10 Successful Steps to Converting Ezine Subscribers to Clients

A business website may inevitably attract a lot of traffic and can have the potential to create clientele from the traffic attracted, but without a proper Ezine subscription process, the odds of creating clients from web traffic is low.

Websites rarely attract clients without offering resources that would be of interest to a specific audience. And even when there is an abundance of information, visitors to a specific website don't always purchase the service or product being advertised.

People don't usually purchase a product or service without knowing more about the business providing it. Because of this, giving a reason for visitors to remain interested in your business is integral. The best way to do this is by offering an Ezine - a periodic free publication usually distributed by email and usually in the form of a newsletter, Ebook, video or any other type of useful information that may be of interest to the audience you are trying to attract.

Terry Z. a self employed business strategist and marketing consultant, as well as owner of Solo Entrepreneur, was able to increase subscriptions and web traffic by 70 per cent using thoughtful and ultimately useful steps. In turn Terry Z. developed a 10 sure-fire step process to getting people to your website, subscribing to your Ezine and eventually becoming a customer.

Step 1 - Do you have the right visitors?

In order to convert website traffic to clients, you have to have the right visitors. In order to attract the right visitors - visitors who would benefit from your product or service - you must ensure you are using the right keywords and linking your site to businesses that would be appropriate to the message your website is trying to convey.

Google Analytics, a free program, is an excellent tool for helping you see how much web traffic is landing on your website, and where the traffic is coming from; helping you determine what is and isn't working in regards to your site set up and information.

It should be kept in mind that while web traffic is an integral part of your business success, traffic from referrals are more likely to develop into clients. You can refer traffic to your website through writing articles, trading links with appropriate businesses and guest blogging.

Step 2 - Do your visitors know what you want them to do?

Visitors to your website won't know what to do with the information you have provided them if you don't tell them. It is best to keep information and direction on your homepage simple, meaning, do not confuse the visitor with too much information and choices. Be sure to clearly tell your visitors to sign up for your Ezine and remember to tell them what it is all about; whether it is a newsletter, Ebook, or other form of valuable information.

Step 3 - Is it easy for visitors to take action?

You have valuable information to share with your visitors, but it won’t help if they cannot find it. Research has revealed that the majority of people scan websites from the top left down. This valuable information therefore tells us to place your subscription box in the top left of your homepage for easy visibility.

You may want to also consider placing your sign up form on every page, increasing visibility regardless of what page traffic lands. Be sure to also make the sign up form as effortless as possible. Consider having a form that doesn't require too many clicks to achieve the end result.

Step 4 - What's in it for your visitors?

Most successful Ezines offer some kind of incentive to sign up. Whether you are giving away an Ebook, an audio, a video, or an Ecourse; be sure to describe what the freebie is, and how it can add value to them. Also provide clear instruction on how they will access the valuable information; can they download it? Or will the information be emailed?

Also, tell subscribers that they will hear from you again and how often. You may wish to provide a sample of what they will be receiving.

Step 5 - Are your visitors put at ease?

Subscribers to your Ezine are providing you with valuable information - their personal information! Be sure to ease their minds by assuring them that you will not sell names and email addresses or allow their information to get into the wrong hands. Be sure to provide clear information surrounding your privacy policy and let them know that they can unsubscribe at any time.

Step 6 - Do your subscribers know to the next steps?

Often times, Ezines subscriptions require confirmation once sign up is complete. Therefore, remind visitors on the thank you page that they will need to confirm to receive the subscription they have signed up for.

Step 7 - Do your subscribers know how to white list?

Many email programs send unknown senders straight to junk mail. In order to avoid getting tossed in the junk mail folder, you need to tell your subscribers how to white list you.

White listing is a method used to ensure an email program recognizes and accepts an address. Provide clear instructions and be as specific as possible when you tell them how to white list. Inform them to not only white list just your Ezine information but your entire website.

Step 8 - Is your confirmation email customized?

Customize your confirmation emails and use the same language and graphics used on your website. This will help trigger people's memory as to what they are subscribing to and who is sending it to them. Keep things consistent and clear. Don't use generic language!

Step 9 - Are you delivering what you promised?

Resist from having subscribers wait for the Ezine. As soon as they receive the confirmation email and link, you should send them to a page that gives them the information right then and there. Also be sure to provide clear instructions if necessary to retrieve the information. If they have to download it, you may wish to provide instructions according to PC or MAC software. Provide them with as much information as possible. Make it easy for them.

Step 10 - Are you sending a thank you email? And is it customized?

Just like the confirmation email; the thank you email should be clear, consistent and provide helpful information. Tell subscribers to your Ezine how they can contact you if they need help and send the download link again. It is also a great idea to tell them in the thank you email what they should expect next. If your newsletter is weekly or monthly, remind them of this. Also let them know how often they will be hearing from you.

