traffic to your website

What is the best way to drive traffic to my site? What’s the fastest way to generate traffic to my site? What’s…?

We all want to know the best way to drive the greatest amount of traffic to our sites. However, the truth is that there is no best or fastest way to drive traffic! What works for me might not work for you, and vice versa. Just because I manage to get 500 visitors a day from an article I submitted to article directories doesn’t mean you can get that much traffic doing the same thing.

Of course, there are some traffic generation methods that produce better results than others. But again, it all depends on you and your situation. Let’s take article marketing as an example. Article marketing is one of the oldest and best ways to generate traffic. But the success of your article marketing campaign depends on many different things, like the number of articles you write, the number of article directories you submit to, the quality of your articles, how many articles a day you submit, and more.

My advice would be to pick a few methods from the 65 I’ve listed below, and start implementing them. Test them for yourself. Depending on your skills, you might find a method that would work wonders for you.

Don’t just follow what everybody else says. I’m not saying, “Don’t listen to experienced people who are successful in generating traffic to their site.” By all means, listen to them and do take their advice—but experiment to find out for yourself which traffic generation methods work best for you and your situation.

With that said, here are 65 simple and (mostly) free ways to generate traffic to your site.

Turn your articles and blog posts into PDFs using free PDF converters like OpenOffice. Then submit your PDFs to document sharing sites like Scribd and DocStoc.
Write truly informative and useful articles related to your niche, and publish them on WikiPedia.
Hold a contest and give prizes to your readers. Use social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to let people know about the contest. A good contest with good prizes will attract a lot of people.
Build a wiki page for your blog. To ensure your page doesn’t get deleted, create an article that is educational, informational, and not self-promoting.
Write list posts like the one you are reading. Readers love posts like “10 ways to make money” or “6 ways to drive traffic to your blog”. List posts are amongst the most popular kinds of posts, and people tend to share list posts with others more often than other posts.
Make flyers with a catchy title and a description of your blog, and post them on bulletin boards in the entrance to supermarkets and other community buildings.
Post frequently, but don’t sacrifice quantity for quality. Both search engines and visitors like to see fresh, quality content. The more content you have, the more chances you have for ranking for variety of keywords, which will mean more organic traffic for your blog.
Make a lens (or more) using Squidoo and in it, place a few links back to your blog.
Submit your blog to directories relevant to your niche, like InsLink.com (an SEO/webmaster directory).
Make it easy for non-technical readers to link to your blog or share your links with other people by making a “How to link to us” page. Here, give readers easy instructions on how to link to your blog with your keywords as anchor text.
Submit your blog to search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Or simply use AdMe.com to submit your site to over 25 search engines for free.
Use sites like Odiogo to turn your blog into a podcast, then submit your podcast to podcast websites.
Answer questions related to your niche on YahooAnswers and other Q & A sites. Include a link to your blog in the resource box.
Submit your blog to social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon.
Write and submit articles to article directories like EzineArticles and ArticleDashboard.
Turn your articles to videos using free video creation services like Animoto, and submit them to video directories such as YouTube and DailyMotion.
Build a Facebook fan page for your blog.
Make use of plugins like Tell-a-Friend to let your readers quickly share your posts with their friends and family vie email.
Use Hi5 to build a page for your blog and create a community around it.
Don’t clutter your blog with too many pictures, ads, and so on. Keep it clean and easy to navigate. This will help both search engines and visitors to navigate around your blog easily and quickly.
Join BlogEngage to submit your blog and create a community around it.
Ping your blog posts using free ping services such as Pingler and Pingoat.
Create a hub about your blog on HubPages.
Register with few good niche-related forums and use your signature to place links pointing to your blog. Participate in discussions and contribute as much as you can.
Make it easy for your readers to share your posts by installing social bookmarking plugins like SocialMarker and Digg Buttons.
Readers like to read other people’s comments, especially those who responded to their comments. So, take advantage of that by using a plug-in like Comment Notifier to automatically let your readers know of new comments posted on your blog.
Make your blog more search engine friendly by using SEO plug-ins such as Platinum SEO Pack.
Target long-tail keywords with low competition and try to rank for them. Such keywords are easier to rank for in search engines and give you much more targeted traffic.
Make a MySpace page for your blog.
Make business cards with your blog info on them, hand them to friends and family, and ask them to pass them on. Mall parking lots are good place to pass your cards around. In some states you can even put your business card on windshields. You can get up to 250 free business cards using sites like VistaPrint (although you do have to pay $5 shipping).
Submit your blog to the free directories like DMOZ (hard to get into, but well worth the effort!).
Write a good press release, or hire a professional to do it for you (you can get a pretty decent press release written for you for $5 on Fiverr.com), and submit them to free press release distribution sites like PR.com.
Write creative and attention-grabbing ads about your blog, and publish them on free classified ads sites such as CraigsList and UsFreeAds.
Controversial posts attract visitors. Write a controversial post. Be creative and bold, but be careful not to cross the boundaries.
Ask an expert or a trusted, well-known person in your niche for an interview. Then post the entire interview on your blog, either as a text post or as a video.
Leave quality comments on blogs that are related to your niche. Make sure your comments add value to the blog. Don’t just spam-comment and hope for the best. It never works, and your links will get deleted. Worst of all, you might get blacklisted from the site. If you leave a useful comment, people will be more likely to visit your blog.
Use free banner-making tools like BannerFans to make an interesting banner for your blog. Then find other bloggers in your niche and exchange banners with them.
Exchange links with other blogs in your niche. Don’t go overboard with this technique, or exchange links with each and every blog you find—be selective and make sure the context for your link is appropriate. Most people use their main keyword as the anchor text for their link, that’s good for SEO. But, if you want to get more traffic from those links, instead use attention-grabbing text as your anchor text. Don’t use “Make Money Online” for your link text—people are used to seeing those links all over the web. Instead use something like “10 ways to make $10 in 10 minutes.”
If you find interesting posts on other blogs, write a post about them and link to them. The other bloggers will notice and might do the same for you.
Find good blogs in your niche that accept guest posts. You can either search manually or make it easy for yourself by registering for free with MyBlogGuest, which matches guest bloggers with blogs that accept guest posts. Write and submit your best articles to get the maximum exposure. Don’t just submit the article and leave. Make sure you follow up and respond to comments and questions that readers of those blogs ask.
Submit your site to review sites that write reviews on other websites and blogs, like CoolSiteOfTheDay.
Submit your blog to BlogCatalog.
People love free stuff, so give out freebies that are related to your niche. If you are in “online money making” niche, a free ebook that teaches people who to make money on Twitter might make an appropriate freebie.
Write a page on 43things.com about your blog and what you want to do with it.
Use your keywords in the title of your posts. Having your keyword in the title makes it easier for you to rank for that keyword, thus bringing you more organic traffic.
Use your blog’s name as your username on forums, social networking sites, and other places like YahooAnswers. People are curious by nature, so they may check out your blog out of curiosity and if you have good compelling content, they may become your loyal readers.
Make a bumper sticker with your blog address on it, and place it on your car’s bumper. You can even ask your friends and family to do the same for you!
Make a Twitter profile for your blog and tweet each and every post you publish on your blog.
Register with EntreCard and start dropping your card on other blogs. You will be amazed how much traffic you can get from EntreCard.
Register with ComLUV.com and download their plugin.Then use the Global CommentLuv Search to find blogs related to your niche and comment on them. It will return up to ten (recent) posts that will be sent back when you comment on a CommentLuv enabled site. Most are dofollow blogs, and you will get dofollow links back to your most recent posts. This is good for link building and getting some traffic.
Make a free ebook with a link back to your site in it, and submit it to free ebook sites like GetFreeEbooks.com.

