302′s are the first I’ll talk about since they are “Temporary”. This is used if you are working on a page lets say your “about us page” and you don’t want people or search engines to go there, but want them to come back later. You can 302 a page to a temporary page, and later stop forwarding it. For everyday users this really doesn’t do much, but for Google etc. This tells them come back later an re-index the original page you attempted to get too. So it’s very useful if you are developing a site and have links to a page and Google finds you.

But the more important one is a 301 redirect. This is a permanent forwarding, and tells search engines. “You found something that is now over here forever —-> Don’t index me, index the new page, oh and also if the page you were looking for had page rank, the new page should have it now.” This is very useful if you are pushing a new website out that will replace an existing one. A 301 can be from one domain to another or from one page in a domain to another. So if you are creating a new search engine friendly url and want to make sure any previous page that was indexed is now recognized as the new page you would use this.

example: http://www.dannycoburn.com/signup.php might get forwarded to http://www.dannycoburn.com/viri so any thing that was indexed on signup.php is now pushed to the new /viri directory.

The most IMPORTANT use of 301′s that you can possibly use for search engines is to ensure that all pages are viewed the same by the search engines. Did you know that http://dannycoburn.com and http://www.dannycoburn.com are 2 different pages? They don’t look like it but for some reason search engines will treat them differently. So what do you do? You need to make sure you 301 all non-www pages to their comparable www page. Want to see an example? Click this http://dannycoburn.com. You’ll see it adds the www.

If you are on an apache server (if you are on a linux host you probably are), here’s the code you put into  your .htaccess folder

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yoursite.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yoursite.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Until next time.

Preparing your website follows the same concept. You want to make sure that things are neat and tidy. Make sure that your navigation follows a logical sequence. Make sure that you have plenty of good content, and that everything is spelled correctly.

You also want your visitors to be able to participate in your site – to take action. Look at each page, and determine what type of action your visitors can take. Do you have a forum or blog? Do you conduct polls or surveys? Do you have a subscribe box for your opt-in list on every page of your site? Make absolutely sure that your website is ready for company! Also make sure that your pages lead your visitors to take the action that you want them to take, no matter what that action may be.

That is the first and most essential step of traffic generation. If your site isn’t pleasing and welcoming, any traffic generation activities you do from this point on are wasted! Take the time, and put forth the effort to make your site as good as possible – and learn to look at it from your visitor’s point of view!

After you do this, make sure that you are using all of the best known Search Engine Optimization techniques, such as making sure that you have clean HTML code, that you’ve used your keyword effectively, that you have keyword rich text links and alt tags, and that the title of your website, in your HTML code, has your main keyword or phrase as well. Take some time to explore SEO techniques, so that you can draw natural search traffic as well.

Once your website is ready for company, you are ready to start inviting that company. You do not need any special tools for traffic generation. What you need is your computer, an Internet connection, your mind, a willingness to do the work, and knowledge. That’s all it takes.

Homework Assignment:Make absolutely sure that your website is ready to receive traffic. Do you have an opt-in page? Do you have a subscribe box on every page of your site? Look at each page, and determine whether there is enough content, and if there is an action for your visitors to take on each page. Make sure that your site is optimized for the search engines.

First where do your ads show up?  In Google they show up across the top or the right side.  The top ads are are generally in a lighter background to separate them from organic results.  The advantage of using PPC is to force your site to be seen even if it doesn’t have Organic Rankings.  It is important to understand that even with organic ranking you can produce far more sales using PPC in conjunction with it.   A report from Atlas stated that if you have a PPC ad you are likely to make “2 sales” and organic linking “1 sale”, having both you make “4 sales”.  While I haven’t seen this myself, it is a reliable source and I’ll take that to heart.

Google forces you to bid for positions, but they do not tell you what you need to get into the top spot.  They use some level of black magic to determine who gets top slot.  They look at Ad Copy, Landing Page, Bid and Click through rate.  Now if you have a high CTR and high quality others you will actually pay less than your “Bid”.  Also you can big less and get higher position.  It all gets convoluted, but you need to make sure you have a high Quality Score in Google and you’ll reap the benefits.  (post questions on adwords if you have any and I’ll answer the best I can)

So now you’ve placed your bids, you can choose to have ads show up on Google, their search partners or in their content network.  The content network is by far their largest audience, but it also their more dangerous place for click fraud so if you are going to use it, watch it very carefully and you can restrict certain sites from displaying your ads or you can chose to show your ads only on certain sites by url/placement.  But unfortunately many good quality sites that have adsense do not have this option turned on (TURN IT ON!).

