Asking for a pay rise – negotiation techniques

Posted in Career on 09/21/2009 01:40 am by cloud

So you’re ready to go. You’re going to make your boss feel like a winner, and you’re going to make sure you end up a winner too, by fixing a bottom line in your mind and sticking to it. So now it’s time to look at the specific techniques of negotiating – all those tricks that will ensure that you arrive at a win/win solution.

Find All the Variables
Suppose you want another £3000 a year – that’s your bottom line – and your boss knows there’s only £2000 maximum in the budget. It’s pretty hard to see how you’re going to find any common ground, even with the best will in the world. So what do you do? I can’t really answer that, because you shouldn’t really get into this position in the first place. The solution is to avoid this kind of stalemate altogether.

And the way you do that is by finding variables – other factors you can bring into the negotiation. For example:

•    If your boss simply doesn’t have the funds at the moment, you could suggest that if they can give you a written undertaking to increase your salary by an agreed amount in six months’ time, you’ll settle for a smaller increase in the interim.
•    Maybe they will agree a standard rise of 2 per cent above inflation for the next three years, instead of giving it all to you now.
•    Perhaps you could agree a rise in six months conditional on your meeting performance targets.
•    How about making part of your salary performance-related?

All of these are good examples of the factors that can help to bring the two sides closer together in a negotiation.

The more variables you have, the more room for manoeuvre there is in the overall negotiation. So think through all the possible variables you could introduce, both when you’re preparing for the negotiation and during the course of it. Never stop looking for variables until you’ve reached an agreement you’re both happy with.

Get All the Cards on the Table
If your boss is a tricky kind of negotiator, there’s one ace they’ll be holding up their sleeve. They may well have concessions they want from you before they will agree to a rise. They might want you to agree to delay the pay rise, or to take on extra responsibilities. And if they are an underhand dealer, they will wait until the last minute to spring this on you. In other words, they will wait until you’ve pretty well agreed on the value of the rise and, for example, that it won’t take effect for another six months.

And then out of the blue: ‘Oh, and I’d like you to take over dealing with Philippa’s accounts while she’s on maternity leave.’ Now, it’s not that you necessarily don’t want to take over Philippa’s accounts. It’s just that if you do, that will increase your value even more, and with it the size of pay rise you deserve. But hang on, you’d almost finished negotiating, and your boss knows that you were about to accept a 3 per cent rise deferred for six months. It’s much harder now for you to backtrack and insist that you won’t take less than 4 per cent, and you want it from the date Philippa goes on leave. And your boss knows it.

The way to prevent this is very simple: ask your boss to put all their cards on the table, and do the same thing yourself. That way, you can balance all the issues against each other. All you have to do is to say, for example: ‘I want to talk to you about my salary, and I’d also like to discuss my performance targets. Are there any other issues we need to discuss at the same time?’ You’ve made it extremely difficult for your boss to keep back the fact that they want to talk to you about covering for Philippa while she’s away. If they don’t mention it, and then spring it on you later, you have the moral high ground and will find it much easier to insist that it be excluded from the discussion, or that you go back over the other points you’ve agreed and revise them in the light of the new information.

What if the Boss Keeps Something Back Until Afterwards?
It’s one thing getting all the cards on the table while you’re negotiating. But what if your boss raises an ostensibly new issue just after your pay rise is agreed? Your boss may deliberately wait until the whole pay rise is settled and then tell you, minutes or maybe days later, that they’d like you to take on new responsibilities. They’re banking on the fact that you won’t have the nerve to ask for another rise when you’ve only just agreed the last one. Well, tough on them. Don’t fall for it. If they can save a whole topic for later, so can you. Respond positively and enthusiastically, and as though butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, in the same way you would if you hadn’t just been awarded a pay rise. Say something like, ‘That sounds like a terrific challenge; I’d enjoy it. I take it my salary would be adjusted to reflect the increased value I’d be bringing to the company?’