DON'T FORGOT TO PLAY FREE ONLINE GAMES @ www.GamesWala.com

Buy .info domains with long-tail keywords in them and use a redirect to send the traffic they receive to your main site.
Rent a mailing list and send high-quality content with a link back to your site to all the subscribers. Take care with this technique so that you’re not blacklisted as a spammer, though. Find a reputable list broker—or, if in doubt, why not start your own?
Post a classified ad on eBayClassified with a link to your site.
When you eat out, leave a good tip along with a business card with your site info on it.
Create a short report with resell rights and and include your links in the report. Give it to people for free: those people can sell the report to others as their own, so long as they don’t remove your links. The results of this technique will surprise you.
Come up with a really crazy but buzz-worthy post and submit it to NowPublic.com (Previously known as Truemors). If it’s good enough, it might just go viral!
Go to YouTube, find popular videos related to your niche and start commenting on those videos with a link back to your blog. Youtube videos get thousands of views, and since most people are sociable creatures, they will read the comments no matter how far down the list your comment is.
Create a page (personal or business) at LookUpPage.com. You can add as many links to your blog as you like. Write a short “about” post about yourself or your blog, and make sure to link to your Twitter and other social networking sites as well. After creating the page, bookmark it using SocialMarker and ping it with Pingler (or any other tools you like).
Register with Visible.me for free, and add links and information about your blog. Its a great way to build your brand and get a few backlinks from a high-PR (6) dofollow site.
Submit your RSS feed to RSS aggregators. Here, I don’t mean just your blog’s RSS feed: grab the RSS url of every site you have a link on (example: if you submit articles to ezine.com, you will have your own “author RSS” URL), and go to RssMix.com. It will let you make a custom RSS feed. Take that and submit it to RSS directories and aggregators. This will put your RSS feed on steroids—and will give you many more backlinks.
Make a few (yard) signs with your blog’s URL and a good title related to your niche, and place them on highway exit ramps, at busy intersections, and so on. Make sure you abide by the laws in your own state or country if you try this approach.
Put an ad in your local newspaper. If you live in a small town, it may not be very expensive to have an ad on your local newspaper—or on TV or radio, for that matter.
Order some T-shirts with your blog URL and title printed on them and give them away. People will check out your URL!
This is just for fun, so enjoy it! Make a big and I mean big sandal (or flip flop) with your blog’s URL engraved on the bottom, go to a busy beach, and start walking all over the sand! Leave your mark for others to see.

These methods will keep you busy for a while. But perhaps the most important tip I can give you is to be patient. Getting traffic to a blog takes time and a lot of work. You cannot expect to have hundreds of visitors after a few weeks, or months of starting your blog. But, if you are a dedicated person who’s willing to put enough time and effort into it, you can’t help but attract more visitors to your blog over time.

Which of these ideas do you like? What has or hasn’t worked for you? Share your experiences with us in the comments.




DONT FORGOT TO PLAY FREE ONLINE GAMES @ www.GamesWala.com :)

Tycoons Who Won't Be Leaving Their Fortunes To Their Kids

Warren Buffett

As an incredibly wealthy investor and philanthropist, Buffett has pledged to give away 99 percent of his wealth, either during his life or when he dies. He started by promising 83 percent of it to the Gates Foundation.

The Oracle of Omaha isn't worried about his children not getting their fair share. Echoing a common sentiment on this list, Buffett once said "I want to give my kids just enough so that they would feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing."

Michael Bloomberg

The mayor of New York City gets paid $1 a year for his government duties because with a net worth of $19.5 billion, he's pretty much set financially.

But Bloomberg is also an avid philanthropist, having donated millions to Johns Hopkins University, the Carnegie Corporation, and thousands of other non-profits. In his letter to The Giving Pledge, Bloomberg wrote that "nearly all of my net worth will be given away in the years ahead or left to my foundation."

Bloomberg's two daughters, however, may be left to foot the bill upon his death. Bloomberg once said "the best financial planning ends with bouncing the check to the undertaker."

Gene Simmons

Getty Images

The bassist for KISS, one of the best selling American bands of all time, is a self-made man. He was born in Israel, moved to Queens with his mother, and started a group that would end up compiling 28 gold records over the years.

Simmons wants the same path for his two kids, Nick and Sophie: "...in terms of an inheritance and stuff, they're gonna be taken care of, but they will never be rich off my money. Because every year they should be forced to get up out of bed, and go out and work and make their own way." So the $300 million bucks that belong to Simmons will be headed somewhere else upon his death.

Bill Gates

The founder and chairman of Microsoft is often cited as one of the richest people in the world, if not the richest. But Bill and wife Melinda aren't interested in keeping that money for themselves, or for their three children.

