up to seven times before he actually drags out his credit card and buys something.

You have to get them to come to your website for that first crucial visit but keeping them making return visits is just as important.

I can’t really think of a better way to keep them coming back that giving them something as attention getting as audio or video or podcasts. Can you?

While it is true that people do read blog posts, we are a nation that is more geared toward audio and video than toward the written word.

We watch television…a lot. One picture really is worth more than a thousand words in today’s technologically centered world.

Web 2.0 has created an internet that is user driven. The users are the ones who determine the success or failure of an internet business.

They are the determining factor of the way that websites are constructed. It once was said over and over that ‘the customer is always right’. That is still true but in the Web 2.0 world of internet marketing, the user is not only right, he is in charge.

Web surfers no longer simply go to websites to read information. They go to websites to GET information and the love for that information to be delivered in audio and/or video formats.

Your blog website has got to be outstanding. It has got to be original. It has to give the user a reason to visit in the first place and a reason to return often.

Think content, content, content and SEO as well as UEO and you can make your blog website successful. Audio, video and podcasts are the quickest, easiest and most efficient way to reach that goal.

Social networking isn’t a new phenomenon. It wasn’t invented in the twenty-first century. Every Elks Lodge, Lions Club, Chamber of Commerce, Church, Sewing Circle, Book Club, etc. that ever existed afforded an opportunity for social networking. Some social networking groups are secretive.

They have passwords and secret signals that help one member identify another member. Others may be more open but they are aware of who is and who is not a member in good standing of the social networking group.
The members of any social networking group identify with and help other members of their group. They provide information to one another that is mutually beneficial.

They tell each other when something of interest or something of concern in happening that is interest to or a threat to their particular social network and the members collectively pursue the interest or ward off the threat.

These social networking groups can be either very close knit or very loosely organized or even have no apparent organizational structure at all. The organization is of a great deal less importance to the members than the benefits that each gains from it.

Many times social networking groups are work related.

For example: you have very likely heard of the way that law enforcement personnel stick together and ‘watch each other’s backs’ so to speak.

This social networking group is often referred to as ‘the long blue line’.

Another work related social networking group is long distance truck drivers. By using their CB radios, they stay in contact with one another and warn each other of road hazards. If one of them has a problem, others go to his or her aid.

No, social networking was not invented in the twenty-first century and it didn’t come into being with the advent of the personal computer.

It has been around probably since the beginning of time in some form or another but the advent of the personal computer certainly put a new spin on social networking. Web 2.0 has really kicked social networking up several notiches.

No longer is social networking limited to people who work at the same jobs or who live in the same communities. Social networking is now world wide and easily accessible to everyone who has access to a computer and an internet connection.

It all started with the advent of instant messaging technology but it has grown far beyond that limited ability. With instant messaging it was necessary to let others see your email address and so you lost much of your anonymity.

In today’s Web 2.0 world, social networking and complete anonymity are both possible.

The online dating sites are a very good example of this compatibility. People can register and pay for memberships on online dating sites and conduct an entire relationship for many months without either party knowing the other party’s real name, ISP email address or the name of the city in which they live.
All communication is conducted on the online dating website itself thus affording both social networking and anonymity.

There are Web 2.0 websites that are dedicated to nothing BUT social networking. One of the better known ones among the younger set is MySpace but there are at least a hundred different social networking sites on the internet and probably a lot more that that.

Web 2.0 social networking sites are divided in many different ways.

There are social networking sites that are dedicated to specific ethnicities; BlackPlanet.com is for African Americans, Babbello is for Australian teenagers, FaceBox is for European young adults, Gronco.net is for Poland, iWiW is for Hungary, Migente.com is for Latinos, Mixi is for Japan are just a few examples.

Social networking sites are also divided sometimes by interests. For example you can find such social networking sites as CarDomain for car enthusiasts, Flickr for photo sharing, Gaia for gamers, Gopets for virtual pets, Joga Bonita for football or soccer, or Last.fm for music.

These are only a very few example. There are a great many more.

Most social networking sites, however, are not dedicated to a specific group. They are general membership sites and the members themselves divide themselves into appropriate groups according to interests and compatibility.

