Many people call me and say "My site's not generating sales; what can I do to get more traffic?" Before you can begin promoting, you need to take a long hard look at your website from your customers' perspective.

Customers always ask themselves same thing: "What's in it for me?" Your site must answer that question, and answer it fast before they click away in discouragement.

Your first step is to go to your home page and view it as a stranger who doesn't know you or your product and services. Does first paragraph state clearly what is being offered and benefits you provide? It needs to. I can't tell you how many sites I've visited only to leave wondering what hell they do. Your home page should also use powerful "selling words" that excite people and makes them want to learn more. It should have plenty of white space and be kept free from clutter and distractions.

A lot of Web designers will try to tell you to use plenty of Flash and other bandwidth thieves. Don't... The Web is still about information and you need to deliver it without crashing your visitors' browsers or making them wait five minutes to get through a Flash intropage.

Remember this rule: "Content is king." If your site is packed with good information, you don't need fancy bells and whistles. People will like it just fine because it tells them what they want to know and more.

Keep your target market in mind. If you sell salt water fish and equipment, then your site should include tips and tricks on taking care of livestock, setting up a system, or maybe even a helpful message board where visitors can help each other out by sharing information. You want to enlighten your guests with helpful information, not just "shove" what you do down their throats. The fact is they don't care about you or what you do. Show them what's in it for them and they'll be back often, turning into lifelong customers.

Syndicated content is dynamic material that constantly changes. Your first step is finding it -- preferably, for free, although some will charge you for privilege. In most cases all you do is fill out a short form, and are then given some HTML code to paste into your web page where you want content to appear. The content will automatically change depending on service you're using, every 24 hrs, weekly or bi-weekly.

Syndicated content comes in many different forms: News feeds, stock tickers, weather updates, tips and tricks, short articles, and even graphics like cartoons. Using syndicated content saves you time since you don't have to create or maintain it and it keeps your site fresh and interesting so visitors will want to come back to see what's new. Make sure you check for any restrictions on use before signing up to use any service.

There are disadvantages to using syndications such as:

- May slow down loading of your site due to fact that content is being pulled from syndicator's server.

- Since most free content involves a link back to syndicator's site you may lose visitors who are curious enough to click on it.

The advantages are:

- Fresh updated content with no work on your part

_ Saves you time creating new content

- Keeps visitors returning to see what's new

OK, so it sounds great, but where do you find it? Here are some links you may wish to investigate:

Live News feeds

http://www.isyndicate.com Syndicates over 850 sources to well over 210,000 websites. Most of their feeds come with a price tag, but some are free.