"I knew I didn't think it was a good idea to give the money to my kids. That wouldn't be good either for my kids or society," he told The Sun in 2010.

Instead, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was founded in 1994, and today has assets of over $37 billion dollars. In fact, the Foundation also started "The Giving Pledge," which invites other wealthy individuals to join the Gates' lead and donate half their money to charity.

Bernard Marcus

Marcus grew up in Newark, New Jersey to Russian immigrant parents, and went on to start Home Depot. His retail success helped him accumulate $1.5 billion in net worth. His philanthropic efforts include funding the Georgia Aquarium and starting the Marcus Foundation.

Not wanting his kids to inherit large sums of money — for their own good, he says — Marcus plans on giving the majority of his Home Depot stock to his foundation, which benefits the handicapped and education.

Ted Turner

Turner is such a prominent philanthropist that he is as famous for giving away money as he is for making it.

After accumulating his wealth through the founding of media outlets like CNN and TBS, Turner has gone on to give literally billions of dollars to causes like the United Nations Foundation.

Turner has five children from three marriages, but they shouldn't be expecting a large endowment once he passes. Whether jokingly or not, Turner was quoted in 2010 as saying he was "almost to the edge of poverty" and just wants enough money to cover funeral expenses when he dies.

William Barron Hilton

Hilton in 1986

Hilton, as the name suggests, is head of the Hilton Hotels Corporation, which he inherited from his father Conrad. Conrad left 97 percent of his wealth to charity, but Barron contested the will and ended up receiving a sizable fortune instead.

The grandfather of socialite Paris Hilton may have been thinking of his hard-partying progeny when he decided to follow in his father's footsteps, pledging to leave 97 percent of his money to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, with an immediate pledge of $1.2 billion. The remaining 3% will be given to his heirs, including his eight children and their offspring.

T. Boone Pickens

Pickens spent his whole life — from delivering newspapers to taking over Gulf Oil — making money via acquisition. The corporate raider now has a net worth of $1.4 billion because of it.

So it's no surprise that Pickens isn't in favor of handing his money over for free, even to his kids. Pickens is one of America's billionaires to take The Giving Pledge, donating at least half of his money to charity. And when asked about leaving money for his children, he had this to say: "I've long stated that I enjoy making money, and I enjoy giving it away ... I'm not a big fan of inherited wealth. It generally does more harm than good."

DONT FORGOT TO PLAY FREE ONLINE GAMES @ www.GamesWala.com :)

12 Quick Tips To Search Google Like An Expert

If you’re like me, you probably use Google many times a day. But, chances are, unless you are a technology geek, you probably still use Google in its simplest form. If your current use of Google is limited to typing a few words in, and changing your query until you find what you’re looking for, then I’m here to tell you that there’s a better way – and it’s not hard to learn. On the other hand, if you are a technology geek, and can use Google like the best of them already, then I suggest you bookmark this article of Google search tips. You’ll then have the tips on hand when you are ready to pull your hair out in frustration when watching a neophyte repeatedly type in basic queries in a desperate attempt to find something.
The following Google search tips are based on my own experience and things that I actually find useful. The list is by no means comprehensive. But, I assure you that by learning and using the 12 tips below, you’ll rank up there with the best of the Google experts out there. I’ve kept the descriptions of the search tips intentionally terse as you’re likely to grasp most of these simply by looking at the example from Google anyways.

12 Expert Google Search Tips

1. Explicit Phrase:
   Lets say you are looking for content about internet marketing. Instead of just typing internet marketing into the Google search box, you will likely be better off searching explicitly for the phrase. To do this, simply enclose the search phrase within double quotes.

   Example: "internet marketing"

2. Exclude Words:
   Lets say you want to search for content about internet marketing, but you want to exclude any results that contain the term advertising. To do this, simply use the "-" sign in front of the word you want to exclude.

   Example Search: internet marketing -advertising

3. Site Specific Search:
   Often, you want to search a specific website for content that matches a certain phrase. Even if the site doesn’t support a built-in search feature, you can use Google to search the site for your term. Simply use the "site:somesite.com" modifier.

   Example: "internet marketing" site:www.smallbusinesshub.com

4. Similar Words and Synonyms:
   Let’s say you want to include a word in your search, but want to include results that contain similar words or synonyms. To do this, use the "~" in front of the word.

   Example: "internet marketing" ~professional

5. Specific Document Types:
   If you’re looking to find results that are of a specific type, you can use the modifier "filetype:". For example, you might want to find only PowerPoint presentations related to internet marketing.

   Example: "internet marketing" filetype:ppt

6. This OR That:
   By default, when you do a search, Google will include all the terms specified in the search. If you are looking for any one of one or more terms to match, then you can use the OR operator. (Note: The OR has to be capitalized).

   Example: internet marketing OR advertising

7. Phone Listing:
   Let’s say someone calls you on your mobile number and you don’t know who it is. If all you have is a phone number, you can look it up on Google using the phonebook feature.

   Example: phonebook:617-555-1212 (note: the provided number does not work – you’ll have to use a real number to get any results).

8. Area Code Lookup:
   If all you need to do is to look-up the area code for a phone number, just enter the 3-digit area code and Google will tell you where it’s from.

   Example: 617

9. Numeric Ranges:
   This is a rarely used, but highly useful tip. Let’s say you want to find results that contain any of a range of numbers. You can do this by using the X..Y modifier (in case this is hard to read, what’s between the X and Y are two periods.) This type of search is useful for years (as shown below), prices, or anywhere where you want to provide a series of numbers.

   Example: president 1940..1950

10. Stock (Ticker Symbol):
    Just enter a valid ticker symbol as your search term and Google will give you the current financials and a quick thumb-nail chart for the stock.

    Example: GOOG

11. Calculator:
    The next time you need to do a quick calculation, instead of bringing up the Calculator applet, you can just type your expression in to Google.

    Example: 48512 * 1.02

12. Word Definitions:
    If you need to quickly look up the definition of a word or phrase, simply use the "define:" command.

    Example: define:plethora

Hope this list of Google search tips proves useful in your future Google searches. If there are any of your favorite Google expert power tips that I’ve missed, please feel free to share them in the comments.