Almost all of the social networking sites are free to join. There are just a few that have membership fees. The site owners make their money from advertisers rather than from users. A few sites are only open to those who have been invited to join by other members.

Most of these social networking sites provide you with your own blog when you join the site. You can make posts to your blog and you can invite others to post to your blog. The trick here is to also use the social bookmarking sites and upload links to your blog posts into them with the appropriate tags containing key words.

The blogs on social networking sites are in addition to and not a replacement for blogs on your own website if you are an internet marketer and the social bookmarking sites should be used to upload links to both blogs.

Social networking is easy and it is fun. It is a way that you can enhance your online business and have a lot of fun in the process. You can meet some of your very best potential customers on social networking sites. You can make friends and influence people as well.

It has long been a well established fact that more business is actually conducted in social settings than in offices.

More deals are made on golf courses than in board rooms in the real world and more sales are made through the use of social networking sites on the Internet than through all of the paid-for advertising combined.
People HATE commercials but they don’t mind hearing their friends recommend a product or service. Not only do they not mind…they even go to a lot of trouble to seek out that information.

In addition to being a great way to advertise a business social networking sites are also a great research tool and one that should never be overlooked. Rather than having to conduct a lot of expensive and time-consuming surveys for example, you can simply look through a social networking site and find out exactly what people are thinking about.

You can find out what their problems are and what measures they are taking to solve those problems. You can find out what their interests are and how they go about pursuing those interests.

By using social networking sites as research tools, you can likely get more and better information in a single hour and for free than you could get by spending hours on sending out surveys and trying to decipher the results.

One very interesting social networking site is called 43 things. That is the name of the site. On this social networking site people list their goals and then other people with similar goals discuss how to best achieve those goals.

Some goals that have been listed are ‘learn a foreign language, be a good parent, improve my memory, get in shape, lose weight, be a better gardener and the list just goes on and on.

As a research tool it would be hard to beat 43 things to find out what people are interested in and concerned about.

Web 2.0 is great! It is driven by those who actually USE the internet and not by people who are sitting behind desks at large companies and who are out of touch with the real world.

Social networking is simply a group of like-minded people exchanging information that is of mutual interest. That is all it is and all it has ever been.

It is important that when you are using social networking sites that you remember this and conduct yourself accordingly.

If you join a site and start just posting blatant advertisements, you are not going to be doing social networking.

You are simply doing advertising…which people hate. If you establish yourself as part of a group, then you are social networking and you will find that those who are members of your online social circle are the best help you can find anywhere.

Social networking is valuable in and of itself but it can be made doubly valuable by using social networking in conjunction with social bookmarking.

Join a social networking website. Find a group of people who are interested in the topic of your website but don’t start out advertising that.

Make posts to your own blog on the social networking sites as well as to the blogs of others. Add those links to your social bookmarking account. Be certain that you use the appropriate key words in those tags otherwise they are worthless.

Altogether this is an excellent marketing strategy. It is a way to market your website and your products or services and have a lot of fun at the same time. You will meet people that you really do like and even admire and respect.

Friendships are not made for the purpose of profiting from them but they usually are profitable.

E-commerce is really a cut throat company. You need to arm your self using the correct know-how and also the tools to create your website a cut above the rest. Every day, much more and much more websites are clambering to optimize their rankings in web sites and in the event you shed your guard, you might just get trampled on and be left within the abyss filled with a lot of failed e-commerce websites.

Seo or Search engine optimization is really a term widely utilized these days by numerous e-commerce websites. For the past couple of years and also the subsequent ten years or so, search engines like google could be probably the most widely utilized web tool to locate the websites that they have to visit or the item or info they require.

Many people that use search engines like google use only the ten leading search outcomes within the 1st page. Creating it towards the 1st page, much more so towards the leading 3 is really a barometer of a websites good results in seo. You’ll get a greater ratio of probability in becoming clicked on whenever you rank high. The much more visitors for the website, the much more company you rake in.

But, it’s important to grab a hold of that spot or make your ranking even much better. As I aforementioned, every day is really a new day for all e-commerce websites to create them selves rank greater utilizing seo. It’s crucial to create your website much better and much better daily.