Also let your subscribers know that they can unsubscribe at anytime by clicking the link at the bottom of the email and/or by sending you an email.

Remember to put yourself in the shoes of the person on the other end. Would you sign up for your Ezine? Make the process as simple as possible and continue to look for improvements. You will soon be well on your way to increasing web traffic and establishing a valuable client base.

Link popularity checker

The link popularity (the amount of incoming links to a particular website) is one of the most important factors for achieving top positions in search engines. The more quality links you can get the better.

With this tool you can check the link popularity for any given page - just enter the URL in the box below. You will see how many links has been already "noticed" by the major search engines - Google, Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, Alltheweb & Hotbot.



Website URL




Here are some tips to improve your link popularity:

1. Submit to the major link directories
   Google seems to add weight to the websites that are listed in DMOZ and Yahoo directories. If your site will be accepted in DMOZ, soon it will appear in the Google directory and in hundreds of DMOZ clones out there. If you've got budget, submit your site to the Yahoo directory. If you don't have the budget, try the free submission (don't expect too much though). For non-commercial sites a submission to Zeal.com could be worth the time you need to understand their submission guidelines.
   
   
2. Free directories
   Almost every topic has a directory that accept free submissions. Submit your site there. Do a search on your favorite search engine for "yourkeyword directory", "yourkeyword links" etc.
   
   
3. Link exchanges
   The link exchanges are not as effective as one way links to your website and pretty time consuming but still worth it sometimes. Look around in the Google directory for your keywords. You will find a lot of sites with link pages that do link exchanges with other sites. Simply ask for a link swap. A non-templated personal message can do wonders. A search for "yourkeyword add url", "yourkeyword submit site" etc will pop up hundreds of websites to exchange links with.



4. Links Quality
   Quality, on topic links work best. Don't waste your time by submitting your site to FFA pages and by spamming guestbooks and forums - this is not a long term solution and those links seems to count less and less in the last time.
   
   
5. The secret to get a lot of good one-way links for free
   Write quality content for your website. Provide some free services that everyone would love. Work really hard and with passion and you will wonder how many people will link to you. Not because of the link exchanges or PR, but because they like your website. At last, that is what the web is about - the links from some sites to other.

No GoogleDance at SES San Jose 2009 – SearchBash Stepping Up

Google has said it will not to throw a Google Dance event at the upcoming 2009 Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose California. The decision was made in reaction to the recession during a year which saw Google make the first round of layoffs in its corporate history. Hosting a party estimated to cost $1.5million could be seen as sending the wrong message in a declining economy. Google, which is still among the largest sponsors of SES San Jose, is expected to use the four-day conference to heavily promote its YouTube video platform.

It is going to be a strange experience being at SES San Jose without making the annual pilgrimage to the Googleplex. Google Dances were always larger-than-life events. Held at their enormous headquarters in Mountain View, the Google Dance was seen as one of the MUST DO networking events, attracting thousands of people each year. It was also one of the few remaining non-exclusive events open to all SES attendees, speakers and booth staff. The experience was an annual bonding ritual for everyone involved with the conference held at the closest thing search-geeks have to a universal holy land. Well choreographed, meticulously planned and lovingly executed, the Google Dance was a cultural experience the community is going to miss.

WebmasterRadio.FM is stepping in to throw the premier party event of the conference. SearchBash SJ09 is going to be the largest WebmasterRadio.FM produced SearchBash event yet.

“We intend to beat the Nov08 SearchBash experience in Vegas”, says WebmasterRadio.FM co-founder Daron Babin. “The SearchBash party thrown in Vegas during the Pubcon Conference was a spectacle, even by our standards. Without Google throwing a party in San Jose, we know our party needs to be bigger this year.”

The SearchBash party at Search Engine Strategies San Jose will be larger and wilder than ever. With no Google Dance this year, WebmasterRadio.FM is providing the only non-exclusive party of the conference.

More information about this year’s SearchBash will soon be posted on the WebmasterRadio.FM site, SearchEngineWatch.com and in the SEW Forums.

How to make a Blogger Blog, A DoFollow Blog?

Have you ever wondered why your Blog has a lower PageRank and a few number of Backlinks? You may be working really hard to build backlinks, but.. the thing called ‘NoFollow’ is just killing them by keeping them out of the Search Engines Reach. There is no use of Backlinks if they are not noticed by Search Engine as you cannot expect to receive any traffic from them.

Firstly.. I am gonna tell you how to see whether a site or a blog is a DoFollow or not. Its really simple. Simply install the Plugin for Mozilla Firefox called SearchStatus. SearchStatus is a plugin which shows you the PageRank and the Alexa Rank of the website you are currently browsing. Apart from that, it is also helpful to find out whether the Site you are browsing is ‘NoFollow’ or ‘DoFollow’.

