Need a secure, random password?  How about a random list, flip of a coin, or roll of the dice?  Find it free at www.random.org  It’s a quick and easy way to generate password strings of random letters/numbers for better security.  I use the “string generator” feature regularly.  And the coin flipper’s just plain fun to use.  Bookmark it and it’ll be there waiting when you need it.

Vizu offers a simple way to add a poll to your website, blog, or MySpace page.

The basic version is free and simple to use.  Polls can be private or public.

They’ve even got a widget available for you to add polls to your Facebook page.

http://www.vizu.com/index.html

It’s not a good sign. The blue screen of death on my kids PC.  That spinning beachball of doom (sometimes it means just be patient, other times it means Eudora decided to eat my mail… again…) on my Mac.  Oh no!

I’ve got multiple backup drives, and I use them regularly.  But not every night.  My backup drive saves the most important files weekly, but a crash today could mean I’d lose up to 7 days worth of important email and work files.  And the most recent pictures of my kids, too!

A complete crash could spell minor or major disaster for a small business owner who stores everything from email and website files to financial records to client projects to virtual product files on the computer.  If you only do incremental backups to an external drive like me, or just haven’t gotten around to setting up a backup system yet, this “cool tool” is for you!

I’ve found a fabulous solution to backups (and can sleep peacefully at night).  :)

Mozy!  It’s an extremely secure online backup system.  When I say secure, we’re talking 448-bit Blowfish on-disk encryption and you can even keep your own key. The first backup takes a while as it encrypts and copies everything you’d asked it to, but after that it’s smart enough to save only the new files and files you’ve changed, and it does it all in the background.

You can choose from home or business accounts, and even get 2 GB free! Perfect for just backing up the most important files. Click the logo for more details.

I like it so much I’ve got a MozyPro account!

2GB Totally Free Online Backup! Compliments of Mozy

To help me better focus my ezine and blog on the information that’s most helpful for you, I’ve created a very quick (only 3 questions) survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=0gto_2bC1AiQ4ah1iRpyIyjA_3d_3d

At the end there’s a special thank you gift in appreciation for your time. To find out what, you’ll have to take the survey. *smile*

This is part three in the “15 Ways to Get More Traffic to Your Website” series. Here are strategies 11 through 15.

11. Craigslist

Craigslist.org is the hugely popular and successful local bulletin board website. Have you tried it for business yet? If not, or if your results have been less than you hoped for, here’s a link to an article full of great tips and a step by step on how to effectively use Craigslist: http://snipurl.com/3duox

12. Google Local

Want to come up at the top of Google listings? Target your geographical area and it might be easier than you think! Try a quick search for something like “alternative health anchorage” and you’ll see above the regular listing there are 10 geographically based listings with a small Google Map on the left. Now search for “your business type your city” (example: “dentist new york city” or “boutique baby shop seattle”) — if you aren’t listed on the top by the map, it’s easy to get added! If you’re already listed, claim ownership of your listing and make sure your contact info is up to date.

Description from Google: “Use the Local Business Center to create your free listing. When potential customers search Maps for local information, they’ll find your business: your address, hours of operation, even photos of your storefront or products. It’s easy, free, and you don’t need a website of your own.”

Sign up at http://www.google.com/local/add (you’ll need a Google account)

You can also encourage your customers to leave reviews for you through Google Local.

13. Joint Ventures

Two minds may be better than one. Two business promoting together can definitely be better than one! There are many easy ways to build your traffic and sales with joint ventures. Here are a couple quick strategy ideas to kick start your brainstorming:
- Create a collaboration of products
- Swap ads in ezines
- Link exchanges or banner exchanges
- Do a contest swap and offer a contest others can promote, the promote their contests for them
- Swap business cards – send theirs out with your orders, they send yours out with theirs

(I share more ideas in “Building Synergy”, available at www.themusesguide.com)

14. Giveaways

Who can resist a great deal? Or better yet, something for free? The most effective free items or giveaways will be closely targeted to your market.