So just what’s seo and do you need to use it? The answer to why you need to use it’s a simple 1. You’ll need seo to become quantity 1, or perhaps a minimum of make your website earnings producing.

With seo you are able to get the benefit of producing a high visitors volume. Let’s just say you get only a turn out of effective sales with ten to 20 percent of the visitors. In the event you get a hundred hits or much more each day, you get a great turn out of sales currently. In the event you get only twenty to ten hits each day, you only get 1 or two if not any at all.

So as soon as once more, what’s seo? Seo is utilizing tools and techniques in creating your website leading ranking within the outcomes of search engines like google. Obtaining your self within the 1st page and much better but within the leading half from the page will make sure that your website will create public awareness of the site’s existence and subsequently create much more visitors, visitors that could result in possible earnings and company.

Seo demands a great deal of function to become totally realized. There are lots of elements you need to alter inside your website or add also to obtain seo. These will consist of obtaining plenty of info concerning the keyword phrases which are well-liked in regards for your websites niche or theme.

You might also have to rewrite your websites contents to ensure that you can get the correct keyword phrases inside your website with out creating it as well commercial but light and informative. You will find particular guidelines and recommendations to become followed with creating your site’s content material applicable and conducive to seo.

You’ll also have to collaborate with numerous other websites to ensure that you can get hyperlink exchanges and page transfers. The much more inbound and outbound traffics generated by websites amongst other people are certainly one of the elements search engines like google makes use of to rank websites.

Attempt to search the web for numerous helpful assist. Suggestions, recommendations and techniques for seo are a lot to become discovered. Read numerous articles that may assist you to optimize your website in search engine outcomes. The much more information and info you collect the much better. This may all assist you to in obtaining these high rankings. This might need a bit time and work inside your component however the advantages will probably be astounding.

In the event you can component with some cash, there are lots of websites within the web that may assist you to in seo. There are lots of websites that assist in tracking keyword phrases that may assist your website. You will find also some content material writers which have plenty of expertise in creating great keyword laden content material for the websites which have great high quality.

Act now and see the advantages garner with seo. All of those will outcome to much better visitors and much more company for the website and business.

To get listed correctly in the search engines each page of your site that you want listed needs to be optimized to the best of your ability.

Since the keywords that you decide to target will be used throughout the optimization process, choosing the right keywords is essential. If you choose the wrong keywords you will not be found in the search engines. Since the keywords you choose to optimize your pages with are so important I’ve put together a few tips to help you make sure that you make the right choices. You should utilize these tips when selecting keywords for each page that you want listed in the search engines.

Think “specific keyword phrases” not “keywords”. Due to the extreme amount of competition for general terms in the search engines, if your keyword phrases are too general it is very unlikely you will rank well in the search engines. You stand a far better chance to rank well for specific phrases where there is less competition. The resulting traffic, since it is more highly targeted, should also be much
higher quality too.

You should try to come up with as many keyword phrases as you can think of that relate to the page you are optimizing. Try asking a few friends and family what they would search for when searching for a site like yours. Check out your competition for ideas. Do a search using keywords that you already know you want to target and click through on the top sites that come up. Once on the site, view the source HTML code and view the keywords they have in their Meta tags.

Searching competitive sites’ Meta tags will give you many more ideas. Make sure to only use keywords that relate to YOUR site or page. To view the HTML code, simply click the “View” at the top of your web browser then select “Source”, or “Page Source”. You should develop a list of keyword phrases, using these tips, for each page that you optimize for the search engines.

Apart from these, there are certain aspects that should be avoided. These are:

• Dead Links – As search engines index your entire site by crawling through hypertext links, you must make sure you check for dead links before submitting.
• Graphics and Image Maps – Search engines cannot read images; be sure to include Alternative Text tags.
• Frames – Many Search engines aren’t frames compatible. Meta tags and thetags are important in this instance.
• Spamming – Avoid resubmitting your pages repeatedly to search engines if your site does not get listed in the first few weeks. Allow at least 6 weeks before resubmission.
• Continual resubmission (such as those caused by automatic submission software) can cause your site to be penalized.