However.. Coming to the point, Making your Blog, A DoFollow Blog can attract a lot of visitors. The chances of getting the visitors visit your blog again and again are also high as they also take the Backlinks into consideration.

How to make a WordPress Blog, A DoFollow Blog?

There is a plugin for WordPress which eliminates ‘rel=nofollow’ attribute in Comments, which inturn makes the links in the comment as DoFollow links. This will result in these links being considored as Backlinks by the Search Engines. You can download the Plugin here –> WordPress Plugin To Make The Links in Comments as DoFollow. If you have any questions regarding this plugin, kindly visit its official website and contact the author.

How to make a Blogger Blog, A DoFollow Blog?

Sign in to Blogger, Go to your Blog’s layout and click EDIT HTML. Now.. Search for the below line :

a expr:href=’data:comment.authorUrl’ rel=”nofollow”>

Remove the attribute ‘rel=”nofollow”. So, the code will be :

a expr:href=’data:comment.authorUrl’>

This will make all the links in the comments on your Blogger’s Blog into A DoFollow Links.

Seo blogger - get traffic your blog

It’s the dream of every blogger to get a lot of traffic, but something first time bloggers often don’t realize is that just publishing a few posts will not get them regular readers. I am no expert in getting traffic, but I have been working on a few things which has increased my traffic a lot.
When I first started this blog I used to get only about 10-20 visitors a day.

After the first few months, I started getting traffic from Google and other search engines and my unique visitors increased to about 100 a day. Now for the past few weeks I have been getting about 550 visitors a day.
The sudden increase in traffic I had from about 100-500 visitors was mainly because my recent posts were linked back from many sites. So yes, linking can get you traffic depending on which sites link to you. Links can be thought of as the currency of blogs.
I received a lot of emails (even while writing this) from bloggers asking how they can get more traffic, I hope this helps…

Blog Design
A good design won’t bring you traffic but it will get your visitors to stay longer. No one will stay on your blog too long if the layout or navigation annoys them. So the first thing to do is to select a good theme for your blog and then design your own header. The goal is to have a unique blog that stands out from all other blogs (making your visitors want to come back again and again).
Often bloggers select a theme and forget about the design. The problem here is that your blog will look similar to hundreds of blogs that use the same theme.
Your design should allow your visitors to access the main pages of your blog and to contact you easily. Your blog should have an about page and an author photo. The more a reader knows about you, the more they trust your content.

Quality Content
Your blog should have good content inorder to keep your visitors coming back. By good content I mean well written posts that are unique and useful at the same time. Writing original content is definitely the key.
Do not copy-paste contents directly from other blogs to your blog. Re-blogging is a bad thing and will kill your traffic. The solution here is to write that content in your own words adding your own unique ideas to it. And don’t forget to link to the original post.
The more engaged you are with your content, the more interesting it will be.

Get Links
The more links you have the more traffic you get. Like I said before links are the currency of blogs. So how do you go about getting links to your blog?
Well written posts are often linked back by many sites. You are lucky if you get linked by heavily trafficked sites.
Another way is to get links from other bloggers. Link to their blogs and ask them politely to do the same for you. Also visit the ‘links’ section of a blog (if they have one) and check for a link exchange form. If there is, submit your blog after linking to theirs.
You may also take part in other link exchanging programs.

Join Conversations
Most of my first visitors came to my blog because I left a comment on theirs. When you comment on a blog leave your blog address. Often people like to know who is reading their blog and will come visiting you.Readers of that blog will also pay a visit to your blog.But do not comment just for the sake of it. Make genuine comments that relate with the post. In the process you will not only get visitors to your blog but might also make friends.

Take part in Blog Top Sites
Submitting your blog to Blog Top Sites like blogtopsites.com and top100bloggers.com is another way to get more traffic. These networks make your blog easier to find and search for as well. After you sign up for an account on their website, you just need to copy a bit of code and paste it somewhere on your blog.
You can also take part in blog traffic exchange communities like BlogExplosion and BlogClicker.
To join these blog traffic exchange communities - visit the site, sign up, confirm your account, add your blog to the member directory and then start visiting other member’s blogs.
Basically, you need to earn ‘credits’ in order to get blog traffic exposure. These credits are often gained by visiting other member’s blogs. When you have enough credits, your blog becomes eligible for promotion. Usually, a link or graphic to your blog will be shown on the main site or in fellow member’s blogs. This is how other people find your blog.
Of course, the more members there are in the community, the more potential visitors. So, if you are part of a blog traffic community, it’s good to promote the communities you belong to as well. Besides, when you promote the community through a referral system, you get more credits too.