For example, if you offer items like nursing bras, you could create (or hire a designer to create) blinkies promoting breastfeeding and give them away to visitors to use on their websites or MySpace pages. If you’re an artist, you could setup a script to offer free ecards that feature your artwork. You could give away craft project ideas if you sell children’s items, or recipes if you sell home related items to women.

Just grab a piece of paper and take five minutes to write down everything you can think of that your target market is interested in, and then go back over your list and highlight the ones that also relate to your products or services. Those are good things to consider for freebies.

15. Newsletter

I’ve saved the best for last. Studies show that most shoppers don’t purchase the first time they hear of a business, service, or product. So you need a way to capture their information and keep your business on their minds.

One of the best promotional tools is a newsletter or ezine. If you haven’t started yours yet, it’s easier than you might think! Choose your service provider, add the form to your website, encourage your visitors to sign up (offer a freebie or coupon in exchange for their subscription), then send out regular newsletters. Weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or even seasonally may be often enough depending on your business model. It’s an easy and inexpensive way to keep your business in the minds of people who are interested in your products or services.

I highly recommend Aweber for newsletters: http://www.aweber.com/?221066

Need a bit more direction to help you get started? Ideas on what to write about? Get your copy of The Muses Guide to Creating & Managing Your Own Sales Newsletter at http://themusesguide.com

!!Bonus Tip!!

I couldn’t let this issue go out without one bonus tip to help you get more traffic. You need a way to let visitors tell their friends about your website!

Here’s a free hosted tell a friend form:
http://www.bpath.com/recommend/rcm_info.dbm

Or, here’s a free script you can install on your website:
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles3/tell-a-friend-script.htm

This is part 2 of 15 ways to get more traffic to your website.

So far we’ve looked at these traffic generating strategies:
1. Search Engine Optimization
2. Blogging
3. Social Networking
4. Social Bookmarking
5. Review Products & Services

And here are the next five:

6. Signature Line

Add a signature line to all of your email messages. Every time you send an email your website URL and promotional information can be included. You want to keep it short. I recommend 3-4 lines. Include your business name, website URL, and slogan or tag line.

You can also consider including a notice about current special offers, upcoming sales, or your free offer for subscribing to your newsletter.

7. Article Marketing

Several months ago I decided to try a short experiment. I put up a website (www.thesmallbusinessmuse.com) and shared the URL only through article marketing. I submitted articles at www.wahm-articles.com and www.ezinearticles.com then waited to see what would happen. Would I get any traffic? Would the traffic sign up for my newsletter? This week I sent an update to the owner of WAHM Articles to let her know how it had gone:
After a few months of comparing traffic and subscription rates I found that the traffic I received from my articles came with more average page views per visit and a higher subscription rate to my newsletter. In fact, the subscription rate for visitors from articles was double that of the general traffic to my site! About 40% of visitors who read one of my articles first and clicked through to my website signed up for my newsletter.

If you track your website unique visitors and sign up rates, you’ll recognize that as a very strong subscription rate. Article marketing converts more subscribers to my newsletters than any method except joint ventures. I highly recommend it.

Another advantage of article marketing is that it allows you to leverage your time. You can write an article once then use it on your blog, your website, and submit it to multiple article directories. From there it will get published on other websites and sometimes picked up and used in ezines as well. Write it once and it keeps working for you.

Click here to read a press release from WAHM Articles that mentions me!

8. Get Listed in Directories

Here are three types of directories you can get your website listed in and how to find them:

Specialized Directories: Use the search engines to find trade associations and product directories that you can be listed in. One example is http://www.diaperpin.com for cloth diapering websites. You can find good, targeted directories by searching Google. For example, try this: “product name” directory. For example: “cloth diaper” directory or “website design” directory

General Directories: General directories such as http://www.dmoz.org and http://www.alexa.com are free to request a link from. You may want to consider paid directories on individual basis. Their value for you will depend on your particular business and the type of traffic the directory generates.