Never Give Free Concessions
This is a simple but critical rule for negotiating. All it means is that if your boss asks you to lower the amount you’re asking for, or concede that you will wait six months before it takes effect, you don’t simply say yes; you trade the concession for a matching concession on their part:

•    If they say, ‘I can offer you a pay rise effective from next January’, you don’t simply say, ‘OK, then.’ You say, ‘So long as the pay rise doesn’t drop below 3 per cent.’
•    When they say, ‘You can’t have a pay rise, but I can give you a commission bonus’, you say, ‘If we do it that way, the commission would need to be at least 5 per cent of gross.’
•    When they say, ‘The best I can do is 2 per cent’, you say, ‘I’d need an undertaking that you would raise that if I take on any significant new responsibilities.’

You’ve got the idea. This principle is crucial simply because it means that you end up with a better deal. Every time you lose something, you also gain something. Just make sure the concessions you gain roughly match the value of those you are giving.

Tough Cookie
When you don’t give free concessions, your boss will soon learn that you are a tough negotiator. They’ll think twice about asking concessions from you when they realize that every time they do, they have to give up something themselves. And In the long term, too, it’s a good thing if your boss knows you are no pushover when it comes to negotiating.

Agree to All or Nothing
The way you reach a final settlement in your negotiation is by moving all the variables around until they balance. So, for example, if the salary is going up by less than you wanted, you won’t agree to defer it by much. Of course you could defer it by more, but then you’d want a larger or smaller proportion of it to be performance related. Or maybe you’re happy to agree to a larger proportion being performance linked, but only so long as the return on good performance is higher. It’s as though all these factors are on sliding scales, and you are sliding one up as another goes down, keeping them all in a balance that produces a settlement you’re happy with.

The one thing you mustn’t do is to agree to any one variable before you agree to the rest of them. It would mean one of your sliders was stuck fast, and you couldn’t adjust it to bring the whole thing into balance. This makes it far harder to agree on a final deal, and you may have to give more ground than you wanted on one of your other sliding scales to get a balance.

So you want to outlaw from the negotiation any comment such as: ‘Right, we’ve agreed to defer the pay rise for six months. Now let’s talk about how big the rise will be.’ Don’t agree any such thing, and if your boss tries to railroad you with a comment like this just say, ‘We haven’t finalized the deferment yet; I’m still considering it. But I’m happy to go on and discuss the rise itself.’

Rounding Off
Once it is clear that you have found a balance that you are both happy with, that’s the time to sum up (or your boss may do so), outlining all the key points clearly: ‘So we’re agreed then. You’ll give me a 4 per cent rise to take effect from 1 May, and I’ll take on Philippa’s accounts during her six-month leave which starts in May.’ The simplest thing now is to ask your boss which one of the two of you should record the outcome of the meeting in writing, just so you can be sure that it gets put down in black and white, for future reference.

Don’t be surprised if your boss doesn’t give you a conclusive yes or no on the spot. Even if they negotiate the best deal they think they can get to keep you motivated and well rewarded – within their budget – they may still need to get their decision approved by senior management before they can go ahead. If you’ve given them the salient facts and presented your case well, you should have set them up nicely to argue your case on your behalf. If they tell you they have to refer the decision upwards, ask if you can supply any other information to help them.

There are also other responses you might get which aren’t the ‘yes’ you want to hear. These range from ‘It isn’t in the budget’ to ‘No one else at your level earns that much’.

  • Share/Bookmark
 

Important Factors Of Public House Insurance

Posted in Insurance on 09/15/2009 10:25 am by cloud

If you have your own public house or running any then you have to make public house insurance. This kind of policy would be sold generally like tradesman insurance and you can shop around and make comparison between cost of  online quotes. Normally a professional agent could recommend you the best and most appropriate deal for your requirements.

Hence, what exactly this kind of insurance and how could it be beneficial? Several reasons are there for that you require this insurance and there are numerous benefits for making a policy too. At first, as it is a pub, so obviously many people will be coming through the doors every day and its necessary that if anybody should get hurt even as on your property you have to have liability insurance that would be paid to court and solicitors costs. Without this insurance you would be necessary for you to get the money out of your pocket and it can cost an arm and a leg!

Next, You must be having staff working at your public house, which could comprise cooks, bar staff, waiters and even kitchen staff dependent of a size and kind of your public house. You should have liability insurance for all your staff and normally an insurance policy  intended for restaurants/houses will as well give liability insurance for your staff. If then they should get injured or hurt by anyway while working you would be able to claim on your insurance policy.