DONT FORGOT TO PLAY FREE ONLINE GAMES @ www.GamesWala.com :)

A Marketer's Guide to Accumulating Awesome Online Reviews

The results of the Local Consumer Review Survey (2012) are in, and Search Engine Land pulled out some interesting pieces of data around the impact of online reviews on consumers' purchasing decisions.

So, how important are online reviews to consumers? Survey says: Very! Let's dive into some of the most interesting results to learn why consumers are relying on online reviews more, and why it's critical that your business has an expansive arsenal of positive reviews. Or, if you're already convinced of how crucial online reviews are to your business, skip past that section to read how you can generate more positive online reviews for your business.

Why Your Business Needs Quality Online Reviews

If your business relies on customers that value quality over price, this first bit of data should make you happy. 52% of consumers reported that positive customer reviews make them more likely to use a local business compared to just 28%, who make their selection based on other factors like location and price. Even more encouraging for businesses, 52% of consumers trust online reviews just as much as personal recommendations -- provided they look authentic, of course. A Bazaarvoice survey published some interesting complementary survey results of its own just a couple months back, citing that 51% of people actually found user-generated content more important than the opinions of their friends and family.

That's good news for marketers and business owners, because it means you have more control over how your business is represented. If you choose to take an active role in generating online reviews, that is.

The survey's findings also revealed that 76% of consumers regularly or occasionally use online reviews to determine which local business to use. And consumers are getting more savvy at parsing reviews for quality, too. Take a look at how consumer research behavior has changed in just the past two years.

Most people look at 2-10 reviews to establish which business to use, with the majority falling in the '2-3 reviews' range. This doesn't mean you can stop at just 10 reviews, though. The study noted that having a large number of reviews gave users more confidence in the legitimacy of the star ratings and in the few reviews they do actually read. It makes sense -- the bigger the sample size, the more legitimate the results, right?

How to Generate Online Reviews for Your Business

So how do you capitalize on this to generate more positive online reviews for your business? Here are some ideas that businesses of all types can utilize.

Dominate Search Engines With Your Review Presence

Before we get into the creative ways to generate reviews, you must start with the basics -- setting up your presence on external review sites and social media. Socialnomics reports that for the world's largest brands, 25% of search results return user-generated content from review sites, blogs, and social media updates. Additionally, eMarketer reports that 65% of users age 18-24 consider information on social networks when making a purchasing decision. If people are writing about your brand on external review sites and on social media anyway, don't you think you should be in control of the conversation, and even encouraging it?

Grab hold of your presence on external review sites like Yelp! (you can learn how to optimize your presence in this blog post about improving your Yelp! presence), Google Places, and Insider Pages, and give your social media accounts some real estate dedicated to online reviews. Then -- and this is the key to your success here -- ask people to give you reviews.

That's right, it's just like getting an inbound link or closing a sale. You might get some organically, but if you expect perpetual success, you need to ask customers to write reviews of your business on these sites. But that's why taking charge of generating online reviews is so important -- you can focus these efforts on the right people! Would you ask a website that has no relevance to your business to link to you? Would you ask someone to buy your product or service if they didn't want or need it? Ask the happy customers to write reviews for you on these sites, and their presence will outweigh the occasional Negative Nancy that crops up with even the best companies. Incorporate your request whenever you interview a happy customer for a case study or when your customer service team comes across a particularly exuberant one.

Create a Designated Review Space on Your Website

External sites are important for generating online reviews, but your leads and customers are on your website all the time! Why not create a dedicated place for happy customers to submit their stories -- and where other site potential customers can also read those stories? Having reviews of your product or service readily accessible when site visitors are in the research phase is key -- do you really want to send them off-site to look for reviews? Housecleaning franchise Molly Maid executes this well with its dedicated testimonial section.

Make it easy for current customers to submit their reviews so you always have fresh content for this section of your site. If you're a HubSpot customer, you can do this quickly for your own website by setting up a landing page with a form prompting customers to share their experiences with you. You don't need a lot of fields -- just 'Name,' 'Email,' and 'Write a Review.' If you're in a service-oriented business, I recommend linking to this form on your website's homepage so your customers don't have to dig deep to find where they can provide feedback.

Not only does this let you easily collect content for a dedicated review section of your site, but it also lets you generate feedback from unhappy customers so you can resolve their issues before they take to social media and external review sites to publicize their unhappy experiences.

Send an Email Marketing Campaign Dedicated to Generating Reviews

After a customer completes a purchase (and if you sell products, has received it and had time to use it), send a follow-up email marketing campaign asking them to write a review. Give them the option to share their opinions publicly or privately. If you have a weekly or monthly newsletter to update customers on new offerings, consider including this as a call-to-action in those emails, too. You can even create a survey to get more detailed feedback that helps you make product and service improvements!

Include Links to Your Review Properties in Your Email Signature

Speaking of email, companies that get plenty of customer love are those who take advantage of every opportunity to generate new customer reviews on all their properties. Links should be included in the email signatures of everyone in your company, especially those interacting with customers on a daily basis. Be sure to provide links to all of the places someone can give a review; it gives customers the option to choose the review site they use most frequently, the social media account they feel more comfortable with, or simply to submit a review to you via email or on a landing page on your website.

Leverage Your Blog

If you're the awesome inbound marketer I know you to be, you're an avid blogger who is always looking for a hot new article topic. Take a cue from sites like UncommonGoods, which aggregates user-generated content for blog content. UncommonGoods encourages its customers to send in comments about their products and picks some of them to feature in blog posts. They tag these blog posts 'Product Reviews,' or you could choose something like 'Customer Reviews' for your own business.

Aggregating comments in this manner not only feeds your blog, but it also lets you bring in reviews from all your online properties -- Twitter (don't forget to embed those tweets in your post), Facebook, the comments section of your blog and product pages, etc. Creating a blog post around these reviews will also give them more permanence than they receive in social media. Just think if someone typed the query 'company x customer reviews' into a search engine, and your blog post appears in the top of the SERPs!

Tailor it to Your Point of Sale

Alright, this sounds all well and good for online businesses. But when I close business, it's not online! If you close business on the phone, in person, with pen and paper, behind a cash register, or anywhere else that's not on the internet, you still have recourse to generate online reviews!

