How to get traffic to your website

Traffic is very important for the success of any blog or website. Whether you are selling a product, run a corporate blog or blogging to you is just a hobby, many real visitors coming to your site makes you feel like you are really talking to the world. Of course you can keep a small community however if you want to be rich and famous, you’ve got to get your name out there. Get everybody taking about you. That only happens if your content gets read by many people who will share with friends and friends of friends.

 There are many ways to make people visit your website or blog. The first thing you have to do is ensure that you have quality content. People don’t share crap. People don’t subscribe to substandard blogs. If you have no mastery of the subject, people will find a better alternative. That is what search engines are for. To get your visitors spoilt for choice. Make sure that you have something that grabs and keeps their attention.

The first place to find lots of free traffic is social media. Say Facebook. You can even go viral in a week and have thousands of free visitors coming to your site. If you are selling a product, friend recommendations work best. A person is more likely to buy a product if a friend of theirs vouches for it. Social media is the best place to encourage and drive friend recommendations.

Another way to get highly targeted traffic comes from the search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. You need to optimize your site for the search engines so that you can reap this free traffic. If your site appears at the top of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) you could be getting lots of relevant visitors every day. Most of Search Engine Optimization is about building links. While most people will tell you to build as many links as possible, I would advise you to take your time to build links on pages that rank. Links should be a way of helping people navigate around the web and not a way of manipulating a search engine. If you build a links towards your money site by writing blog posts on web 2.0 sites like wordpress.com ensure they are quality enough to rank. You will get more traffic towards the money site this way.

You can also get traffic by guest blogging. If you know a friend or someone with a blog that gets decent traffic, you can offer to write them a quality post.  They will of course leave a link to their readers explaining who wrote the post. That way the readers of the blog you guest post to will become interested and visit your blog.

When everything fails, advertising will never go wrong. By choosing good targeted advertising, you can drive people to your site or blog. A good advertising program is Google Ad words. You are however free to choose one that suits you or is best suited for your situation.

Commenting on related blogs is also another way of getting traffic for your site. If somebody likes your comment they might like to visit your site. The bottom line here is that you should never spam. If you do your comments might be deleted or worse, nobody will take you seriously. Nobody likes spammers you know.

Last, you can try forums. Join a fairly busy forum and be a good productive member. People will always follow people they think have something of use. Always present yourself as a useful person and you will go far.

Join Payoneer for ease of Global Payments

Many people are now working online. Even those who are not fully working on the internet, a part time job can help you increase your earnings and maybe help you buy that dream house you have always wanted. Or is it a car? Whatever the case, having at least two incomes can help you save for something big you want to do. It is very hard to succeed just by doing one thing.

The first question I get when I tell people that they can make money online is ‘how do I get paid?’ Fair question I would say. Some of the major payment processors like Paypal don’t pay to Kenya. Of course nowadays you can get your money via Equity Bank or even Nation Hela, it however takes time. 2-5 days in most cases. Sometimes you can even wait for eight days. If you work hard for your money, real time payments are the way to go. Finish the job or sell a product and you have your money already. That is how good services work.

I have been using Payoneer to process my online payments and so far I love the service. Getting paid from top U.S. companies is a breeze. If you have ever used freelancer.com, Elance, Odesk, Apple, Amazon, PayPal, Skrill (MoneyBookers) etc. you are going to love the Payoneer Debit MasterCard. It just makes payment processing a breeze. It is not just for your payments alone. If you ever wanted to pay another person, you can do so easily with the card.

Once you apply for the card, it should take 2-3 weeks to arrive. ATM cards for local banks take roughly the same time. The card will be sent to your postal address so you should ensure that you provide a real one. Postal addresses in Kenya start with P.O Box and are different from a physical address which is where you live. Always use a postal address to ensure your card is delivered with no problems.

Once your card has been delivered then you can use it to process your payments globally. Getting your money is as easy as visiting an ATM card with a MasterCard sign. I am sure any bank worth its name in Kenya has a partnership with MasterCard. I personally use PesaPoint as their ATMs don’t swallow cards. A Payoneer card is the best card for online payments and once you get one you won’t want to lose it.

Even better than withdrawing your money using the card is shopping with it. You swipe free! If you wanted money to buy a fridge for example, just use your card to pay for your item at the many MasterCard points of sale throughout the country. Again nearly all major supermarkets and even the not so major ones accept MasterCard.

