A Classified way to drive business to your web site

There are more than 105 million of them in the United
States. Worldwide, there could be at least 250 million of
them. Them, according to statistics from the Nielsen/Net
Ratings service, is the number of active Web surfers. 250
million in the whole world? The figure is more than the
populations of Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and a
few non-English speaking countries combined. That's a lot
of them!

With so many active surfers around, you would think
Webmasters and site owners have an easy time attracting
them. Actually, they face an uphill battle to bring
visitors and, more importantly, consumers to their Web
sites. And a Web site without traffic is like a store
built in the middle of the desert. You could have the
greatest products and most attractive Web design around,
but they're worthless if no one visits them.

There is one way, however, to turn your Web site into an
oasis of business, a way to drive as much traffic to your
site as your server can handle: a classified ad.

More on that later. First, all Web builders and site owners
should know the basic and time-tested ways to attract
traffic to their Web site. The key to all of these methods
is to attract the right Web surfers. You want what experts
call "targeted visitors," or people who are actually
interested in what you're selling. To guarantee that this
happens, you should follow this checklist of Web traffic
golden rules:

Step 1: Optimize your Web pages. Webmasters in the know
take the time to set their meta tags. These tags, or codes,
are hidden keywords in the Web page that tell search engines
like Google and Yahoo exactly what your site is all about.
A meta tag, for instance, could be "designer handbags,"
"sporting equipment," or whatever else you happen to be
selling. These keywords tell the search engine to direct
all handbag or sports shoppers to your site.

Step 2: List your site with every search engine out there.
For this step, you simply need to surf over to Google,
AltaVista, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines. Click
onto their customer service page, where they allow Web
builders and site owners to manually submit their site
addresses.

Step 3. Spice up your site with interactive features.
With articles, newsletters, offers, promotions, and
discounts, you give your targeted visitors a reason to stay
at your site once they find it. More importantly, you give
them reasons to come back and tell their friends about the
site. Word of mouth is one of the best, and cheapest, forms
of advertising on the planet.

Step 4. Exchange banner ads with friends and with other
companies that you do business with. Banner ads are
those eye-catching designs at the top and bottom of Web
pages. They're like the billboards of the Internet
superhighway. But with these online billboards, a simple
click transports the Web surfer directly to your Web site.

Step 5. Exchange Web links with friends and business
associates. This, Webmasters and site owners, could be the
most important way to drive Web traffic to your site. All
of the major search engines rank sites by measuring how
many links come to and leave from your Web site.

So links are a way to measure how worthwhile and how
legitimate your site is. The better this measurement, the
better chance your site will have to show up well in Web
surfers' searches. In other words, these links could be the
difference between your site being listed on page 20 of a
Google search results, or on page 1.

Building better Web links and search engine results—that's
where classified sites come into play. Some of the most
savvy classified sites on the market now offer Web links
in their ads. These links lead right to your business' home
page.

Not only are these links convenient one-click ways for
more customers to reach your site. They also boost your
search engine rankings.

Of course, for business owners, classified sites have
so many other benefits, too.

• Unparalleled exposure. Classified sites are like online
malls. Not only will you get exposure from shoppers coming
specifically to find your goods. You get "spill over"
attention from shoppers who came for another item but then
start browsing through all of the other ads in the
classified "mall."

• A new arsenal of Web sites. Having online classified
ads is like setting up multiple new Web sites across the
Internet. Unlike your own original site, these classified
ads come with low-cost IT support, security, and
advertising.

• Incredible growth opportunities. Businesses and
individuals selling on online classified sites pull in more
than $1.95 billion a year, according to the statistics firm
Kelsey Group. That figure does not even include money
from eBay.

• Money for nothing. As valuable as classified sites
are, many of the best ones charge very little or absolutely
nothing to set up your ads.

Add up all of these numbers—250 million active Web surfers
in the world, $1.95 billion in classified sales, and $0
cost—and your Web business is sure to come out in the
positive.

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Donald Lee is the public relations manager for
Buysellcommunity.com. Buysellcommunity provides free
classified listing services for individuals and businesses
to market their products and services online. For global
and localized classifieds, please visit

http://www.buysellcommunity.com
Free Buy & Sell Classifieds