Tag Technorati
Technorati is one of the best traffic providers for bloggers. People find your blogs easily when people search by technorati tags. Technorati will rank your blog based on the number of links from other websites.The higher your rank the easier your blog is to find when people search for things.
If you do not have a Technorati account, signup here. After you have setup the main settings, such as your profile, you need to claim your blog.
Make good use of Technorati tags by tagging every keyword in each of your posts. If you use WordPress, I recommend Ultimate Tag Warrior (UTW) which makes tagging Technorati a lot easier.
By tagging your post effectively you will get a lot of quality traffic to your blog.

Free webmaster seo tools list

	This is one of the very important tool in the industry. This tool helps you to check ” No Follow ” tag.
	Tools has following features : Number of searched over the past year, A forecast of number of searches in the coming months, Keyword age distribution, Keyword gender distribution
	A supplemental result is just like a regular web result, except that it’s pulled from our supplemental index.
	The tool is designed to satisfy the curiosity of webmasters, surfers and web marketing professionals seeking a better metric to quickly assess a site/page’s relative importance and visibility.
	Google Trends allows a user to compare among two to five keywords with respect to how many times users have searched, and how many times such have appeared on news items, as keywords and topics.
	Top 10 Analysis SEO Tool: For a search phrase, finds the top 10 results (and your URL) in Google, and for each of those sites, finds Yahoo rank, MSN rank, number of pages indexed, backlinks (page/domain/.edu), alexa traffic rank, allinanchor rank, age of the domain (whois), age of the domain (wayback machine), a count of the search phrase on each page, and a link to find related pages in google.
	Use this link popularity suggestion tool to find possible pages from where you can get a link to your page .
	This free seotool will show how many links are pointed to your website on different Google datacenters .
	This tool is to check your backlinks and the anchor text used in those backlinks.
	The PageRank Decoder allows you to visually see how Google factors PageRank based off of link structure. Be sure to view the Demo first.
	Search Engine Decoder.
	A totally new and smart way to check SEO stats while you surf
	The Visual PageRank - Tool shows all links and there corresponding PageRanks.
	Bulk Google Page Rank Checker Too, check up to 25 link at one time.
	This tool shows the top domains for a particular keyword in Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
	Live Page Rank Update.
	Alexaholic blends Alexa website traffic graphs with a lightweight ajax-enhanced interface to satisfy hard-core Alexa traffic chart junkies – aka Alexaholics.
	Run this tool to determine if your site is in the sandbox
	Google Analytics tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site. Focus your marketing resources on campaigns and initiatives that deliver ROI, and improve your site to convert more visitors.
	This tool calculates the link value per month of a given website. This value can be used for your decision you should purchase a link on that page.
	This tool simulates the Googlebot (based on User-Agent) to detect cloaked content.
	Page Rank Script of Google and Alexa Ranking for your website.,
	The Website Analyzer’s Keyword Density allow you to quickly determine the correct keyword density mix on the top scoring pages using spider technology similar to the search engines.
	Graphic display of top 50 in Google & Yahoo linked.
	Enter URL, determines density of 1, 2, and 3 word phrases.
	Check PR values across all Google datacenters.
	Google datacenter SERP checker.
	This tool allows you to preview Kontera Ads on your website. Kontera is considered as one of the good alternatives to google adsense.
	The tool is designed to satisfy the curiosity of webmasters, surfers and web marketing professionals seeking a better metric to quickly assess a site/page’s relative importance and visibility.
	This is not an SEO tool, but is very useful in determining the geographic location of an IP address using a bit of AJAX and Google Maps.
	Used to analyze the competitive landscape of a particular search term or phrase, this tool issues a percentage score and provides a detailed analysis of the top ranking sites at google and Yahoo.
	This tool will find 30 of the strongest subpages of the domain entered, and will show how many other sites are linking to those pages.
	This tool was created to analyze how the deep link ratio of a site affects its rank in search engines. We can use this tool to compare the DLRs for the best ranking sites for a search phrase.
	This tool shows the duration of a given website. This value can be used for showing how long a website take to load and if it is better to optimize the website or change a (slow) ISP.
	Google pagerank checker / Check Alexa Rank / Check Backlinks

Seo blog wordpress: Robots.txt Plugin seo blog for search engines

Robots.txt file can have a great influence on SEO blog. By excluding “useless” (for search engines) files from crawling, you can increase your Wordpress blog’s traffic and search engine rankings

An example of SEO optimized robots.txt file (should work on most blogs… just edit the sitemap URL):

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /wp-content/

User-Agent: Mediapartners-Google
Allow: /

User-Agent: Adsbot-Google
Allow: /

User-Agent: Googlebot-Image
Allow: /

User-Agent: Googlebot-Mobile
Allow: /

Sitemap: http://webmasterseoblog.com/sitemap.xml

When robots (like the Googlebot) crawl your site, they begin by requesting http://webmasterseoblog.com/robots.txt and checking it for special instructions. Use this plugin to create and edit your robots.txt file from within Wordpress (using Options -> Robots.txt).