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With nearly one billion web pages on the internet today, most websites face the challenge of getting noticed, of standing out from the crowd of sites competing for the attention of those on the web. We've assembled a quick summary of ideas and resources to help you attract visitors to your site, to keep them coming back, and when they leave to get them to leave through your affiliate banners.

Getting traffic to your site
If only it was as easy as putting up a neon sign! There are many ways to attract visitors to your site, but here is what many would consider the top five:

1. Search engine optimization – There are a number of resources on the web devoted to getting better search engine placement, but we think one of the best is www.SearchEngineWatch.com, edited by "search engine guru" Danny Sullivan. Another very useful site is www.SearchEngineNews.com. For those very active in search engine optimization, you may want to consider "Search Engine Strategies" (hosted by www.Internet.com), historically an excellent bi-annual seminar that will teach you the ins-and-outs of search engine optimization. And since search engine optimization starts with the selection of the right key words, you may want to look at the very useful service provided at www.WordTracker.com.

2. Advertise online – While this can be an expensive proposition, there are many advertising opportunities that are well worth the investment. Gaining in popularity are advertising programs that are performance based (e.g., pay-per-click deals rather than cost-per-impression deals). One example of performance based advertising can be found at the search engine Overture at www.Overture.com.

3. Cross-promote online – As the saying goes, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Consider teaming up with a competitor or complementary site, and cross-link. Your site and theirs will benefit, as will your respective audiences.

4. Promote yourself online – Offer to write articles, free or paid, for e-zines or websites with a similar focus as yours. For example, if you have a site targeted towards working moms, try contacting sites like www.Parents.com or www.BabyCenter.com and offer to write a column. A blurb about yourself, at the bottom of the article with a link to your site, could generate significant traffic for your site.

5. Promote yourself offline – Try getting free press in local newspapers, or (as in tip #4) offer to write a column and include your site's web address.

Getting traffic to stay ("stickiness")
Once you're successful at getting visitors to your site, you need to keep them coming back. The way most sites do this is through timely content. Since it may be too time-consuming to write all your own content, there are many sites, like www.Lycos.com and www.CNET.com, that offer free content and may even pay you an affiliate commission to use their content.

Getting traffic to leave
Since visitors will eventually leave your website to head somewhere else, why not earn money when they leave? That's the beauty of affiliate programs. But, how do you get your visitors to click on one of your affiliate banners? First of all, make sure you don't overwhelm them with choices. Pick a few banners and textlinks for each page so that the choices don't confuse them. Writing a recommendation for a product or company will be much more effective than just posting a banner. If you're using one of Boscov's generic banners, consider writing a blurb about the great shopping experience you had at our site.

Analyzing results
In order to know how well you're doing in generating traffic to your site and to monitor the origin of your visitors, you will want to consider investing in a good log analysis tool that will analyze the raw log data from your web server. Your web hosting company may provide such a tool, sometimes even at no additional charge. You may also want to consider analysis programs such as WebTrends (www.WebTrends.com, $399) and SawMill (www.flowerfire.com/sawmill, $199). These programs will help you to analyze trends in the number of unique visitors, the number of pages loaded, and the referring URLs of your visitors.

There are also software tools specifically designed for search-engine optimization and analysis like WebPositionGold (www.WebPosition.com, $149) which will provide HTML analysis of your pages from a search-engine perspective, submit your site to the top search engines, and then report on your rankings once your site has been listed.

For analysis of your affiliate programs, BeFree provides many options for slicing-and-dicing your data so that you can analyze impressions, click-throughs, link effectiveness and your earnings by merchant.

For more in-depth information on managing affiliate programs, consider sites like ReveNews (www.revenews.com), or Best Affiliate Programs (www.affiliate-programs-best.com), or consider Declan Dunn's book, "Winning the Affiliate Game" (www.activemarketplace.com, $67).

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