3.1 - Off
site optimization - Off site optimization really comes down to links pointing to your website. The more
links you get, from related sites that also have some power of their own with
the search engines, the better your site is going to rank (and the more traffic
you'll get as a result).
This
is where the short- and long-term strategies start to overlap a bit. If you're
using any of the short-term traffic strategies we just discussed to get quick
traffic to your sites, they will also help you with SEO in the long term.
The
links in your forum signatures, guest blog posts and submitted articles will
all help push your site up the search engine rankings so while you might get a
short-term jump in traffic when they first go live, they will keep working for
you for a long time.
This
is why it's a good idea to keep doing those things, even when your site starts
to get traction in the search engines. It will continue to drive both instant
and longer-term traffic.
3.2 - