Getting traffic to your blog or website is a tough thing to do when you are starting out. If you have a constant  amount of traffic to your site, increasing your traffic is, yet,  a lot more challenging.

For example, when I first started my website at Elegante Entertainment, my traffic was between the 0 ( zero) to 10 visits per day range for a long time (approximately a month or two). However, This was not the Case for HoustonPartyBooths.com since I already knew what I was doing. I had a rush of over 70 visitors the first day I launched the website… Today it averages 16 unique visits a day (according to Google Analytics), which is better than an average website. Whereas, Elegante Entertainment is averaging 106 Unique Visits each day (according to Google Analytics).  Note: Google analytics is usually a lot lower than the actual number of actual visits. Since Google uses Javascript to track visitors, if a visitor disables Javascritpt on their browser Google cannot track them.

For those of you starting off and even some of you bloggers that are looking to increase your traffic, I am going to give you a great (super secret ninja power) Idea to try…

Before we continue, let me just say that lately, I’ve been looking for blogs to read. Blogs that are part of the whole wedding industry. I think that I can increase the traffic and readership to this blog by finding other great blogs, whether they are photographers, coordinators, cake designers, or any other type of wedding vendor, and placing some great comments on their blogs.

You know what I found out…

The majority of wedding vendors that have a blog, host it on an external domain… WHY?!?!?!?

I can think of 3 reasons; lack of knowledge, a very low self concept, and/or laziness…

Here’s why I think that…

Lack of Knowledge: Most people don’t understand how the search engines work. They don’t understand that when a search engine indexes a blog or a website, they associate a lot of the keywords with the website that it is hosted under. For example, most people get a blog at Blogger.com, typepad.com, blogspot.com, or wordpress.com. When they write good content and targeted keyword content, their host, Blogger.com, wordpress.com, etc…, gets all the credit for it. If you host your blog on your website, then guess what… All the great content and keywords are associated with your site. If you happen to write one article that brings tons of traffic, you will see right away that Google will move your website very high on the search results for many of your key words. It’s gradual and it’s exponential. It’s really amazing to see it happen.

People have a very low self concept: Most people want to try blogging but don’t immediately want it associated with their business website. They do it to ‘get started’ with blogging and to see if it ‘fits their lifestyle.’ I guess that’s a good idea, I am more of the type to say, if you are going to try something new, go at it 100% not just to see if you are going to like it. Right there, you are leaving a door open to fail. Never start something if you think it’s going to fail. Why even do it at all?

Laziness: Ok I am going to combine laziness with cheapness. Some people are too lazy to install a blog on their website host or don’t want to pay someone to do it for them. It’s so easy to just go to one of the free blogging hosts and sign up for an account there and start bloggin. I would avoid that at all costs and invest the money to install it on your own business domian name. The benefits are endless.

Back to the super secret tip I was going to tell you about…

The reason I went off in a tangent was because when you host your blog on an external host, you have so many limitations that you are unaware of and you will have a much harder time increasing traffic to your website and to your blog. It’s almost as if you created an extra job for yourself to do; drive traffic to your website and drive traffic to your blog. Additionally, this super secret tip you cannot perform if you don’t have your blog installed on your own web host or your business website…

Before you proceed, you must have already installed the Google Analytics Tracking code, if you have not already done so, please do so before you can continue. Get an account at google, if you don’t already have one, log into your Google Analytics Account and get the tracking code. This post will not go into detail on how to do that, maybe later I will do a quick step by step process on how to do it, but there are already many articles out there on how you can add the code to your blog.

So here are the steps for this one Idea on how to grow your traffic…

1. Log into your Google Analytics Program.

2. Change the date range to go as far back as you can. I would set it to start at the beginning of the calendar year or to cover one entire year.

3. Select the ‘Traffic Sources’ link on the left hand side and Select to View

4. Select to display the top 100 Keywords

5. Select the Keyword(s) you want to target.

6. Write an article geared around those keywords. People are landing on your website or blog looking for information related to those keywords. Give them what they want… the #1 rule in selling.

7. Watch your traffic grow for those keywords over the next few months.

If you do this one action, over and over you will: 1.) Target traffic that is related to your specific division of the wedding industry, 2.) Get some great ides for writing more articles, 3.) Grow your web traffic, therefore increasign the number of inquiries on your website.

If you notice above, you can see that I’ve targeted 10 new ideas for posts on my blog. All of them have the potential to bring in the traffic that I want… Brides and Quinceaneras.