In fact, Search Engine Land cites CustomerLobby CEO Ted Paff saying, "Comment card reviews solicited at the time of service can see completion rates of 80-90%." It makes sense; the point of sale is the height of customer euphoria. Take advantage of these feelings by verbally asking your customer to write out his or her experience via a feedback or comment card. Include it on the back of their receipt. Staple it to their contract. Verbally direct them to your website, an external review site, or a social media account. Just be sure to ask permission to share the feedback on your website.

(Tip: Incentivize your sales and customer service team to collect positive customer reviews. Making this part of their bonus program is well worth the investment!)

Create Case Studies

Take serious control over generating reviews for your business by creating case studies. Often, businesses think of case studies as long, written documentation of the results customers see with their business -- but it doesn't have to be that complicated! HubSpot loves to create written content around its current customers, but we also love to create video content around them. In fact, we have an entire section of our site dedicated to case studies -- many of which include a video component -- that detail how customers from all types of industries use our product to their advantage.

We also create shorter videos called "I HubSpot Because" and promote them using the hashtag #hubspotting, where we ask customers in a more informal setting why they HubSpot -- to get more leads, to make more money, to watch the orange sprocket spin when the log in -- whatever!

If you don't have the resources to dedicate to creating case study videos but you meet with customers on a regular basis, ask the happy ones if you can take a quick 30 second video with them about why they use your product or service. Not all case studies have to be long and stuffy; just feature one or two things your product or service is capable of doing from your customer's perspective.

Leverage Your Lead Generation Content

Many businesses who try to generate online reviews focus on their customers (we have for the most part in this blog post ourselves). But have you ever considered generating reviews from your leads?

You create remarkable content to generate and nurture leads. The leads that consume your content frequently, you can infer, find it extremely helpful. So ask them to tell the world! Consider adding links to your review properties to your thank-you pages -- you know, the pages that appear after a lead downloads a new piece of content from your website. You can even include it as a secondary call-to-action in your lead nurturing content. A review from someone that talks not about your products or services, but you -- as a company that provides helpful information -- is still hugely valuable for your brand's reputation.

7 Places You Need to Publish Content on Your Website (Beyond Your Blog)

Inbound marketers know content creation is key to their success, so it makes sense that business blogs are one of their most precious marketing assets. Blogging is a natural way to get more indexed pages on your website, create content around keywords you want to rank for in search, and convert site visitors into customers.
But once companies master blogging, isn't there another way to expand content creation efforts on your website? Aren't there other parts of your website to which you can publish the valuable content you've become so great at creating -- and maybe drive even more traffic, leads, and customers for your business?
In short, yes, there are plenty of other ways to house content on your website (and if you're a HubSpot customer, making an addition to your navigation is simple)! While you may not update these parts of your website as frequently as a blog (we update our blog multiple times daily, for example) adding these content repositories to your website -- or updating the ones that already exist -- will help you drive even more traffic, and convert those visitors into leads and customers.
Don't let content creation begin and end with blogging. Consider building out or updating these areas of your website with fresh content to create a truly comprehensive content library that you and your site visitors can benefit from.

News Room

You're likely familiar with the 'News Room' concept for websites -- many companies have them, including yours truly. The news section of a website is often found under the 'About Us' portion of the main navigation, and contains content like press releases about company and product updates, event information, mentions of your company in the news, and awards received. That's a lot of content!
Perhaps that's why it's so common to stumble across the 'News' section of a website and find nothing has been updated in years. This can be due to lack of new content to publish -- perhaps your company hasn't received much news coverage -- or just plain negligence. While we can't help you with negligence, there are ways to make sure the content on the 'News' section of your website always remains fresh.
First, don't break out all of the components of a website news section into multiple sub-navigations if you don't have the content to fill it. Combine your press releases, event information, company and product updates, awards received, and company news in a rolling feed. In fact, you can think of it kind of like a second blog! And to ensure there truly is content for that second blog, don't just wait for others to write about you. It's okay -- in this context -- to write about yourself. If you're working on a new product release, write a few paragraphs about how features are progressing. If a partner of yours gets news coverage, share that in this section; your partners' successes are your successes, too. Aim for just one update a month so this section of your site never looks dormant to visitors and leads researching more about your company.
(Tip: Some companies are found in the news so often that they face the opposite problem -- there's so much content, their news section looks completely disorganized! Categorize content by month to make it easier for visitors to sort through.)

Resource Center

Resource centers are ideal locations to house your long-form educational content like whitepapers, guides, and ebooks. Many marketers are reticent to launch a resource center though, because the bulk of their long form content is reserved for lead generation and driving reconversions through lead nurturing. You don't want to make that content totally public, right?
Fair point, but there is a best-of-both-worlds solution! First, if there is any content you've created that you're willing to share with the world form-free, publish it. The rest of your content, however, can still be behind a form. Simply draft an abstract or select a poignant excerpt from the content to publish as a sort of preview. Then, direct the visitor to the landing page where the content can be redeemed. We do this with our long-form content in our own resource center to help drive more leads and reconversions. What a great supplement to your calls-to-action in lead nurturing emails and blog content!

Your resource center can also house third-party content like market research and analyst reports. If you work with third party content creators or researchers, offer to publish their long-form content in your resource center. It gets them more visibility in front of a new audience, and it can help you keep the content in your resource center fresh.

Product & Service Data Center

Many B2B companies have technical documentation centered around their product or service -- content like data sheets, integration information, FAQs, and release notes. Sometimes businesses choose to wrap these into their resource center, but if you have extensive documentation to publish, it's best to separate this from your resource center content. Why? Because the traffic to your resource center is in a different stage of the buying cycle than the traffic interested in looking at technical documentation surrounding your product or service.

Publish content here for leads and business partners in the 'evaluation' and 'purchase' stages of the buying cycle -- they are more interested in your solution than those visiting your resource center. And to make the most of this content, don't forget to include 'purchase'-oriented calls-to-action on these web pages, and within the content itself!

