The line from here to there. It’s pretty easy to draw a circle, a line and an arrow pointing to an established goal. Filling in middle, creating a set of creative strategy to increase website traffic can be a little more complex and difficult. The world is full of people who look at the big picture, with a corresponding number who examine the small details. Together, they implement the structure for an organization or business and set tasks to be accomplished so as to arrive at their objective.

The big picture is exciting enough to feel motivated, but all major accomplishments involve dedication, hard work and planning. The plans generally involve a step by step process that begins at home base.

Your Home Environment

In the online world, environment isn’t physical but the results of the circles you’ve created though Internet activities. Your circles have a core base that reflects the type of readers who are drawn into your social networking. Appraising this base, you may come to several decisions. You may wish to continue developing content that appeals to your niche audience, relying on the readers drawing in their like-minded friends. You may feel your niche audience is too limited for the products or services you wish to sell, and concentrate on new types of content that will attract a more generalized audience. You may wish to track your contacts on social networking sites to see who else they’ve drawn into their circles.

Social networking sites are an excellent way to establish the boundaries of your environment. You receive instant feedback on supportive interests. You can increase the size of your circle as you develop relationships with other users, including possible customers, clients or partners. You provide a personality.

A little more invisible is your home environment within the search engines. How they sort you out depends partly on the strength you gained within social networking, partly on the keywords the reader put into the search engines and partly on the quality of your website. The quality includes design, ease of access, organization and content.

The Team That Stays Together

Unless you are an independent contractor offering a specific skill or product, chances are, you work within a team. Your team may involve a buyer, a seller, a book keeper, a merchandiser, a secretary or an ensign, but they are all a part of your effort to market your business. Bring your team into your marketing campaign. Discuss ideas that could broaden your Internet platform and give it more visibility.

Marketing is a full time job. Once your Internet site has been designed and established, it needs constant supervision. The campaign includes rich text media for hand held devices, press releases, questions and answers or responses to comments and regularly updating blogs and articles. Some businesses turn their campaign over to a manager who finds opportunities for promoting the business through social media and online platforms. The manager may actively participate with compatible businesses, exchanging guest blogs and links.

If your business is an equal partnership with one or more persons, you could discuss the benefits of equal participation in a marketing campaign. Tasks could be assigned according to the person’s comfort zone; such as one person handling e-mail, while another directs written content.

Businesses that contain a number of staff could give earned rewards points to members who actively participate in the marketing campaign. Points could be given for circulating personal stories relating to the business objectives, promoting a website link, or for volunteering to answer questions concerning the product or service.

The Satellite Circles

Part of the Internet strategy for gaining visibility is in forming partnerships with compatible businesses and organizations. This can be done in several ways. An unsolicited partnership is creating an external link to a website that would give the reader more information about an existing article. This gives your article documentary credibility and, depending on the quality of the link and article, a higher page ranking in the search engines.

A solicited partnership might include the exchange of guest blogs. In this type of relationship, the information at one site is useful to the readers of another. Readers are allowed to enjoy the convenience and comradely development of the site exchange. Take notice of the website formatting. If your WordPress website contains blatant advertising and the one you are soliciting does not, you may find they are not interested in guest blogging, but are willing to accept a paying advertisement.

Advertising at other sites can be productive, but make sure your product or service is in agreement with the general theme of the WordPress website. Broaden your search to include e-zines, special interest sites and news oriented sites. Check their already sponsored links. They may have a particular slant or information base that will enhance your campaign activities. If your product is an energy savings device and the site is sponsoring green energy, you may have found a niche.

Increase Website Traffic By Knowing Your Competition

There is nothing stationary about the marketing campaigns to bring visibility to businesses. The most successful marketers know their competition. They’ve studied their strategies, followed the development of their documentary style and observed the applications used to hammer their way to the top. They’ve critically examined the competitive platform piece by piece and asked themselves, “how can I do better?”

If you’ve been aggressive in your campaign, they are asking the same question. Accept that your competition isn’t going to just lie down and roll over because your humorous piece on the back seat driving mother-in-law hit a bull’s eye. If humor is the weapon, they’re just going to search until they find the more humorous story.

The competition also keeps a close eye on trends. If “steam punk” becomes the popular attention getter for the twenty year old set, and your products are geared toward youth, you can bet the competition is already organizing a campaign that appeals to the steam punk trend in the twenty year old age bracket.

Remain Interactive

Internet users are extremely interactive and expect quick responses. If they feel a new correspondent is crawling along, they lose interest in an exchange. You may not feel you have the time to be highly active with social media, but as a business, your readers will understand. As long as you make an appearance from time to time, update your status, answer questions and leave occasional comments, you are establishing and reinforcing your personality.

Direct questions at forums, in discussion groups or at your WordPress website should never be ignored. If they are offensive, delete them. Otherwise, if they are an opening to the ability to inform, take advantage of it.

Virtual tours and video clips are very popular. The more interactive you can make a virtual tour, the more delighted the viewer will be about stepping into your environment. Video clips should be informative, instructive or entertaining. They can be all three. A clip that shows how to tie a fishing lure will not be nearly as stimulating as the clip that showed the fisherman catching the big fish, although after watching the exciting experience, the viewer may wish to know more about lures and how to tie them.

Future marketing campaigns may include artificial intelligence programmed to respond to readers, engage in conversations and answer questions. They may include more virtual examination of products and environment. The marketing campaign begins at home base but the target is a futuristic scenario, five years down the road. Imagine the advancements Internet marketing will make with new technologies and new applications. Keep up to date with all changes in search engine policies. Anticipate your competition and examine all aspects of their own tactics to find where you could do a little bit better to increase website traffic

To Chapter 9: Social Media Optimization: Social Media, Pay-per-click, Banners And Text Ads