Happy Bloggin!

–
|0| Simply Frank |0|
Blogger Wedding DJ in Houston

Recently I was talking to a friend of mine who also happens to also be in the wedding industry. She stated that this month (September ‘08) was really, really slow for them. Their bookings were down a noticeable difference from previous months. She also stated that a few other of her wedding vendor friends (2 photographers and 1 reception venue owner) had a slow month of September. I was puzzled because for me, this is a normal/average month.

So I decided to compare this years 2008’s online traffic with that of last year’s. I logged onto my  statistics portion of my website and saw the same trend going on for this year as last as far as online traffic goes.

It, of course, was consistent whit their statements. September is not necessarily the slowest month for online traffic, August is. September is the month that online traffic starts to pick up. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the long summer vacations and getting back to school, but there is a small dip on my online traffic during the month of august. Which makes sense, most people do not want to pick September as the month they are getting married. I believe it’s because of Back to school, because they will have to spend their entire summer finalizing their wedding, and because of the expenses most people have during the month of September.

The Website Traffic Numbers

So here is the graph for traffic visitors logged through google’s Analytics program.

If you pay close attention, you can see the same trends from early in the year 2007 show up in the year 2008. Even though my traffic grew overall this year by 100%, the trends remained the same. During January of 2007  there was a huge spike of visitors, the same as you see for January 2008. March had a spike in both 2007 and 2008. July had a spike both years as well. Now if you notice in 2007, August was low then September had a slight gain, and October just exploded with traffic.

This month you should start preparing your website for that explosion in traffic. Fix you landing pages, Prepare an email autoresponder, place an online form on your website, get started bloggin, aim for those keywords, rank high-er on the search engines… do something anything to get as much of these brides/clients as you can. There is an upcoming opportunity and you should be doing something, the slightest thing to get a piece of that. Because if the trend is the same as last year, and I’m sure it will, you have until the end of this month to capture all that traffic and maximize your profits from your website.

Happy Bloggin!

–
Francisco H. Perez
Bloggin Professional DJ in Houston

The best thing that could have EVER happened to my Houston DJ Business

How did my business become successful? Well if you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that online marketing is the bread and butter of my business. The bloodline that keeps my (bad) spending habits alive.

However, it was pretty hard to find the correct formula. A formula that I have worked on and (I think) perfected over the last few years.

When you look at it, it’s pretty simple and easy for anyone to implement. Don’t we all love that word: EASY(sarcasm).

Main Objective: Gain the trust of your brides/website visitors and Convert them into Interested Clients. AKA Website Conversion.

What I am going to dissect or explain in detail here the actual website itself in hopes that you can make some few changes to your website, if it’s not bringing you any more clients, so that you can start capturing those brides/clients you never knew visited or viewed your wedding vendor web page.

What I will ignore here, or not cover, is how to get those brides / clients to your website, that will be covered completely separate. We just want to focus on how to direct your prospects through from the moment they arrive to the moment they become your clients.

So here is the formula of my DJ in Houston Wedding Vendor Websites Success.

1. The first thing you need is an aesthetically pleasing website.

   There is nothing that will kill trust or conversion faster than an ‘ugly’ website. Spend some time, money and energy designing a nice looking website, logo and look for your business. Your website more and more is becoming your centralized point of marketing. Just to clarify, a website is not a business, it’s a marketing tool. Make it look good and make it fit all your your other marketing materials. Jennifer Schafer with Premier Bride Magazine and Brandit Bandits in Houston is an advocate of creating an image, a brand that your clients can buy. Also consider the question, how many clients do I LOSE because of my website?

2. The Second thing you need is Compelling, Creative Content.

   The WEB is known as the “information superhighway.” Realize that brides visit your website looking for specific information that relates to their upcoming wedding. They want to be informed, they want to know what you can do for them, how you can take the worry away and create their beautiful wedding day, you need to gain their trust, they need to be convinced, they want to make the best choice available to them. Arrange your content to gain the trust of the bride and then drive, push them, convince them them to call you or submit their information into your contact form. A lot of wedding vendors with the most beautiful websites fail in achieving this. It is not easy, however, there are techniques and websites devoted to teaching people to create compelling sales copy on your website. Ask yourself, what do I offer the bride, what is the bride looking for, how do I help her find it, what is important; in the mind of the bride, what are some common concerns, etc… Then you set to create content on your website that answers those questions with how YOU or YOUR service can help them. NOTE: A reader pointed out something to me, that I already knew, but ignored for a long, long time (as you probably do too).