Other Directories: Look at local directories such as http://local.yahoo.com and http://cityguides.msn.com as well as small business directories, environmental/ethical directories, and other similar sites to request listings on. Also check the websites of the retailers/wholesalers you purchase from, the shopping cart or web host you use, and other businesses you work with. Many offer directories of their clients or retailers and you may be able to pick up some links and targeted traffic by being listed.

9. Charities & Community Involvement

10. Create a Buzz

Sing it in your head — “Let’s give them something to talk about…”

What makes a commercial memorable? What gets you to visit that new little cafe downtown? Why did you download the last free ebook, article or resource you downloaded?

Something caught your interest! Maybe a trusted colleague recommended it. Maybe a friend told you not to miss it. Or maybe an ad created curiosity and you couldn’t resist.

Does your website have a “buzz”? If not, you’ve got to create it! If you’re providing fabulous service, your customers are probably already buzzing but you can encourage it by offering customer rewards for referrals, providing “email a friend” links, and giving them quick, easy ways to share your website.

You can also create a “buzz” by running contests, offering giveaways, and using other exciting marketing strategies.

Give people a reason to talk about your site and they will.

Comments? Questions? Feel free to post a comment to this blog post.

With the economic squeeze on our minds, we’re all watching our checkbooks closely. But growing our businesses means we’ve got to keep marketing, promoting, learning and growing. So, I’d like to extend an offer to you for any one of my special reports absolutely free to help you in your business. No strings. Offer good for about 24 hours. So post by 12pm Alaska Time on Tuesday, October 14th (that’s by 4pm East Coast time for you easterners and 1pm Pacific for you westerners and for everyone else click here to see what time it is in Alaska).

How to Get a Free Special Report

1) Choose any one of the five special reports I offer here: http://themusesguide.com/specialreports.htm (link will open in a new window).

2) Post a reply to this blog post with a note of which report you’d like and why, and be sure to fill in the name and email address fields so we can get your copy to you. Your email address won’t show up with your comment and will stay private.

3) You’ll get an email from us within a few days (quicker if we can) with your download link.

That’s it!

P.S. If you’ve already purchased one of my reports, choose another one for your freebie! :-) Or, if you own all five, email me at michelle@themusesguide.com because I’ve got another offer for you.

Legal Disclaimer: This offer has no cash value.

Recently in this newsletter I shared a series on how to make sure your website is ready for traffic and converting your browsers into buyers. You can find all 7 parts at http://thesmallbusinessmuse.com/category/muses-brainstorm (just scroll down a bit to find the posts that start with “Making Your Website Work for You”).

Then I shared “10 Easy Ways to Get More Links to Your Website” and got a wonderful response from subscribers. If you missed it, you can read it on my blog at http://thesmallbusinessmuse.com/10-easy-ways-to-get-more-links-to-your-website/2008/07/29

So I’ve put together another list. This time, it’s 15 ways to get more traffic to your website. I’ll share five strategies in each of the next three newsletters.

Search Engine Optimization

Over 400 million searches are performed every day on the various search engines. 84.8% of web users find websites through search engines. Every day people are searching for the information, products, and services you offer! Are they finding you?

If you want to get some of that traffic, start learning about search engine optimization. It’s not rocket science, just takes some time and effort, and the results can really boost your traffic.

Here are three steps you can take to improve your search engines: (1) Use relevant titles on your pages, (2) include lots of valuable content on your website, (3) work to build incoming links to your website.

Download my free special report on Search Engine Optimization basics here: http://themusesguide.com/resources.html

Blogging

Have you started your own blog yet? It’s a great way to connect with your target market and the search engines love the fresh content.

Wordpress is a fabulous free blog you can add to your own website — www.wordpress.org

Once you’re up and running, here are some tips to get your blog noticed:
* Exchange links with other blogs (using a blogroll)
* Make sure you have an RSS feed enabled
* Be sure that “pings” are turned on
* Install plugins to help your posts get into the social bookmarking site, my favorite is
http://sharethis.com/publisher?type=wpplugin
* Get listed in Blog Directories:
- www.blogcatalog.com
- www.bloghub.com
- www.blogflux.com

Social Networking

Websites like MySpace, Facebook, and Ryze that allow individuals to connect with others by sharing their interests, opinions, photographs, and whatever parts of their lives they choose. Take some time to explore a bit and see which sites are a good fit for you and reach your target market.