Normally, the stock in pub would also undergo the insurance policy however, you should make sure to find out what eliminations will possibly be there and what constraints. Normally, there will always be some constraints in all insurance policies and the compensation could be dependent on the insurance company. In case, stock were to be destroyed or stolen that in a pub like alcohol it could  crash into several thousand dollars for replacing which could not be possible if you were not covered while you would require to get this money yourself.

Ultimately, keep in mind that as with all kinds of insurance the public house insurance will come along with a particular amount of surplus which you should be paying if you should  be required to make a claim on the policy. The surplus amount that you would have to pay before the insurance company would expense on the rest of the claim could be different. Whilst you could think that £200 of surplus is a big amount to expend, remember that if your stock was to be destroyed or stolen and this totaled £2,000 then the

  • Share/Bookmark
 

Is Your Online Ad worthwhile?

Posted in Advertising online on 09/10/2009 10:24 am by cloud

While surfing on the internet to get some information you can notice the plethora of online advertising that offers almost each conceivable product or services on the earth. As people hitting the information highway increasingly, often turning away from the conventional sources of information like television, radio, print, and advertisers are switching over too. Online advertising is a very cost-effective way to reach web surfers and get their message before a several other viewers.

One of the greatest advantage of online ads could be a largest disadvantages. Online ads helps to reach a wider audience and to expand  the boundaries of your customer base in a global internet business. In the majority of cases you can decide the types of web sites on which you want to publish your online ads, however in number of cases once you put the ad, particularly when you go through an online ad agency, your web site would have end up on sites which are conflicting with you confidence.

If your business is only local, with television or radio, print you can make your advertisement in the restricted geographic locations. For several local business this kind of target advertising can reach those only who are probably interested in your business and be quite probable for visiting personally. It will be your desire that if you want to have your advertising effort, a rifle shot or a shotgun effect.

Though a shotgun line of attack will reach more viewers and in a much wider area, in less time, however it will be having number of the ads expert there on cloud without any contact with promising customers. By a rifle style you can target your advertising at a particular customers and yet with a much higher cost can often achieve a more profit out of the advertising dollar.

When you think about an online advertising, you should consider the potential return for determining that have you invested worth. Online advertising, is the game of numbers in various forms. If you predict that ten percent of viewers of ad will be responding and 10% out of respondents will be resulting in a sale, you must contemplate that 10,000 advertisement of print media could see 1,000 respondents results in 100 sales.

Through online ads, you may reach a millions of viewers, those results in 100,000 respondents with 10,000 sales. Evaluating these simply hypothetical numbers would be likely to make internet advertising a fine investment. Even though, dependent on the location  of the placement of internet ads, for example on those sites targeted customers of your business visits very rarely, then the number of the respondents can be significantly lower, decreasing the potential gain on your investment in online ad. If you are having an online business, it can pay for advertising wherever your potential customers will be looking for. If your total business is offline, making ad on internet can just build business by which you make ad the recipient of several incomes.

  • Share/Bookmark
 

Top 5 successful business strategies

Posted in Business on 08/30/2009 08:46 am by cloud

Starting and having our own business is everybody dreams and it can be a wonderful journey. Many people start with the new business and after several months or years they may suddenly fail. There may be several reasons why businesses fail such as they may not study the business facts and strategies or they may fail to understand the ups and downs of the business. There can be multipurpose reasons why small business fails. However to prevent all the business mistakes there are following given tips that can help you avoid all these errors.

1. Location for your business

Selecting a best location for the business is very important in terms of growing your business. For finding a location for the business in a civilized location will make profit for the business, but it may cost you more. The location you select for the business will help you earning credits for the business. Selecting a business location in the cheap area will cause you opening your doors in the wrong side. Therefore going for a good location area can be first step for the successful business.

• Consider points when selecting good location

• Location should be in the commercial area

• See for the customer’s convenience

• Safety should also consider if your business runs in building

2. Cash an important factor

Cash flow is very important for keeping the business growth. There are times when money is tight and your business is lying behind on the financial growth. Therefore keeping and eye on the credit control of your company is very crucial and you need to make sure at every step all your pending invoices are paid. Hence, business plans are very important in terms of financial issues, marketing, sales and other such fundamentals.

