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Free Traffic – 3 More Zero-Cost Ways to get Visitors to a Site Almost Overnight
by: Tinu AbayomiPaul
Copyright © 2005 Tinu AbayomiPaul

You have to laugh when you hear about the elaborate schemes people cook up in order to get three or four clicks through to their site, when there are plenty of legitimate ways to get attention for your web site – from dozens to hundreds of interested prospects. It’s one thing to think creatively – it’s another to try and buck the system for a few hits from people who won’t subscribe, return or buy.

Speaking of creative thinking, one of the ways you can get above-board, quick and free traffic is from using link services. Without even a hint of abuse, you can use these services to bring visitors to you – in minutes sometimes.

The first two services that you and I can use without stepping on any toes are the two link services at http://Furl.net and http://del.icio.us .

Also called “social bookmarks managers”, these sites allow you to start up a free account where you can start a link collection which can be sorted by theme. Using a system that makes use of categories – at del.icio.us they’re called a “tag” – there are times when it is quite acceptable to include your own site. Both make use of RSS to allow you to keep track of either your list or someone else’s – you can even subscribe to any public collection.

So where does the traffic come in? Sign up with either of these services, and start collecting links on the same topic as your site, sprinkling in your own links.

Notice I said “sprinkling in”.

Treat this as you would a blog – you don’t want post your sales page. You’ll just get put on public link lists that collect spam entries – bad publicity may be great in Hollywood, but online it’s an income killer. So again, do Not gratuitously begin to link to your entire site and think you’re helping yourself.

What typically happens is one of three things.

1- Your link will be displayed on sites that share these tag lists with the world,
2- Your site will be visited by someone who is interested in the tag you’ve chosen, or,
3- Your link library will be so diverse, varied and helpful that other users will subscribe to your tag to find new links to add.

I find it a good practice to use your real name or your site name as your login because it shows up as part of your link collection’s name. You can also use your own name or very targeted keywords to create custom tags.

As you’re adding the links to your collection, be sure to add a topic or tag to target your desired type of visitor. As an added bonus, if you use FeedBurner.com to study your feed statistics or to reduce your bandwidth load, you can integrate these link collections into your own feed as well.

So should you use Furl or del.icio.us for this? If you are going to be making personal use of this link collection, want the 5GB archive space and a place to save an archive snap shot of a web page, Furl is for you. Want to keep it simple? Stick with del.icio.us.

You can also use the Bloglines clip service, with or without Feedburner, to achieve similar ends – if you’re more focused towards blogs than RSS, you’ll probably have more success here. The Bloglines clip service is more geared towards the verbose user, as it is set up much like a blog.

The third tool you can use to draw traffic is at a site that blatantly asks you to use it, and they’ve created it solely for that purpose – to connect certain kinds of web readers and publishers.

The catch? Unlike the other three services, this really can only be used by bloggers – you’ll have to verify that you own the blog in question just to participate.

Good news if you blog though, or plan to - the web resource in question is run by one of the most important sites a successful blogger needs to be visible in.

In mid-January 2005, Technorati.com took the idea of tags to a global level.

Now if you’re writing about travel, you can appear on their travel tag page automatically. You can bet that your post will cross the paths of blog enthusiasts who are specifically interested in travel. This works on any claimed blog in the blogosphere, on every platform. And it’s so easy to do.

If you have the category capability built-into your blog software, you need only claim your web log and ping Technorati with updates using your blog software, if it’s set up to auto-ping, or their form : http://www.technorati.com/ping.html . How easy is that?

If you use Blogger or some other system that doesn’t include categories, never fear. You can come to the party.

From now on, when you post links to your blog, you’ll want to include the special tag code. It works with any link, or you can link to Technorati – see an example of it on their site:http://www.technorati.com/help/tags.html .

With a little time and patience, Bloggers especially can use any of these methods to bring free targeted traffic to their doorsteps. Bottom line : don’t be tempted to cheat at traffic generation - there are so many ways to get better results honorably.