Social Bookmarking

A rapidly growing trend that allows you to recommend and share content with other users by essentially “voting” for the content and commenting in it.

The two biggest social bookmarking sites are Digg (http://www.digg.com) and Delicious (http://del.icio.us). You might also look at Technorati (http://www.technorati.com).

Make it easy for people to bookmark your websites by adding little icons that users can click to bookmark. With a Wordpress blog, it’s easy and you can use this plugin: http://push.cx/sociable You can add Digg directly to your website with these tools: http://digg.com/tools or this free service: http://www.addthis.com

Review Products & Services

Take a few minutes to write honest testimonials for other small or home-based businesses and email them. They are likely to print them on their websites and be willing to include a link to you.

This is how I found my business coach–she shared a testimonial with an internet marketer and I saw it, followed a link to her website, and signed up!

Be sure to only review products or services you’re willing to be associated with. You can send reviews directly to the companies/professionals, or you can leave your reviews places like Amazon.com

Next week… 5 more ways to get traffic to your website!

Note from Michelle: I worked with Rebekah recently (she proofread of my newest ecourse) and can wholeheartedly recommend her services.

Remember the old days? When you were seeking information on a topic or looking for that perfect gift, you knew exactly where to go. The librarian went to grade school with you and the department store clerk coached your son’s Little League team. You knew you could trust their judgment and advice. Today, we are constantly bombarded with information and advertising from every corner. With the advancement of the Internet, that has never been more true. Anyone can put anything on the Internet…and they do!

When we are putting our own sites online, we know that we are trustworthy. But how can we show that to our website visitors? People today are being taught evaluation techniques to implement when reviewing websites. If we understand what they are looking for, we can be sure to provide them with that information. There are four specific keys to website evaluation: Authority, Accuracy, Currency, and Objectivity. Let’s look at each of these very briefly.

Authority
When designing and creating content for your website, make sure you include exactly who you are. You might be surprised at the number of websites that share information or attempt to sell a product and yet never clearly state who they are or who the parent company is.

Accuracy
Hire a proofreader. Seriously. Many people do not take the time to have their website proofread and the typos and grammar errors that are usually sprinkled throughout are the biggest credibility killers.

Currency
People like to know when certain information was published. If you are blogging, the date of the post is usually displayed. However, if you are writing articles for your website or elsewhere, including the date of the article is paramount to keeping you credible in the eyes of your visitor.

Objectivity
Presenting your information with a minimum of bias is not as easy as it sounds! Your desire should be for your visitor to recognize the value of your information—not because you spoke passionately, but because you took a step back and shared the whole picture.

This is just a small taste of what you can do to increase the credibility of your website—and you! If you are interested in learning more about this topic, I invite you to register for my free teleclass. We will be discussing these four keys and looking at even more ways you can increase your website’s credibility.

–
Rebekah Jones is a Virtual Assistant and Business Trainer for Real Estate Agents. She provides simple strategies for streamlining business tasks, thereby giving Agents the freedom to grow their business. Are you ready to minimize your time behind the desk and get back out there to meet with potential clients? Then be sure to visit www.rjprofessionalservices.com for your free information!

As a business owner, you get to do something you’re passionate about every day. It’s fulfilling to be able to do work you love and make a real difference for people.

Have you ever really sat and thought about the impact your having - not only for your clients, but on the world?

Building a business is big work and it cannot be done alone. As an entrepreneur, you need help, and you need to be supported. For the month of August, I’ve teamed up with 12 other fabulous business-building professionals. These women are experts in their field, they relate to what you’re going through, and are eager to help you build a strong business.

We are offering tools and resources - free - that you can download and check out right now. Simply go to http://www.MindfulBusinessesPartner.com to meet these fantastic women and get the help you need.

Be sure you check it out soon - the page will only be active for the month of August. After that, the bonuses come down to make web space for another project.