A couple of key items are to make sure you have a strong ad, and strong url to send people too.  Many people working with affiliate marketing will try to send people to the same url. So now they are all competing for the same property.  (Google, Yahoo etc will only allow one ad per url to appear).  Later on I promise I’ll go over landing pages, url’s and ads for ppc and other advertising.  My experience is very different than most so hopefully people will gain some knowledge.

Key things to keep in mind, you’re shirt needs to stay on  your back you need to MONITOR your campaigns or you will lose a LOT of money.

Michael Cheney, one of the most-respected names in Internet marketing, has been online since 1995 and is the man behind the 6-Figure launches of AdSense Videos and 11 Days To List Profits. He has unveiled a new videos product – “Michael’s Traffic Videos” which covers everything to do with traffic and comes with 100,000 instant ad credits and a tailored Fast-Track To Traffic Action Plan.

We managed to grab some time with him recently and quiz him on his favorite topic – traffic.

You’ll get a lot out of this interview including a killer 40-page E-book on traffic that Michael has written to help you avoid the Top 20 Traffic Disasters!

So let’s get started.

Q. Firstly Michael, thank you for joining us today in your busy schedule.

A. Hey no problem. Good to be here.

Q. We all know that traffic is important but could you just explain a bit about traffic for the beginners out there?

A. Sure. Traffic is the lifeblood of any business online. Without it you just die. We all know that. But what a lot of us don’t realize is that just like everything else on the Internet traffic changes very quickly. That is, the methods of getting traffic are changing all the time and that’s where people get caught out.

Q. What do you mean by “caught out”?

A. Well people fall into the trap of thinking that just because they know one or two traffic generation methods that they are some sort of traffic master. In reality just because you know how to start a pay per click campaign or a little bit about search engines doesn’t make you anywhere near a traffic expert. I’m trying to spread the word that there is a massive array of traffic tactics that most people aren’t even aware of, let alone using or mastering.

Q. Can you give us some examples?

A. Sure. Offline for example. You might immediately think that getting traffic is a purely online activity but the truth of the matter is that there are lots of things you can be doing offline to get people into your website. And it’s usually these sorts of areas that are being under-utilized and therefore there is less competition for that traffic as well.

Q. So by offline you mean advertising offline?

A. Not necessarily. That is one method, yes, but I’m thinking of more creative ways to get people into your website. It all comes down to the fact that having asked people on my list it came as no surprise that most people want to know about free rather than paid traffic sources. I’ve had to become an expert in free ways of getting traffic in my time online.

Q. What do you mean – I thought you were running a successful online business with lots of cash flow?

A. I am. But it’s not always been this way. When I first started out in 1995 I had nothing. No money to play with. Just my own initiative and imagination.

Q. So are you saying you’re against paying for traffic online?

A. No. No I’m not saying that at all. What I’m saying is that, especially when you first start out, you always want to focus on the free methods. You get the traffic in for free, make some sales and then you can reinvest some of that money into paid methods of getting traffic. This speeds up the process.

Q. So what particular offline methods are you referring to – can you give us some examples?

A. There’s one tactic I used that costs nothing to implement, is relatively quick and ended up getting me thousands and thousands of targeted visitors into my websites. When I’ve shared this tactic with other marketers at seminars they’ve started laughing and slapping their foreheads when they saw how easy it was. They were also embarrassed that they had failed to use this tactic. It was quite amusing.

Q. So are you going to tell us what this method is?

A. No! (laughs) It’s in my course! I truly believe in rewarding those people that are most eager to learn so instead of giving away all my traffic tactics in interviews like this I’ve put some of them in an E-Book I’ve written. It is free though if people want to get it.

Q. So how can people get hold of it?

A. It’s called “How To Avoid The Top 20 Traffic Disasters” and you can get it by going to Michael’s Traffic Videos – you’ll see it mentioned on that page.

Q. What’s in it?

A. Well I really wanted to raise the bar on a free E-Book so I spent a lot of time creating it. It’s 40 pages long and stuffed with juicy content on what NOT to do when it comes to traffic. As far as I’m concerned too many people out there tell you what you should do but not what you shouldn’t do. That’s where this E-Book comes in.

Q. Okay. I think we’re about done is there anything else you want to tell everyone?

A. Just that if they are serious about getting more traffic into their website they need to goto Michael’s Traffic Videos and get that free E-Book.

Q. Cool. Well thanks for your time Michael and speak to you soon.

A. My pleasure. Speak soon.