3. Purchase prices

It is important to know the purchase prices about everything you purchase. You can search and find the results on the Internet where you can check purchase price details. You can get some idea on how to discuss with the business suppliers on the purchases. Always make research on the price details when the purchase prices are given to you

4. Don’t give up early

For any business in the startup, it is very difficult establish it and there are such businesses that have gone down in even in the first year. However, often some businesses those take even three to four years to setup and make good profit. However, there are only 70 to 80 % businesses that make profit in the first year so losing hope early in the business is just like quitting from the race.

5. Website importance for business

Having a professional well designed website for your business is very important in order to get the user to your site and know them about your business its products and what services it has. However having website can be an added feature for your business such as you can make profits on selling ad space on your website. Remember if you have your website people may be coming and visiting to your site, but if you do not have your website you will be losing your customers and moreover, your business partners.

Make sure you have a website that should make your business look better and through which you can improve your business revenues.

  • Share/Bookmark
 

Top 5 tips for advertising your business in the recession period

Posted in Business on 08/20/2009 05:56 am by cloud

Advertising your business during the challenging economic times is very crucial when the business market is downward. Marketing for business in the key time when others are trying hard to advertise their business. More than likely you are searching for many innovative ways to advertise your services and products to grow your sales plus you will find many ways to bring everyone’s attention to your business. If you are going to start your own business then there are some important steps that will be very vital to advertise your business in the challenging recession times, try these tips to see your business market share increase.

1. Networking is a best way to know yourself to everyone, meeting many people, sharing ideas following new associates increases your networks with many business peoples. Make personal appearance in the people increases your contacts and look more for the opportunities that you can get. Print business cards, brochures and define some offers in the brochure and be ready for distributing it. Always keep in mind one thing such as let various people know you and your business products and find different ways how you can get in front of many peoples.

2. Many people advertise their business in the same ways such as just printing cards, brochures, newsletters, banners etc. Just because they are presenting their business this way you it doesn’t mean you should use the same format for your business products. Try some new ways such as demonstrating your business product and services, try some audio announcements, and make video marketing rather than just getting out the printed cards and brochures, try some different ways and be the first to attract everyone’s attention.

3. Sometimes advertising and marketing can take a lot of time and money, you may spend a money on campaigning and holding banners but don’t end up with advertising and marketing your business because it is a need of bringing many customers to your way. Give live seminars and topics about your business products and services. However, there are many such ways that can build your marketing strategies and target the right people to get your business noticed in right way.

4. For using your business advertising in more effective ways and making sure your ads do not irritate the clients, use your advertisement in such way that customer will like them. There are other ways where your business will noticed by the more people in the challenging economic time such as you can join some public networking sites that do not charge any fees. This site not only allows you to advertise your business but also you can make good friends. The site offer an advertising page where you can put your business ads that everyone can see.

5. When you start your business always be a professional and develop your reputation in the business field. Come up with the new ideas promoting your business through new papers, televisions on Internet etc. These are major keys of your business advertising which help you expand your business.

Marketing and advertising are two important aspects they are like pillars for the growth of any business. I you want your business to succeed even in the recession period then these are the vital factors. As, many business competitors are racing each other and finding different way to attract customers at their doorstep. Take a wise decision for advertising understand the need of the customers, be creative in what you do? How you do? These imperative features will help your business increase even during the recession time.

  • Share/Bookmark
 

Benefits of business and its planning

Posted in Business on 08/04/2009 07:55 am by cloud

Making the business work perfectly and keep it well flowing is not so easy task for anybody there are many things and business aspect needed to be followed. Many business fails because of not having a clear strategic plans for the business, making a business early forces you to find details of your business and explain what part of the business is need to be modify. People work hard on their business without notifying the bigger picture that grows their business and some time it is the main reason that causes the business to fall in future.

Benefits of having a business plans will help you build great success in the business

Making a business plan early is first step of success. Writing a business plan and making a research will help you scale the direction of your business such that operating a the business by deciding the goal for it, as many business operate without any goals, it is very important to plan your goal for example how to attract the clients? What product you have and how to advertise for it? Planning well and knowing your goals for the business will help you achieve great success.