   Hi DJ! I have a couple of suggestions for you. First, put some contact information on your blog so readers can contact you privately. Second, use spell checker on your posts. I found typos in both of your first two posts that I read and then I lost interest in reading any more. Typos undermine your credibility as an expert. Good luck!– Tracy

Happy Bloggin!

–
DJ Francisco

Last month, June 24th 2008, I wrote an article entitled:How POWERFUL can your Blog be?

Pretty much I wanted to show you how powerful blogs are and how much Google loves them.

As a marketer, your objective is to get your logo or your website in front of as many brides/customers as you can, where ever they may be or go. I know that a lot of brides use the internet to find information about whatever they may need at that time.

So I got an idea to get in front of the brides that would attend the Bridal Extravaganza Show in Houston. I knew they would be using key words such as “bridal extravaganza,” “Houston bridal extravaganza,” “Bridal Show July Houston.” So I wrote an article on my DJ in Houston Website and called it: Houston Bridal Extravaganza Show – July 2008.

It immediately ranked extremely high (1st page results in Google.com) in the search engines for terms related to the Bridal Extravaganza Show. I am talking about, hours after the post, I was indexed and ranked on the first page of Google for most of those keywords.

Luckily I use a visitor tracking program on my website and here are the results of the additional traffic and the keywords used to access my website.

For a Complete list of all the Google Tracking Details from my DJ in Houston Website Download the PDF Report Below.
2008_07_30-google-details-fhpentertainment

This report show ALL the traffic that came into my website as a result of Google.com only. In the month of July, Google.com provided me with 52% of my total monthly traffic, Yahoo 18%, and MSN/Live with 6% of my total monthly traffic. At the time of this post, July 30th, 2008 12:00 pm Central time, I’ve had a total of 3,651 visitors to my website this month. Note: This tracking program will count one person as 1 visitor for each day he or she visits the website. EX. if you visit it today, it will count you as 1 for the entire day (no matter how many times you return), if you visit it tomorrow it will count you again, so you become 2 visitors.

Now, I understand, these are just traffic numbers, they really don’t mean nothing to you until I report income as a result of that traffic.

All I can answer to that is that 85% of my DJ Business Income comes as a result of my website. I have one Ad in Premiere Bride Magazine, and that is ALL the advertising I do. Even that traffic is directed to my website.

Happy Bloggin!!

–
DJ Francisco
Blogger and DJ in Houston

Would you like to make additional income from your Business Blog?

Are you ready to work 2 (TWO) hours a day?

Want to know how the professionals do it?

How I Make Money Blogging

The Doors are already open for Yaro’s Blogmastermind Program, where he will take you by the hand and show you how he has done, and more importantly how easy it is for you to do it.

As an incentive for being a loyal BlogginforWeddingVendors.com reader, I am giving away one month free for one lucky reader who registers through this LINK-Bogmastermind Coaching Program.

If you sign up and pay for the entire course up front, you will save $85 dollars, and if you win the raffle, you will save a total of $182.

Head on over to Blogmastermind and get all the information about the program.

–
DJ Francisco

P.S.
This is the only course I have ever taken online and I can guarantee that it will open your eyes to new ideas and to specific tricks for you to do in order to generate more high quality content and a lot more profit from your blog. I would really recommend it to those of you who are starting out and have no clue of how to blog or what to blog about.

I ask you to just take one quick look at his website, read the information he has about his program and you can decide if this course is right for you.

Blogmastermind

Alborz started writing about something he loved, Exotic Cars , and now he is making a full-time living from bloggin.

listen to the interview to hear how he did it: Audio Interview.

This is a great interview, and it explains at least one concept that you can use right away; writing the titles of your blog posts to get the most traffic to your website and to rank high for your targeted keywords. Also you can understand how to use what you yourself would type in the search engines to find your website. It will open your eyes and your mind to whole new world of online marketing.

Go now and listen to this Audio Interview.

Happy Bloggin

You learn something new everyday, that’s the great thing about life, just when you think you’ve got the hang of something, you find out there is a better, faster, more effective way to do it.

Today I am truly inspired by one small change I made to my website that literally, overnight, improved my responses… I am still in shock of happiness for this discovery…

What did I do ???

Well, first let me give you a background story…

I subscribe to a lot of blogs, newsletters, and websites which have great information that helps me on many things; my website, my personal life, my search engine marketing, etc.. Now I don’t read them all everyday, but I do read the headlines and if there is something appealing or eye-catching, I will read the rest of the article. Realize that your customers do the exact same thing.

