Getting
Traffic ....
This
is what i think the hardest part to do. Once you have setup
your webcam, and the website you have created is amazing,
you still need to attract some people to visit your site.
And ofcourse you want to have a lot of visitors (who doesnt).
Its
very difficult these days to attract visitors, there are so
many competitors in the business. When creating your website
you must have thought about the audience you want to attract.
If you are running a family webcam , you dont want to attract
visitors looking for Adult webcams ... and vice versa. Lots
of this stuff has to do with SEO ( Search Engine Optimisation
) . But we will discuss this in another chapter.[top]
About
your traffic options ....
The
main idea of a Topsite is to classify sites by returned traffic
or ranking, ie. what people vote or click the most, the higher
in the Ranking that site will appear. Users interested in
this kind of promotion join by filling a small form and then
paste a "Vote Me" graphic or text link in their
page, so when site visitors click on the "Vote Me"
graphic, a vote is counted towards that site. 99% of this
kind of services control cheating so don't try to.
If
you have just started your website, go for the smaller topsites
first, its hard getting listed when you dont have many visitors
to vote or click for you... Please remember that when you
are displaying your banner or webcam picture on a topsite
from your site, it will cost you bandwith ! [top]
My
favorite way of gaining traffic on the long run, as long as
you do it efficiently.
First
of all i would like to advice to install a google
toolbar. With this toolbar you can check your sites ranking
and the ranking of others. This is important because a link
exchange with a high ranking is better then one with a low
ranking. Avoid sites with a grey toolbar , these might be
banned by google for spamming (might be other reasons), or
it is a new site thats not listed in Google yet. The higher
ranking your partner has, the better for you. If your ranking
is 4/10 or higher spiders will visit your site on a daily
basis, and your position in search results is better ....
Why google you might ask ? Well 70 % of all traffic will come
from Google.
So
most link exchanges will not give you a lot of traffic, but
it might be interesting in the long run. You might want to
check Webmasterworld.com (google
toolbar , Google
news) or Seochat.com
for details on this matter. Ofcourse not only google is judging
your site this way, its what most big engines do .... Also
read Keywords , Meta etc..
The
best link exchanges are text links like " Webcam
directory Camchoice " because it contains both of
my main keywords "webcam" and "directory"
Ofcourse image exchanges are much better looking, but text
links are more effective .... We will discuss more about keywords
in another chapter ....
A
nice way to get backlinks is to participate in Forums related
to your topic. Avoid guestbooks because most searchengines
allready are aware of this trick .... Warning : Dont join
any linkfarms or FFA sites, these can get you banned from
mayor search engines. They will tell you its not the case,
but it is .... Try to avoid link exchanges with sites not
related to your topic ie. Cars are not related to Webcams.
A
nice tool to check on backlinks is Google
Dance with this tool you can check all 9 google data centers
at once. For checking more search engines at once you might
want to try Submit
express linkpopularity check . [top]
Probably
the first promotion tools that were born on the Net. You submit
all the required information to their database and they add
the resource to their database so others will be able to find
it later through a search box.
You'll
find spiders where you just enter the URL and a program does
the rest (ie. they index all your pages beginning with the
URL you provide)
We
allready discussed a little bit about Google, at this time
the most used search engine.
A
good position in Google will get you 70 % of all traffic.
The best way to get listed in google is to let the so called
Spiders find your site. When your site is allready listed
on another site, which allready has a (good) ranking (4/10
or better) the spider will follow that link and index your
site. This way you will get a ranking as well.
Google
is a partner with ODP DMOZ
(open directory project) and i would advice to submit your
site there. But be very patient, it could be months before
your site gets indexed in DMOZ. If you allready submitted
your site there and you want to know the status just leave
a message in their forum
(they are fast in answering your question though).
Ofcourse
there are other big search engines like Altavista , MSN ,
Yahoo , AOL .... etc and remember that a lot of them are connected
to each other. Getting listed in Google also means that you
get a listing in AOL , Yahoo , and AOL etc. Get the picture
?
How
to get listed in big engines ? If you want to do it for Free
then best way to do it is to submit your site One by One.
Lots of companies out there are offering services to submit
your site to thousands of search engines at once, which is
a lot of crap. Just submit your site once
to the major engines, sit back and relax for a month or so.
While you are waiting you can work on your link exchanges.
Dont submit your site over and over again, you could get into
trouble for spamming .... and besides its frustrating, believe
me i know.... If you still want to do it quickly you can use
Addme.com
Submit
and use the free submission. If no results appear after one
month, submit again.
If
you want to get listed quickly you might want to try a payed
submission service for major engines. I am recommending positiontech
. Inktomi , Fast , Jeeves are like backbones for other engines.
Do
you want to have some instant traffic ? and you are able to
spend some money ? Join a per per click programm like for
instance adwords from google. You can bid on keywords like
"live webcams" for $ 0,05 per click with a maximum
of $ 6 per day. This will get you a 120 visitors a day...
Google
adwords
If
you want some in dept info on major search engines i would
advice you to follow the topics of Webmasterworld.com
and Seochat.com. [top]
- Small
search engines (topic related)
Small
search engines and startpages are more or less topic related.
In our case we are looking for Webcam Directories , Webcam
Startpages and so on. These kind of listings are a nice way
to get backlinks and some traffic. Most of the times these
directories will ask for a backlink / voting box. If you are
submitting to a lot of these engines make a special page called
Partner-sites.html or so and dont put all of the backlinks
into your main index (not a pretty site). And remember that
big engines like google will not follow more then 100 links
on one page ....
A
nice start would be to submit your webcam site to our Webcam
Directory Camchoice. Its not mandatory to put a backlink
or voting box on your page. But:
- The
voting box will help you getting a better ranking in Camchoice,
which means a better position and more traffic for you.
- A
backlink would be appreciated ....
Submit
here .... If you are looking for more search engines and
startpages to submit to, go to our directory collection :
non-adult
or
adult. [top]
The
WebRing idea was born as an alternative to generic search
engines: the system allows to either create (and mantain)
a group of pages under the same characteristics or to surf
any of the Rings that exist in a network, so you surf members
pages which belong to the theme of that WebRing. There are
thousands of different WebRings to promote your site in it.
You just fill a form and paste a piece of HTML code in your
page for your visitors to keep surfing the Ring. Personally
i am not very font of webrings, but its a way to start ....
[top]
- Banner
or button exchange
A
standard promotion tool on the Web: you attach some HTML codes
in your page to display banners of other members inside the
Banner network you choose so you get credits which are redeemed
as your own banner displays on other members pages. These
services often offer a 2:1 ratio, which means that for every
2 banners you display on your page, you get 1 credit to display
your banner in any other page inside the network. Everything
is automated so you just sign up, paste the code and the system
does the rest. [top]
These
sites offer a meeting point for all the WebCam enthusiasts
and also provide hosting services and software so you can
send your video streams thru their community site and other
people can easily find you. It's the definitive tool and place
to meet and share a really nice WebCam experience with others
(if you dont have your own page) . Do note this is not a standard
point to point videoconference like netmeeting, but several
Web pages hosting the video streams of the owner of the WebCam.
Some of them even include chat capabilities so you can talk
realtime with the human being behind the camera! Find tons
of people thru the WebCam communities! More about webcam comunities
in our section Making
friends [top]
After
a couple of months your site is indexed in the mayor search
engines and the traffic is going well. But as traffic increases
, the bandwith increases with it, and so do the costs. If
you want to get some money back try
this .... [top]
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