Create a vision for your business where you would be after five to ten years in the future creating such image will motivate you about your business possibilities that you can create and achieve. If you decide developing your business globally then you will concentrate on developing international contacts and relationships that will benefit your business.

A well define business plan will:

1. Enable you to identify early problems and take any suitable action for it.

2. It helps you recruit better and higher level of employees.

3. Keep you and your staff focused towards your business.

4. Establishes core business values and defines overall strategies for your business.

5. Set target for your business and measure success for it.

Steps for simple Business Plan:

1. Create and evaluate the name of your business.

2. Think about the future implementation of the business.

3. Decide goal and objective for the business and define what your business does and the activities it performs.

4. Analyze strengths, weakness, and threats in your business.

5. Decide the financial plan such as sales, revenues, costs and capital requirements of the business.

6. Define the strategic plan that consist sales and marketing of your business.

Many companies generally focus on strategic plans every one year to every five year; furthermore companies follow and go through the business plans regularly. By performing all the necessary key points your business can be on the right track.

  • Share/Bookmark
 

Dream of a Start-up: Follow these simple tips to make it a reality!

Posted in Business, New Business Development on 07/13/2009 03:03 am by cloud

A start-up is a cherished dream of an individual and needs passion to make it big in the business world. If you ask the people who have achieved this, they will come up with varied suggestions of doing the same.

Here are a few tips that will guide you on your route to success.

• Believe in the dream/ The Business Idea
The first most important step is to have faith in the business idea. Unless an entrepreneur is absolutely sure of the plans that will be put in to action, the entire process can not start.

• Vision
The strategic importance of a vision statement can not be ignored. The vision of the company will determine the course of the business since it is the key to formation of policies and forms the basis for decision-making.

• Thorough Research
This is important because a business can be fine-tuned according to the requirements of the targeted market based on a complete research of the same.

• Be confident about the product or service
The level of confidence that the company has in its products or services will reinforce the belief of the customers and help in increasing business of the company.

• Pre-determine the risks and repercussions
An entrepreneur needs to be aware of the risks that arise in his/ her line of business along with the consequences of those risks. Also seeking financial protection against risks is a good way to ensure security to a certain level. Never bite off more than you can chew.

• Growing your Circle of Business Friends
A business house can succeed only when there are people who can guide during crisis. The more acquaintances an entrepreneur has, higher are the chances of furthering your business and getting more contacts that will eventually be instrumental in aiding business growth.

• Control Costs
Controlling costs is another activity that will ensure that the profits of a company are reinvested in projects that will induce growth, leaving room for directing funds to employee welfare and overall managerial activities in an organization.

• Managing failures
Any business failure, be it technical or human resource oriented or any other, has to be dealt with wisely. In the sense, never repeat the same mistakes and do not dwell on them for a long time.

• Performance Measurement
A system of performance measurement is important as it results in eliminating the factors that slacken the pace of the company, any of its projects or even disturb the general environment of the organization.

• Using the Web to Grow
All businesses require the powerful tool called the internet. Unless it is used well, the growth will be lower than expected. It is an important means of developing, maintaining and using business contacts for sustained expansion.

• Employees: An asset
Hiring the right employees is a way to ensure definite gradual growth, if not immediate. Also maintaining the human force with provision of satisfactory compensatory and other benefits is also vital. This will ensure employee retention and result in efficient people coming through employee referrals also.

  • Share/Bookmark
 

10 tips on how to make a flyer that catches people’s attention

Posted in Business Services on 06/13/2009 12:48 am by cloud

Summary:
Flyers are a great marketing tool for promotion. However printing the wrong information on them can easily get them ignored. When you spend money to print marketing materials, the last you want is your advertising money down the drain.

Yes, flyers are a great way to market things such as an event or club night. It’s quite common for flyers to be used throughout the country for various different student promotions. When you make a flyer, you want it to make its way around and not become the next thing that a person throws in the trash

These 10 tips will help you avoid having your flyer the next thing a person throws in the trash:

1. Keep up to date with things, so that you don’t miss out. Always make sure to double check the local Fresher’s week and 2009/2010 semester terms. Make sure to check with the local universities, since they vary nationwide.