A few days ago I received an email that Stompernet Going Natural 3.0 was about to be released. Now I’m sure a lot of you have no clue what Stompernet is. Let me give a small explanation.

Stompernet, according to their website is…

It’s a shortcut to making money online. It’s a business-building library of cutting-edge content. And it’s a network of like-minded entrepreneurs who constantly compare notes on how to run a successful online business.

It’s an unfair advantage over your competition.

StomperNet is many things, but it boils down to this. It’s THE program that teaches you everything need to know to start, grow, and explode your online business.

No matter how you make your money online.

And to prove their success, they released a video that will really make you question your website’s design and usability structure.

It made me question mine and I thought I had a pretty successful online presence.

Watch their video and find out for yourself, just a small warning, the video is over 50 minutes long of really good information, stats, specific examples, specific adwords tricks, eye tracking tests, etc.. you can use to improve income.

Watch the videos here: Stompernet Going Natural 3.0

I watched it and did JUST ONE THING as a result of watching the videos and overnight I had 4 inquiries for future business. To put that into perspective, my last method averaged 4-6 inquiries a week, last night I received 4 in just a few hours of implementation. I’m filled with joy!

What did you do?

I improved my landing page…

What is a Landing Page?

Ok, that’s too much info, what the heck is a landing page anyways?

A landing page… are you ready for this… is where people land on your website…

BUT… It’s critical for your online success. WHY?

Because most of your website visitors will NOT visit any other page, so you get just one try… EVER… to convert them into cash…. err customers.

So, again, are landing pages important?

no…

THEY ARE CRITICAL!

What are some different Landing Page Examples?

For starters, your home page is naturally a landing page, it’s probably your most important landing page.

If you have no technique for capturing your visitors, then you are missing out on A LOT of extra income. People who come to your site as a result of your business cards, your search results, your magazine ads, your newspaper ads, your mail outs, they all visit your home page as a default.

Remember, you just have one chance to capture them…

Here are other ideas for landing pages, however they do take a lot more work and brain power, but the results are worth it.

I created a few different landing pages on my website for different occasions, and here they are.

• For Email Marketing
• Trade Show Marketing (Ex. Bridal Extravaganza)
• Adwords Campaigns
• Magazine Ads (Ex. Premier Bride)
• Weddings and Quinceañeras (My Specialties)
• Business Cards (Started it but dropped it)
• Preferred Vendors

The idea behind all this is that I wanted to have a way to track all my marketing dollars and to see what was working the best so that I could spend the bulk of my marketing budget on. As opposed to blindly spending thousands of dollars and not knowing if it worked or not.

How does it work and why?

Now, to make it easier for me, I used the main basic idea for all my landing pages, and in most part the same information…

I Gave them an offer, an incentive, a discount, or any other motive for them to either call me or give me their information so that I could contact them.

That’s it! That’s the magic behind it… well I also added the benefits of selecting my service over my competition… But everyone does that…

Hmm… come to think of it… many people also think of giving away a discount or an incentive… so what’s so different and specail about mine?

THE placement (architecture) of it!!!!

It’s accessible, it’s visible, it’s THE ONLY ACTION they can take at that time…

To be exact here is what I did.

I added a form, right after all the benefits I offer

And at that time, once they get all the great information they want, that is the only action they can take, so they DO!!!

Visit the website so you can see for yourself: DJ in Houston.

Well, this turned out to be a long post, longer than I expected, but I was motivated, what can I say. I just found out something that created a lot of joy in my life.

Happy Bloggin

–
DJ Francisco
Blogger at http://www.FHPEntertainment.com

A recent poll on Problogger.net, What is the Biggest Source of Traffic to Your Blog?, reveals the current method most bloggers are getting their traffic. It’s no surprise that 46% of the bloggers who participated on this poll get most of their traffic through Google.

See the results to find other ideas to generating traffic to your blog. Social Media (Myspaces, Facebook, Stumbleupon, Digg, etc…) is in second place and those are the easiest ways for beginning bloggers to get traffic to their webstie. The name of the article is Where Bloggers Get Their Biggest Levels of Traffic, and you can find i Here.

Happy Bloggin!

–
DJ Francisco, Houston
Wedding Vendor Blogger

The mentality is different from running your business offline and running your blog and business online. And changing your mentality from what you have worked so hard to do over so many years to incorporate new technology is hard, extremely hard as John Chow states in his Blog.