Product Details

If you're in ecommerce marketing, you have a unique opportunity to leverage the non-blog portion of your website to create new content. For every product for sale on most ecommerce sites, there's a product description section underneath that's all too often left blank or filled with generic (or worse, duplicate) content from the manufacturer. Take advantage of this space to write unique, keyword-optimized content that describes the product, compels readers to take action, and helps you rank for important search terms. HubSpot customer OneIHI does this exceptionally well, drafting content that's informative, engaging, optimized, and comprehensive below each product.

To keep the page content fresh, you can also enable user comments and reviews under the product details. And we all know how crucial reviews are to establishing a prospect's trust in your business.

Learning Center

If you set up a learning center, you can create use cases -- pieces of content that show how your product or service can be used to solve your customers' problems. This content can be long-form or short-form written content, videos, or even just images with brief explanatory captions. HubSpot, for example, features customer examples of landing pages, calls-to-action, blogs, and the like that has been made using HubSpot's software.

Encourage customers to submit instances of using your product or service successfully (you can set up a landing page to collect their responses), and incentivize your customer service and support teams to collect such stories to keep the content on these pages fresh. If you opt for visual content like images or videos to demonstrate your use cases, be sure to accompany it with explanatory copy, even if it's brief. Aside from being a helpful complement to the visual content, keyword-optimized copy can help you rank for solution-seeking search terms like "how to create a landing page" or "examples of good calls-to-action."
HubSpot also includes information about what product functionality is being utilized; if you have different feature levels, customers reading these use cases may be inspired by a feature they don't have, and purchase additional services from you. Talk about revenue-generating content!
As with the news section of your website, be sure to categorize your use cases in the manner that makes the most sense for your business -- like location, industry, or product or service type -- to make browsing simple for visitors.

Multimedia Content Library

Although written content is often the focus of marketers' content creation efforts, consumers certainly love to consume other content formats. Do you have an arsenal of multimedia content, like podcasts, webcasts, and videos? Consider creating an item in your sub-navigation to feature this content. Multimedia content requires more time and dedication to consume than written content -- visitors have to pull out headphones, switch on their volume, possibly duck from their boss -- so give them one central location from which to watch and listen to this content. And just like the content in your resource center, your multimedia content can still live behind a lead generation form. Just be sure to write a brief description of the video, podcast, or webinar with the call-to-action!
(Tip: If you don't have enough multimedia content to warrant its own section of your site, you can group this in with the content in your resource center.)

Reviews, Testimonials, & Case Studies

Setting up a dedicated section of your website for reviews, testimonials, and case study content is crucial for leads in the 'evaluation' stage in the buying cycle. HubSpot breaks the content up into shorter customer reviews (pictured below) and longer, more in-depth content in the form of customer case studies.

Case study content typically requires more time and investment to create than customer reviews, so if you're just getting started with this section of your website, consider the tabbed approach you see above. You can begin with one page with only short customer reviews, sourced from all over the web. Notice the HubSpot reviews come from guest blog posts on our own site, external blog posts, LinkedIn reviews, and even Yahoo! Answers. Keeping this content fresh will be much more manageable than churning out new case studies every month.
Once you've accumulated 3-5 case studies for your business -- whether they are video recordings or written content -- create a separate tab or another point of sub-navigation to publish them. As with all other content repositories on your site, categorize the case studies in a way that makes sense for your site visitors and sales team. We've found categorizing case studies by industry helps leads and our sales team find the most appropriate content quickly.

DONT FORGOT TO PLAY FREE ONLINE GAMES @ www.GamesWala.com :)

Conversion Assists: How to Leverage Your Site's Most Influential Pages

If you've ever played a sport that regarded the 'assist' as an important statistic, you know how valuable it can be. I grew up playing soccer for most of my adolescence, and although I was never the highest scoring player, I was always one of the most regular contributors to making assists. And to be honest, setting my teammates up for success somehow felt even more rewarding than scoring goals myself.

In marketing, assists can be extremely valuable, too. So for you marketers who have always exercised a bit of a competitive drive as well as a love for analytics, you might just go into marketing shock from all the awesome stuff you're about to learn about the role of assists (and how you can leverage them) in inbound marketing.

What Are Conversion Assists, and Why Are They Important?

When we talk about assists in the marketing world, we're generally referring to what we call conversion assists. Simply speaking, conversion assists are pages on your website that your visitors viewed before they converted into leads or customers.

Understanding a website's conversion assists can help marketers identify the most influential pages and interactions on their website. In doing so, they can learn a lot about why those pages are and aren't effective and apply those insights to both improving poor-performing web pages on their site and enhancing other components of their marketing to increase conversions.

How to Analyze Your Conversion Assists and Improve Conversions

Want to start improving the conversion of your web pages? Analyze your conversion assists and start making changes for the better by following these 5 steps.

Step 1: Identify your top conversion assist pages.

The first thing you'll need to do is understand which of your pages are your best-assisting website pages. For HubSpot Professional and Enterprise customers, starting today you can access a new tool, Conversion Assists, in your Analyze tab. The tool will allow you to analyze pages by specific categories (e.g. landing pages vs. standard pages vs. blog posts) as well as by specific date ranges. Users will also be able to toggle between a tab showing conversion assists for leads (the pages leads viewed before they converted into leads) and conversion assists for customers (the pages customers viewed before they converted into customers). It will provide a percentage for each conversion assist page, which represents the percentage of leads/customers who viewed that page before converting. In other words, the pages with the highest percentage indicate your top-assisting web pages.

For Google Analytics users, identifying your conversion assist pages is a little bit trickier, though still doable. Click here to find out how.

Step 2: Identify patterns among your top pages.

There could be a number of reasons why your top pages are...well...your top pages. The trick here is to use some logic to identify what these reasons actually are. For example, it would make sense that your products/pricing pages have high assist percentages for customer conversions, because you'd assume that most of your customers would check out those pages before becoming customers, right?

Draw conclusions like this for the rest of your conversion assist pages. Look at your top-assisting landing pages, for instance. What types of offers (webinars, ebooks, etc.) contribute the most to conversions? What topics do they cover? Do you notice that landing pages that are formatted a certain way have higher assist percentages than others? Apply similar logic to your blog pages. Do you notice that certain topics you're writing about have higher assist percentages than others? How does this vary between leads and customers? For example, blog posts about topic X might have high assist percentages for leads, whereas blog posts about topic Y might have high assist percentages for customers. Once you identify some of the reasons behind why your top-performing pages are top performers, you can start to make improvements to poor-performing pages and adjustments to other aspects of your marketing.