2) Make the flyers enticing to students, so it gives them a reason to want to keep them. Think about including things such as special offers, discounts or event things like drink promotions.

3) Include key facts like what you are promoting, when it will be, why you are doing it, and how you plan to do it and where it will be. Make sure to list all relevant information, such as how much it will cost, the time it will be, the address or venue it will be at and what date, along with you contact information and url.

4) Double check all spelling and grammar on your flyer before having it go to print.

5) The company that you choose as the printers for the flyers be sure to check on their delivery times. When you have a lot to print, you don’t want problems when it comes to distribution times.

6) Leave flyers in places where the students that you are targeting hang out. It would not hurt to meet some of the students to help you with brainstorming with ideas for placement.

7) When you want students to remember what you are promoting, it helps to include things like topical humor, or strong visuals. If they really like them, you may even get some of the students putting your flyers on their bedroom walls. Students will take any chance they get to replace an old poster their mom gave them, with something that looks cool.

8) Get the opinions of some local students on your sample flyer designs. This will help give you an idea to which has to most marketing appeal.

9) Think about handing out the flyers yourself. This helps maximize your budget, therefore increasing your sales and profits, which is a win-win situation. Personally doing it, also shows your enthusiasm and familiarizes others with your friendly face, which works wonders.

10) Stay away from the trashcans by using the above tips.

  • Share/Bookmark
 

7 Tips on how to advertise your business for free

Posted in Advertising online on 06/11/2009 12:37 am by cloud

Many tend to not realize the many different ways that there are to advertise free. Well you have come to the right place to find out some easy and simple ways to advertise free. Below you will find seven ways for advertising your business free of charge.

1) The first of the seven ways we will discuss are free directories. Free directories give customers the opportunity to search for a particular topic. Of course, as with anything there are always and disadvantages to everything. On the plus side, one posting of yours lasts for a long period of time, meaning that you don’t have to resubmit new postings every week or month, which will save you a lot of time. On the other hand, much of your traffic will not come from here, but it is always good to get your link out there, so set some time on the side for posting to free directories at least once every six months.

2) The second way involves classified ads, which are great for home businesses. If you think about it, the classifieds are where people go to look for jobs. Post to a few different classified ads and as you find out which one’s bring the most traffic, start to weed out the one’s that do not. You want to do this since you will have to post to classifieds quite frequently. This you may find quite time consuming, but will find over time it gets much easier.

3) The third way has to do with free article submissions. Writing articles and submitting them to article directories and/or ezines is one of the best ways to let others know about a service that you offer or products. If you have a website, this is a great way to get free links to your site by placing one in the author resource box, where you tell others about yourself and where to find your products or services. Many webmasters are constantly looking for good articles for their site and by having yours posted you are getting free advertising.

4) The forth way is probably the easiest and quickest thing to do, which is URL Submissions. In your search engine, look up ‘free URL submission’, which should give you a list. Then type in the URL you are promoting and submit, which should take you no more than a few seconds. Make sure to do this at least once every three months.

5) Forum posts are the fifth way and a good way to promote your product or service every time that you post. All you have to do is enter your information in the signature file when you sign up for a forum, which will display every time that you make a posting. Look for topics that pertain to your business and that you can share knowledge about, as well answer some questions. Never spam anyone, since it will only give you a bad reputation and make it so that you get kicked off the forum. Posts on a forum are great, since they stay there forever and even when it is archived, others can still search for it.

6) The sixth way is traffic exchanges and probably the most time consuming out of the free ways of advertising, but the most effective out of them all. From the forums I have visited, there are a lot of others that agree that traffic exchanges are a good way to make profit. In the case that you do not want to surf the web for credits, then you have the option to buy them. Personally, programs like crazy browser are great since they allow you to cut your surfing time down to one hour a day by surfing multiple websites at once. Various other programs are available as well and you can download free.

7) Lastly are news-groups. It’s a good idea to become involved with a group that has to do with your business, this way you can mail the group about once per day. Always try to make sure to find something new to talk about, or you will find people will start to ignore you. Do not spam anyone and only join groups with similar interests as yours.

