Top Ten FREE Ways to Generate Great Content

... and Bring All the Traffic You Can Handle to Your Website

So you’re a fairly new website owner who is scratching his/her head wondering why you’re only getting 50 to 100 web visitors per day to your site. You've tried what all the "web gurus" out there told you to do: Link up with like-minded sites! Put an ad for your site on another similar site and you will get hundreds of click-throughs every day!

Somehow it’s just not working. Let’s say you are getting 75 visitors per day for your site, but only about 10% of those visitors come back for another visit. Having those seven or eight returning visitors finding new content that is refreshed on a regular basis with dramatic and relevant content would go a long way in making sure they bookmark your site permanently. Putting in content that returns real humanistic value to the web surfer to your site would ensure that he/she would tell all their friends about your site, thus starting a huge word-of-mouth buzz around the Internet. Let's examine ALL the ways to bring this more human element to your site.

1. Write content for your site that appeals to all web visitors, not just the ones you are targeting.

Try bringing in content to your blog writings or site content that focuses on solving problems for everybody, not just people who love video games, if that's what your site is all about. Even video game lovers go outside once in a while, so why not have content that appeals to their need to find bargains on used cars, computer equipment, bedroom furniture, or anything else that people always seem to have a need for. Also, general news updates about topics such as entertainment and politics always keeps people coming back. You will see a dramatic increase in web clicks after you expand your content parameters to cover the entire "mainstream public", not just the ones you designed your site to attract.

2. Treat your visitors like they are your best friend.

Everybody likes to feel special, and the people that just happen to stumble onto your site are no different. Even though they had no real interest in your site before, if you have content that caters to everybody's basic human needs, they will come back for more. As the site owner, you need to open up to your visitors and tell them about who you are and why you started the site. Give them a personal mission statement about how your site will help fulfill their needs in specific, but personal terms.

3. Don't focus on getting every nickel and dime out of your customers.

I know you’re not in the website business for your health, but there are other ways to generate income without hitting your visitors over the head with every cheap marketing trick out there. Keep your pop-up ads to a minimum so the pages don't have loading time problems, and make sure any ads you do have on your site are legitimate and relevant to your site content. In other words, if your site content is focused on Japanese anime, don't have an adlink for Starbucks Coffee directly by a nice animated clip from Osamu Tezuka. That only distracts viewers from the beauty of the Tezuka clip.

4. Create content that you love to write about.

This has been said many times before, but it cannot ever be over-estimated in relevance to your own site content. If you don’t have any passion for the products/content on your own website, how will anybody else? Even if you happen to have a passion for left wing politics in the Netherlands, and you don’t think anybody else does, write about it and find out! You would be surprised at the number of visitors who will return to your site after they find a like-minded person who feels pot should be legalized in America just like it is in Amsterdam. They will be curious as to other opinions your website will espouse based on your political leanings. Before you know it, you'll have hit 1000 hits per hour just because of the passion and substance included in your blog. Don't be afraid to share your true views of anything at anytime. Owners of political sites have seen their visitors skyrocket after taking controversial stances on topics like religion, abortion and gun control. As long as you are honest about your stance, visitors will respect that and keep coming back for more even if they don't share your beliefs on every topic.

5. If you've had traumatic personal experiences in your life, tell us about it!

It boggles my mind how many website owners keep the bad experiences in their life all to themselves. There is absolutely nobody reading this right now that doesn't gobble up somebody else's horrific experiences with lawsuits, bad mothers-in-law, car breakdowns, victimization by violent crime, etc. Just because a subject can be morbid, or a complete downer, does not mean that somebody who has had a similar experience never wants to hear about it again. On the contrary, it's the exact opposite! The expression "Misery loves company" means exactly that. People like to hear that other human beings are suffering right along with them, so pull out that bad experience you had dealing with a death of a loved one, or write about that time you heard a burglar in your house, and had to fight him off at gun point. No matter what kind of bad experience you've had in your background, reading about your real-life trauma will really interest all your web visitors, even the lucky ones who never have seen the troubles you’ve seen.

6. People are not cyborgs, so write for the human element.

The web gurus have always put a high amount of value on optimizing your keywords for search engines like "Google" and "Yahoo". But that takes the human condition out of the equation. Don't ever write just for search engine keywords optimization. It's always good to dedicate a certain portion of your blog with pertinent keywords based on what products/services your site provides, but if you don't have anything truly meaningful to say to your customers, then all is lost. The best way to have a long successful career with your website is to promote visitors to bookmark your site and keep them coming back on a daily or weekly basis. The only way to do that is to provide content that describes in detail the services/products you are bringing to them. So don't listen to people who tell you to write short blogs with a 500 word limit and just change them up on a daily basis to increase traffic. While that will work in the short term, what works in the long haul is being very descriptive with blogs that average 1800-2200 words. Some viewers to your site will find that too long to read, but the ones that take the time to read it will be very receptive to staying with your site for years to come. Most blogs average 400-600 words per blog. You don't want to be average!

7. Make fresh content about timeless issues, not just the "torn from today's headlines" topics.

When you have finished writing your blog for the day, step back and ask yourself, "Will anybody care about this topic in the year 2150?" If the answer is no, revise your blog and put in something for the ages, not just for the year you're writing about. To hit people on a more deeper personal level, the topics and subject have to be about issues that have been around since man started to read and write. Content that describes how to get over the death of a relative, how to increase your intellect, dealing with emotional traumas brought on by being in a car wreck are perfect choices for more personal and detailed bloggings. If you feel strongly about a topic such as the ones described, there are millions of others that will too. Ignore most fads and current events in your content writing. Celebrities like Paris Hilton are getting huge hits right now for some sites, but in the long run she will fade into obscurity and so will those sites along with her.

8. Originality is still the king.

Most people’s websites are filled with links to other sites that have relevant articles that the site owner never even reads on a regular basis. Don't make that same lazy mistake. Always have every article on your site be original. Even if you have to pick quotes and article listings from other websites to form new articles on your site, make sure you distinguish your re-writes with your own style. When a viewer to your site really connects with your own original style, they tend to stick around for a much longer time and will bookmark it for sure. After you build up your original content, you should have hundreds of smaller and bigger articles for your readers to enjoy.

9. Your site must be of great value to the website viewer.

This is one of the most important reasons most website will fail within a year. Websites come and go now with the frequency of a cheap ham radio. The reason is because there are so many sites saying the same useless things. Your visitors will only come back to your site if they do see inherent value in it. Whether your site is selling "How to" books, or horror DVDs, if your visitor is gaining either new knowledge about something they can't get anywhere else, or if you are giving them a bargain on a book they can't find anywhere else, you are generating great value in their minds. It always pays in the long run to be more philosophical about your site. Would you go to your site and be able to find the value there if you could distance yourself from it? Be honest and really critical with your response, because then you'll be able to make all the proper corrections yourself, or with a consultant's help if necessary.

10. Turn your blogs into articles that you then submit to directories.

There are so many websites now devoted to articles that you would be foolish not to try to promote your blog through article submissions. Take your best blogs/content for the past month and format them into 400-700 word article submissions. Make the title really grab potential readers, for instance, "How to generate a passive income in 1 hour", or any other attention grabber that is pertinent to your site. You have to have a web link generated at the bottom of your article so people that like the article can directly jump to your website. Make sure that the topic is relevant to your site to ensure the visitor stays long enough to buy your service/product. You can use Google to find the myriad article websites out there by typing in "article submission sites".

If you follow these instructions and think about your website in a more thoughtful manner, I am sure you can turn your website business into a very successful one.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rob_Mead

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