It's
probably the most sought-after topic in Internet marketing - how to get more
traffic to your websites. It
doesn't matter whether you're selling your own products, promoting affiliate
offers or looking for AdSense clicks, you're not going to earn a single cent if
there's no traffic coming to your site. There's
more to the process than just getting more traffic, however. You not only want
traffic, you want targeted traffic - people who are going to be interested in
what you have to offer. In
this article we're going to look at a number of ways - both paid and free - to
get more visitors to your website. Some of these methods can generate almost
instant traffic while others will take longer to gain momentum. By
diversifying your traffic generation over several methods, you can get fast
traffic while gradually ramping it up over a longer period of time.
Section 1 - Getting
The Right Kind Of Traffic
Section 2 - Guest Blogging
Section 3 - Off site Optimisation
Section 4 - Paid traffic methods
1.1 - Getting The Right Kind Of Traffic
Before
we look at any specific methods for generating traffic to your website, we
should really discuss what kind of traffic you should be targeting. Because
there is a right and a wrong kind of traffic.
The
right kind of traffic is visitors who are not only interested in what you have
to offer them, they're willing and able to take the action that you want them
to take. The wrong kind is simply the opposite - visitors who aren't likely to
take your "most wanted action."
Let's
look at a couple of examples...
First,
let's say you have an affiliate review website. You post reviews and other
content on your site, with affiliate links for those products. Whenever someone
buys one of the offers, you get paid a commission. If
you generate a ton of traffic, but not very many of those people are either
willing or able to spend money, you're not going to generate much profit from
them. A good example would be a market where your visitors are mostly
teenagers. While they might be very interested in the subject, and willing to
buy what you're promoting, a large percentage of them won't be able to buy
because they don't have credit cards and their parents may not let them use
theirs.
A
market like that might be better suited for a site that displays AdSense ads,
which brings us to our second example. Let's say you have a site that is
monetized purely with AdSense. In this case, it doesn't matter so much if your
visitors are able to buy, since you get paid when they click an ad, regardless
of what they do once they leave your site. If
the market has a lot of "clickers" who don't turn into buyers, the
ads aren't going to pay very well, but we'll set that aside for the moment. From
a pure conversion point of view, you're going to want visitors who are looking
for a solution to their problem - and hopefully the ads displayed on your site
offer that solution. Again, you want to target the right people to get the
maximum number of clicks on those ads.
If
you're generating a lot of traffic looking for free solutions, or just looking
for information, you may not get many clicks. So more traffic isn't necessarily
going to be more profitable.
Before
you start doing any kind of traffic generation, make sure you're targeting the
right people for your offer. Otherwise you're going to be spending a lot of
time, money or both with little or no return for the efforts.
1.2 Free
Traffic Methods
Free
traffic is certainly the more popular of the two choices (the other being paid
traffic). Many Internet marketers just don't have the capital to start paying
for traffic, so free traffic is a better way to go.
Some
marketers don't really understand the economics of paying for traffic either,
which is an entirely different problem. If you can make a profit, or just break
even on what you pay to get traffic to your website, it's really not costing
you anything. It's common for marketers to see the cost side of the equation
without considering the profit side, but we'll get into this in a little more
detail when we discuss paid traffic sources shortly.
When
it comes to getting free traffic, there are two types - short-term and
long-term traffic. Some methods can generate visitors to your site in a very
short time, almost instantly in some cases. Other methods will take longer to
gain momentum, but these tend to keep driving traffic to your site for a longer
period of time once they get going.
1.3 Short-Term
Traffic Generation
We're
going to look at three sources of short-term traffic that can work very well if
you implement them properly:
1.
Forum marketing
2. Guest blogging
3. Article submissions
2. Guest blogging
3. Article submissions
1.4 Forum
Marketing - Forum
marketing is one of the easiest ways to get short-term traffic, particularly if
you're already active in any popular forums in your market.
Note:
In this report, many of the examples will relate to the Internet marketing
niche, since most people reading it will be somewhat familiar with it. All the
strategies work equally well in other markets, so don't let yourself get caught
thinking "this only works for Internet marketing websites" - that's
just not true. Most
forums will let you add a "signature" to your profile, which gets
added to the end of every post you make. You can include a link to your website
in your signature, along with a short call to action to get people to click
through to it.
If
you're active on the forum, and provide good value in your posts, people will
click on your signature link. Particularly if you offer them something of value
that's related to the market, like a free report, webinar recording or some
other type of incentive. The
key here is to be an active part of the community and provide value first. If
you just sign up for a forum, add your signature link and starting posting
randomly with stuff like "Hey, great post!" then don't expect much in
the way of traffic.
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