  • Share/Bookmark
 

5 Easy and effective ways to advertise for targeted traffic online

Posted in Advertising online on 06/09/2009 12:30 am by cloud

Any business can benefit from these five easy and effective ways of advertising for targeted traffic online. Regardless of whether you have an Internet Marketing Enterprise, or small work at home business, you will benefit from these tips. These 5 things will drive traffic to your website and the best part is that it is at no cost to you.

Many believe regardless of whether your website is based off a hobby, or offers a service or product, that advertising is everything. There has to be some form of advertising in order to get traffic to your website. Of course, not all traffic is the same either.

Different types of services help in driving tons of traffic to websites, but it does not do any good when it is not targeted traffic. For instance, there is a wide assortment of ‘traffic clicking’ or ‘surf for traffic’ programs out there. However, they are of little use when you have a specific kind of site, like hobbies. All these programs will do is drive little or irrelevant traffic to your site, which is no benefit to you.

Usually the types of people that use these programs are webmasters and marketers who are trying to bring traffic to their own sites. So if one of them are to click on your site, it is very unlikely they will give you more time than what the timer requires them too. Most of these services have a set limit of time that they are required to stay on a page in order to get credits and after the time is up, most will leave. The only time you will ever really see any benefit from using these types of programs, is if your site corresponds to the traffic services. However, you will still have to spend a lot of your time surfing the web and clicking in order to see any real benefits from these programs.

As marketers started to realize the benefits of promoting all the different programs to other marketers, they decided to shift away from the old way of doing things. This became the new focus of marketers, since traffic many times was a bonus of these types of promotions. With time more and more caught on and it became the thing that everyone was doing, therefore making the number of people surfing the Internet a lot less than before.

The most important thing for your site is targeted traffic. Below you will find tips that help drive targeted traffic to your site, so you don’t have to run around finding it.

1. Type of Content on you Site
The content within your site is what makes it. So, what is it about? What kind of value does your site give to potential visitors? If it is just a lot of links, then you may want to think of adding something else like a reprint of an article, or an article that you have written.

2. Share experiences of things within your expertise
No, I don’t mean that you have to be a professional, or have a degree to be an expert in something. I mean to say something that you are currently doing or something that you are passionate about. Take for example hobbies. Maybe you have model cars that you built and want to share it with others. Put up pictures of the systematic process of you putting it together, or just put up a picture of a car that you recently built.

3. Bulletin Boards and Forums
Add a Bulletin Board or forum to your site, for a place for visitors to interact with one another. Many free services are available, which host a forum remotely, or have software that you can install on the website’s server. You can find things like this by using anyone of your favorite search engines.

While searching free services like this, it also would not hurt to search for established bulletin boards and forums on your chosen topic. Go and visit one of your finds. Establish a profile or signature, and add a link to your site, while interacting with others on the forum, or bulletin, but just make sure to follow their rules and that linking is permitted.

4. Start Blogging
At this time, blogs have become very popular. They are also popular with search engines too, since they often provide new and fresh content. Blogs are a great way to tell others what you are doing daily. Share things like the new model car you bought or paint you are thinking of buying, how much they cost, and where you got it. Anything applies on a blog.

Another plus, is that you can link to your website for promotion. Each time the search engine indexes your blog; it will then go by your site and help to generate the targeted traffic that you want.

5. Write some Articles
It is not that difficult to write articles and they have many benefits, such as driving some new and fresh traffic to your site. The amount of article directories that you can submit your article to is endless. Many have a variety of different article topics to choose from.

When you write an article, add a small resource box with a link back to you. Allow others to reprint the article, so when publishers go to the article directories for new content they may choose yours. This will help to bring a lot of new traffic to your site, so make sure to continue writing and submitting new material for article directories.

With these five tips, soon you will have targeted traffic coming to your site in no time. This means that the visitors that come to your site will be coming due to interest with what is on your site. Regardless to whether you have a Marketing enterprise or small work at home business, you will find these five easy and effective way, great at driving traffic to your site at no cost to you.

  • Share/Bookmark
 
Older Entries