Step 3: Leverage insights from top pages to improve lead nurturing efforts.

Use the insights you've gathered from your top customer conversion assist pages to inform and improve your lead nurturing campaigns. Adjust the individual emails in your lead nurturing series to include relevant content (e.g. landing pages and blog articles) that have the highest assist percentages for converting customers. This will enable you to create more effective lead nurturing campaigns that increase lead-to-customer conversions.

Step 4: Create more content on topics similar to those of top pages.

If you've noticed that certain types of offers (e.g. ebooks vs. webinars) or certain topics covered in your content have higher assist percentages than others, this could indicate that your target audience prefers content in one format over another or wants to learn about certain topics more than others. Use this information to inform future content creation so you spend your time creating the kinds of content your audience is interested in -- and, thus, the type of content that converts them!

Step 5: Improve the calls-to-action on poorly performing web pages.

For this exercise, you'll want to switch it up and take a look at some of your worst offending web pages so you can improve the calls-to-action (CTAs) on those pages. The idea here is, if a web page is low on your list of conversion assist pages, it's probably not sending traffic to pages that are successfully converting visitors. The likely reason is that the page's CTAs either aren't getting clicked on in the first place, or the landing pages those CTAs point to aren't effectively converting visitors.

To identify which of these problems pertains to your poorly performing pages, you need to first take a look at the individual CTAs on your pages. You'll likely encounter one of two problems:

Problem A: If a CTA points to a landing page that has a high conversion assist percentage itself, what you likely have on your hands is a CTA click-through problem. Maybe the language of the CTA doesn't effectively demonstrate the value of the offer, perhaps the button isn't placed prominently enough on the page, or maybe the button just doesn't have an appealing or eye-catching design. The only way to find out is to conduct some A/B testing so you can isolate different variables and ultimately improve the click-through on your CTAs. Here's a great blog post to get you started with A/B testing your CTAs.

Problem B: If your CTA points to a landing page that has a low conversion assist percentage, this probably indicates that the offer on that page isn't one of your best ones. In this case, try swapping the CTA on the page with one that points toward a landing page that you've noticed has a high conversion assist percentage.

Marketers should take this analysis even one step further by factoring in the website visitor's likely stage in the buying cycle when they're visiting certain pages, and aligning that knowledge with the most appropriate CTAs for that stage. For example, if you're analyzing a product page with a low conversion assist percentage and you've identified that its CTA falls under the category of Problem B, the new CTA you choose should be one that both (A) points toward a landing page with a high customer conversion assist percentage and (B) also represents a more middle-of-the-funnel offer like a product demo or free trial. This is because someone visiting a product page is more likely to (A) already be a lead and (B) be closer to a purchasing decision.

As you can see, analyzing your conversion assist data can offer a wealth of information and insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your marketing. Taking the time to conduct this 5-step analysis can help you increase conversions and create a more efficient lead generation and lead nurturing marketing machine.

Have you conducted similar analysis of your website's conversion assists? How did it help you improve your website's conversions?

DONT FORGOT TO PLAY FREE ONLINE GAMES @ www.GamesWala.com :)

8 things to avoid at the gym

Irrespective of you present status at the gym of being an enthusiastic starter or a seasoned bodybuilder, there are some things you should stay away from at the gym:

1. Common Distractions

You need to maintain your focus at the gym. This is the basic requirement to avoid injuries and to ensure that you can make actual ‘gains’ (the slang for gaining muscle). It is vital that you use your gymming time for meeting your fitness goals rather than chatting away and ogling at others. Try to avoid bringing your mobile to the gym. Mobiles are our constant connection with the outer world. Inside the gym, your weights and the coach are the only ones you should concentrate upon. Stop getting distracted by pretty girls. Even if you find them irresistible, ensure that you have the basic degree of alertness to maintain the right posture when exercising. Other distracting factors usually found at gyms include:
· Talkative buddies who seem to confuse the gym for their office cafeteria
· Over-indulgent gymming folks who keep on advising, relentlessly
· Extremely loud music that takes away your concentration
· Gymming buddies who crib too much and suck-away your enthusiasm

2. Overdependence on Gadgets

Try to remember one small but very true piece of gymming wisdom, i.e. if you are serious about attaining your gymming goals, keep it simple. This means don’t over-indulge in gadgets that alert you about the smallest of issues like your how much you are perspiring or your cardiac rate. Within the gym, you are supposed to push yourself. Taking too many precautions means you are going to end up working-out smartly without exercising hard enough. If serious muscle gain is your goal, ditch the gadgets.

3. Jumping at Bigger Weights & Dumbbells

Yes, gymming is also about testing yourself but you need to mix precaution with the zeal to lift heavier weights. You need to understand that gymming injuries can be very serious. Secondly, lifting extremely heavy weights is recommended only when you have attained a certain degree of muscle mass and overall fitness. Trying to lift too heavy, too early can cause tissue damage. This doesn’t make sense as it will only deter your ability to gain muscle. Lastly, lifting much beyond your capacity is recommended only if you are serious about bulking-up. This too is done in short, programmed phases and not just out of pure curiosity to test your physical limits.

4. Your Ego

This is especially for those who have a tendency of not adhering to instructions. The more seasoned gym-going crowd, the coaches and instructors have a lot to offer. However, they can be of help only if you are ready to listen. Every trainer has a certain method. If you find that his method doesn’t match your requirements or viewpoint, make the effort of clarifying things with him at the earliest. Leave your ego at the entrance door of gym and enter with a humbler attitude.
5. Crowded Changing Rooms
Yes, the showers and the changing room at the gym are meant to be used but some caution is avoided. Unless you are fully satisfied about the hygiene of these places, you would be much better-off not frequenting them. Crowded changing rooms are a breeding ground for some of the most common skin infections, i.e. the bacterial and fungal type. Try not to share your towel and clothes with anybody.