About the author:
Learn how Tinu saw a 75% increase in both traffic and sales from feeds at http://freetraffictip.com/rssbook. For free reprint rights to her articles (and a potential $500 bribe) send a blank email to moneyarticles@freetraffictip.com .


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 Tracking and Measuring RSS Feeds
 by: S. Housley

Measuring and tracking RSS while a fairly simple concept, is really anything but. Unlike websites, RSS have the added caveat of potential syndication, making accurate tracking a challenge to anyone but the extremely tech savvy.

It is not unrealistic for marketers to want to know how many subscribers they have, which items in their feeds attract the most interest, or how many click-throughs are generated as a result of an RSS feed.

There are a number of 3rd party providers who focus on tracking the consumption of RSS feeds. Some solutions are rudimentary but likely sufficient for a small business testing the waters with RSS. Other RSS tracking solutions are more complex and while they can come close to being accurate, with syndication there is no solution that tracks with 100% accuracy.

Techniques Used to track RSS Consumption

Small businesses can view web logs to provide information on how many times a specific file (RSS feed) is requested. The logs and information is rudimentary but will give a basic sense of a feeds success. Many 3rd party tracking options have additional tracking information available.

Hosting

The most common method to track the number of feed accesses or individuals accessing a feed is to use a 3rd party feed host. Companies like FeedBurner essentially track feeds based on accesses. The downside to using a 3rd party like Feedburner, is that the url is a FeedBurner url and any PageRank or popularity associated with the url will benefit the feed host rather than the feed creator. Additionally, no distinction is made between unique views or syndicate feeds.

FeedBurner provides a free no frills service to host RSS feeds and they have been proactive in circumventing user concerns. Recently implementing a service that eases users concerns about migrating from FeedBurner. There is a 3 step process for users interested in migrating from FeedBurner's free service, implementing a permanent redirect, and url forwarding.

Details can be found at: http://www.burningdoorc.om/feedburner/archives/001251.html

Some publishers, who were concerned about lock-in or wanted to retain control of the domain and feed urls often resist a hosting service. The new program FeedBurner Partner Pro is not free, but allows for users to point to their own domain, retaining complete control of their feeds without sacrificing statistical tracking.

The downside to using a service like FeedBurner is that some filtering applications used on corporate proxy servers block feeds residing on FeedBurner or other free hosts.

Redirects

Companies like SyndicateIQ have more complex tracking solutions that generate unique urls for each subscriber. The tracking benefits to such a customized solution is obvious. Individual user habits can be monitored and any users abusing their access and inappropriately syndicating a feeds content can have their feed turned off. The downside of course is that the success of RSS is in a large part due to the anonymity. Users don't want their personal habits tracked.

Considering the venture capital interest in these 3rd party hosting services. It is important to note that their value is in the data that they collect. As with any 3rd party service, it goes without saying that publishers should read the privacy policy carefully, be aware of who owns the rights to the collected information, and how that information might be used. It goes without saying that the value in many of the free services currently available lies in their aggregate data.

Uniquely Named Transparent Images

Uniquely named transparent 1x1 graphics can be added to the description field of an RSS feed. Users can use standard web logs to see the number of times the image is viewed and determine the number of times the feed was accessed.

Companies Specializing in Tracking and RSS Metrics

Pheedo - Pheedo creates tools that enable individuals, organizations and corporations to promote, analyze, and optimize their weblogs and content.

http://www.pheedo.com

SyndicateIQ - SyndicateIQ's position in the content distribution chain provides clients a set of analytics.

http://www.syndicateiq.com/

FeedBurner - FeedBurner offers a full range of services to help you build awareness, track circulation, and implement revenue-generating programs in your feed(s).

http://www.feedburner.com

Each individual using RSS needs to make a decision of the extent and importance of the analytics they require. Realizing that any system they employ is not going to be perfect.


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