So understanding that Blogs are the Holy Grail to online marketing may be a bit hard to swallow. Well they can be if you work them correctly and understand how they can increase your current traffic.

Here are 10 Ways Blogs will increase Traffic to your Wedding Website!

1. Host your Blog on Your own Domain
   Your blog is going to bring in a lot of traffic, there is absolutely no doubt about that. However if you start a blog away from your domain name, guess where all that traffic will go to? You guessed it, it’s going to your blog, where ever it is. It’s not going to magically transfer that traffic over to your website. Additionally, it looks less professional to have a blog in one place and a business website in another place. It feels like there’s two of you and it could potentially lead to distrust.
2. Participate in Related Forums or Blogs
   Remember you are trying to establish an online presence and provide us with a little bit of your experience. Don’t worry, nobody is going to steal your ides, besides most ideas are not new nor are they original, they are all borrowed, so why not share them back. What it will do is establish yourself in the minds of your readers, whether they are brides or other vendors / bloggers, as an expert in your field. And if your participation is of high quality, then you will gain followers, who want to know what you are all about, back to your blog. Since most bloggin platforms and forums allow you to place a link in your comment, the more you participate in forums or blogs, the more links to your website you will create, and back links to your website are very important in building traffic to your website.
3. Cover topics that need attention NOW
   If you have strong beliefs about a particular topic in your industry or a current event. This is the place to vent it out, express your beliefs on the topic, and share your thoughts with others might (or might not) agree with you. For example, I believe that a DJ’s is very important in the outcome of a wedding, so I would hope and expect that other DJ’s do a lot to prepare for a wedding both professionally and personally. A lot of problems come because of personal misunderstandings, so I believe that wedding vendors should invest A LOT in their personal development. Depending on your topic, you too can voice your opinion on things like that and additionally on current events.
4. Quality Content (Can’t stress that enough)
   Quality content is key. If people can read your blog, understand your view, and feel like you are providing them with a value, an answer to their problems, then they will want to come back for more.
5. Create Some Buzz
   Attending a bridal show? Do you have a current discount this month? Did you make the cover of a local newspaper? Are you launching a new product line? Are you expanding your services? THEN Blog about it!!! People want what’s new and on the cutting edge.
6. Build and use and Email List
   Email Lists… all blogs and online businesses should have one. They are a great source of traffic to your website and for some businesses they are the bloodline to their success.
7. Do an interview with someone well known
   This serves as two purposes. One, you feed the person’s ego, which will motivate him to talk about you and your interview as well as where they can find it (Hint: Your Blog). Additionally, it connects you and puts you on the same level as that person’s perceived image. This is called social proof. Most people feel they can trust you easier if they have proof that others trust you.
8. Be the first in your field to build a quality blog
   Don’t just be the first in your field to have a blog, be the first to have a quality blog. A blog that updates it’s content often and provides answers to problems or helpful advice. Your audience will be brides that NEEEED good advice and help on something they have never done in their entire life. Be the go to person in your field. In turn, they will tell their friends and family about your website and your blog. Again, if your blog is in your website this applies if it’s off site, then chances are they will be directed to wherever your blog is.
9. Join the Social Networking Medias
   Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Digg, Technorati, etc… these are all terms you must familiarize yourself with and join these services. There are many more and they all can and will drive a lot of traffic if help them, help you. I got 6 Weddings of Myspace alone, in 2007.
10. Be Patient
    Patience (lack of), the #1 killer of success. If you stop watering your seed just before it breaks through the ground, you will never be able to enjoy the benefits of your hard work. Bloggin Works, I know first hand, and there were many, many, many times where I asked myself; “Am I wasting my time? DJ in Houston: Google #1 Ranking (on 04/29/2008). I’ve had not only online success but also offline success. I’ve gotten calls from newspapers asking me for advice on something related to the wedding industry, which drive more traffic to my website.

These Ten Techniques for driving traffic to your Wedding Vendor Blog are a compilation of what I use to drive traffic and from advice I’ve gotten from other, more established bloggers. One article I read was 5 Ways to Increase your Blog Traffic by Darren Rowse:ProBlogger.com and the other, post is by Seth Godin’s 54 56 Ways to Get Traffic to your Blog, which is also linked to from Darren Rowse’s Blog. Since they helped me out just by reading their articles, I link to them as a thank you and so other readers, like yourself can visit their blogs.

Happy Bloggin!

DJ Francisco, Houston
Wedding Vendor Blogger