Looking to build traffic to your website? There are many free, or nearly free, ways to build traffic to your website. Some of those include article marketing, blogging, social bookmarking, forum marketing, ezine advertising, and so on. Some of these can cost you an investment of your time and maybe a little bit of money, but for the most part they are free to do.

Getting traffic is not as easy as you might think. Although millions of people use the Internet, there are also millions of offerings out there. If you want to get a share of the visitors you will really have to work hard. To get you started here are some techniques that you can use to build traffic and also improve the search engine ranking of your site.

One of the best ways to build traffic to your website is by writing and submitting articles to online article listings. Article marketing is a popular method of promoting your web site, getting links and building online credibility. Article marketing is going to help you bring in much more website traffic, revenues and recognition. If you don’t have enough money to market it using other means, this will be a good way to get started. Article marketing can aid you in spreading your message concerning your services and products, receive a great client base, boost your internet profile and also accelerate revenues. But to be successful, you should learn precisely where to start and how to pull it off.

According to Article Writing Secrets one of the most important things the article needs is right at the top; a catchy title that will grab the readers attention. The title is what will make people want to read it thus creating more traffic to your website. The easiest way to do it is to use automated article creation tools to assist you. These programs help you to create unique articles quickly.

Article marketing is used by so many Internet companies and home based business owners that it is essential to know the basics. Many individuals will hire a ghostwriter to do the article writing for them.

Social bookmarking is one of the most potent types of Web 2.0 software used to build traffic to your website. I am talking about serious web traffic, the kind that registers hundreds of new visitors and a couple of thousands of repeat visitors every day. Yes, with social bookmarking, this scenario is more than doable.

The beauty of social bookmarking traffic is that it has a snowball effect. While not every website will go viral, all websites can benefit from social bookmarking traffic, and the potential continues to grow over time, as more and more bookmarks are created, building a website’s relevance on a particular subject or product.

You can gain plenty of social bookmarking traffic when your website is bookmarked with a number of these social bookmarking sites such as Technorati , Socialmatic, Del.icio.us , or even the social networking sites such as Facebook , MySpace , Mybloglog , Friendster etc.

You need to post some of your most relevant posts yourself and interact with the community you find on these bookmarking sites. I would also strongly suggest to make it easy for readers to bookmark your posts by including bookmarking service widgets, as I did here on BlogTips.

Link popularity is becoming increasingly important as many major engines will look at a sites popularity when determining where to rank sites for certain keywords.

Link building is the best way to build traffic to your website, both through organic search engine traffic and direct traffic from people clicking the backlinks. The more traffic your site has the more money you will make from eBook sales, AdSense revenue or whatever your monetization model is. Link building is also crucial for building PageRank and increasing the number for your pages in the search engine’s indexes.

Using RSS feeds to increase search engine traffic: RSS feeds can enhance your website traffic dramatically. Search engines love cross-links and they pay particular attention to websites that are richly linked from the outside.

Website does not happen overnight. You need to be consistent and patient to build your traffic. Many online marketers do not consider the challenge of building their business and quit after a few months. But if you are you will realize this challenge and pledge to put in the time and effort you will have a successful online business.

Blogging is a great way to get free traffic, but just be sure to keep posting relevant and interesting posts to keep your readers coming back for more. Do not write blog posts that are insightful, are critical or express your personality or genuine opinions. Go for titles such as “Six killer ways to boost your blog traffic and revenue via social media”, “The 15 best free social media monitoring tools”, “Succeeding on Facebook in 3 days” or “The 399 infographics every marketer should know”. If you think about it, blogging without anyone bothering to read up the entries defeats the purpose of writing a blog in the first place. Even if you have an outstanding design to attract visitors, it takes extra efforts to increase blog traffic since you practically have to compete with millions of other blogs out there.Be patient. Blog traffic doesn’t grow overnight and retention is just as much part of the growth. This takes time, effort and energy.

Writing your blogging posts though is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to your blog as a whole. There are many different factors that can help you drive even more free traffic to and from your blog, One important thing to decide is whether your blog is where you want your traffic to go to, or is it that you want your blog itself to drive traffic to another site of yours, maybe an affiliate link. When you make sure to know which way you want to go, you can then properly set up your blog.