6. Too Much Experimentation

Working-out can be a bit of fun once you get a hold of the basics of the game and then, you can try some new variations too. However, experimenting too much just for the kick of it or to show-off can land you with a serious injury. This is particularly true for the upper and lower back, the neck and the shoulders. These areas are most vulnerable to getting injured and such injuries don’t heal easily. So, stop being a maverick at the gym and instead try to exercise safely.

7. Excessive Usage of Machines

You can visit any of the bodybuilding forums or seek the second opinion of any fitness devotee—they will all tell you that exercising using your bodyweight and the free weights is the most effective and safest. By using the very tempting machines that promise so much, you are only impairing your progress towards muscle-hood. Machines reduce your range of motion and make you develop unreasonable planes of motion. This induces more stress upon the body with minimal results. It is better to use free weights as they engage the maximum number of muscles.

8. Getting Overzealous

It is natural that you will compare yourself with others around you in the gym. However, this shouldn’t lead to developing an inferiority complex about your progress. Everybody has a different body, fitness range and the pace at which they gain muscle or lose inches. If you get too obsessed about how others are better than you, it will only mess-up your mind, taking away your focus.



DONT FORGOT TO PLAY FREE ONLINE GAMES @ www.GamesWala.com :)

Why You Must Shave Everyday

One of the most commonly-discussed topics in the niche of men’s grooming is the frequency of shaving.

This debate has carried on for years with very little clarity emerging about the issue. While some men believe that shaving daily can ruin your skin, some believe that it offers many benefits. It should be noted that shaving daily does have some advantages and these have been explained below. However, if you have highly sensitive skin that tends to react adversely upon shaving, please refrain from shaving regularly. Others, like me, are highly encouraged to read further.

Benefits of Shaving Daily for those with Facial Hair Deficit

If you are one of those guys who can't even grow a stubble. Please note that there is no scientific proof that shaving every day will spurt the growth of hair on your face. However, most guys opine that the rate at which they have seen their beard grow back seems directly proportional to the shaving regularity—more regular the shaving, quicker the growth seemed to be back. Even if it does not work out, this is a safe bit of trick to catalyze some manly hair on your face, isn't it?

Benefits of Shaving Daily for those with Excessive Facial Hair

If you are one of those whose genetic make-up is somewhat similar to that of werewolves, I mean in terms of facial hair density. For starters, it gives the face a cleaner, more polished look. Secondly, people with dense facial hair tend to suffer from acne caused by pulling at longer hair strands. During the summer seasons, the sebum concentration found in the skin pores under the beard tend to remain impacted with sebum secretions and sweat and thus, contribute towards acne.

Shaving Scrubs Away Dead Skin

Whether you use a shaving gel, cream or foam, rubbing the skin and scraping away the hair with a razor continue to be the bare essentials of shaving. This helps to remove the daily skin debris that is created along the outermost layer of the skin. This process of shedding dead skin cells is common across men and women. This debris can get impacted within the hair follicles and lead to acne. However, you can remove these dead skin cells without the need to scrub your face.

Shaving Increases Level of Skin Protection

Most shaving products, including the foaming creams and razors are spiked with anti-bacterial agents. These agents combined with the ensure that the skin is kept free from fungal or bacterial infections. This is the easiest way to ensure that your skin is able to neutralize the daily danger of skin infections.

Regular Shaving Makes You Look Younger, Refreshed

The un-kept look might work for some guys, but if you are working in a corporate environment, the neat look still makes a lot more sense. Here, shaving daily can be your friend. It immediately renders a degree of suaveness to your persona. Further, most men tend to look more energetic and refreshed with their facial hair removed.

Shaving Daily Keeps Away Razor Bumps

shaving on regular basis is the easiest way to steer clear of ingrown hair or razor bumps. Shaving daily means that you don’t allow the hair to get too long. This reduces chances of the hair entering a neighboring hair follicle. Even if a razor bump does develop, shaving daily will ensure that you can discover and dismantle it before it gets too big and ugly. Shaving on smaller hair means lesser pulling. This avoids the hair shaft being fully pulled out, overcoming the root cause of razor bumps.



DONT FORGOT TO PLAY FREE ONLINE GAMES @ www.GamesWala.com :)

Different Types of Girlfriends

There as many types of girlfriends as there are types of boyfriends.

Fortunately for you, we are not going to break them down according to their sun signs! We shall however, tell you more about the various kinds of girlfriends you are expected to come across in your dating life. Their nuances, their positives, their obvious negatives and why they could be just the one’s for you. So read on, and you might just discover your type in this list.

1. Individualistic & Indian

The ‘I&I’ girlfriend is the one who has brains which she uses and who is culturally rooted. She wants her space, has a strong identify, cultivates opinions and cannot be pushed around. At the same time, she knows her boundaries; she accepts the good as well the bad that comes with living in a male-dominated Indian society and has her head on her shoulders. She will be a sane partner; one who will respect your individuality as she treasures her own.

2. Domestic & Docile

She is the girlfriend who will always put her boyfriend ahead of her. She has opinions and a mind that she can use, but she chooses to stir the way her partner wishes her too. She is certainly not dumb, but she chooses to believe or has been raised in a manner which suggests that the man is alpha, omega and everything in between. This does not mean she will not put you in your place should you go overboard, but you can expect her to support you no matter what in whatever you chose to do or believe.

3. Demanding & Dominating

If this type is your girlfriend, then you can forget almost all other aspects of your life. She will demand that she be the centre of your universe and she will be dominating enough to make sure she gets what she demands. If your personality is not strong headed enough, she might over-ride you and your choices/decisions.

4. Possessive & Paranoid

Remember Lara Dutta from No Entry? Yes, that’s the type we are talking about. She is loving and caring and sweet. But then she also is possessive and compulsively cross-checks. You will find yourself answering the 'where you are' and 'what you are doing' questions 10 times a day, and still might have to face a barrage of questions after you’ve done all answering.

5 Money & More Money

This type is as old as humanity itself.She is with you for the money. She wants you to spend every time you’ll go out and won’t do with anything cheap. In case you run out of money, you can be sure she won’t be by your side anymore. She is not the one if you’re looking for love; a fling is what will work best.

These are just our versions of the various types of girlfriends that can be. Obviously, there is more to each girlfriend that what we’ve stated above. We certainly mean no harm or disrespect to women.