Online payments have never been this easy before and this is a chance for every Kenyan to make money online. Don’t just say there are no jobs. You can work for somebody a continent away from you and still use the money in Kenya. 

You can sign up for Payoner here. If you want to learn moreabout Payoneer Debit MasterCard and how to sign up, follow this link

How to make money online

Yes you can make money online. A lot of money. This is because there is no limit to the number of hours you can put in an online job. If you get paid hourly then you know with a good hourly rate you will be able to earn a decent income. If you are smart enough to own a web store where your products get bought all the time, then you can make money 24/7/365. That is why you hear of phrases like ‘make money sleeping’. It is real and happens to many of us.

Starting out nowadays is easy. You don’t even need web design skills. Web 2.0 technologies like Wordpress and blogger are making it very simple for you to get your name or your business out there. There is even Facebook and twitter, two popular social media sites where you can build a faithful following. When you are blogging or tweeting or even a social update, ensure that quality is observed. People like, retweet, click links and buy because they believe that what you offer is quality. A satisfied community, buyer etc., can act as a referee to your services or products pushing your sales and brand even further.

 Whether you are thinking about freelancing, affiliate marketing, selling your own products or even any other web business, you need to get your name or brand out there. Blogging, social media marketing, advertising, word of mouth etc. are some of the ways to get your skills, services or products and known. Remember if nobody knows you or your products, they won’t care about you. Business does not change just because you are using a modern technology.

Google Adsense

It is a very easy way of monetizing your content online. They have lots of options that allow you to even choose the kind of advertisements that appear on your site. Letting Adsense display ads by default is a better option and allows you to concentrate more on building your content rather than worrying about advertisers. The biggest challenge newbies face is making money for a start. You can’t help but notice how long it takes for someone to make a click. Worse, a click is a measly $0.01. Welcome to Google Adsense. You need traffic, lots of traffic if you want $5 clicks. Believe me people get higher than that. Build good content, high user engagement, social media marketing, advertising etc. and your online audience will grow. So will your Adsense earnings.  More on Google Adsense here.

Offer a service

You can do more with a blog than just wait for your Adsense earnings. For example, you can use the content you have posted there to negotiate a freelancing contract. Potential employers always ask for proof of skills. This is why I always encourage you to produce quality content always. Take your time if you have to. If you wrote 100 posts that don’t rank compared to 1 quality post that goes viral that would be better for your business, image, and pocket. Just add quality content to the web. 

When you offer quality, you get hired and paid good for your services. I know many people who don’t even run ads on their blogs. They just offer a service to their readers. You can offer to write quality blog posts, write poems, make and deliver cakes, cards, and any business, service or product you can think of. Your blog helps you get people who are interested in your skills so you can sell them either as service, product or knowledge.

Offer Information

People love information. People want to know how things work even if they won’t or can’t do them by their own. If you have a cake blog or website, you can share videos or articles about making cakes. You engage your social following with information, tips, jokes and pictures on cakes. You then sell the cakes to your audience. Posting quality content markets you through shares, word of mouth, likes, retweets, bookmarking, social bookmarking and more. Sharing information sometimes works better than advertising. 

Sell products

If you sell digital products, selling them is as easy as putting up a website and a shopping cart. If you sell physical products say clothing, cars etc. you need to find a way of shipping your products. If you don’t want the hassle of handling all that, you can sell your products on Amazon. I will be writing an article about that and I will share it with you. The reason I won’t explain it here is because I want to make it more detailed. The good thing about selling your own products is that you determine your pricing so you get your money back, and some good profit maybe.

Be an affiliate marketer

If you don’t have products to sell, don’t worry. You can make money promoting and selling other merchant products. You get a percentage of the sale which is known as a commission. You sell lots of products, you get lots of commissions. Many people easily make money doing affiliate marketing because it is easy. Just promote the product, make a sale and you make money. You don’t have to worry about shopping carts or shipping. The merchant mostly handles this.

There is never a limit to the number of ways you can make money online. Other ways include photography, trading in money, advertising etc. Find your niche and put lots of work into it. For an online business, just like elsewhere, the only shortcut to success is hard work. Hard work pays. Hard work pays more online because you can reach out to more people than you will with a business that only concentrates on offline customers. 

Making money online can help you earn money even when you don’t have the time to spend on your business. Say you are a student. You can still expand your cake business for example without having to compromise on your studies. This is because sales will be determined by how many people you can reach through your blog or website or social media. This means you can stay in class and still make sales. You just have to arrange for deliveries. Online business can be very convenient.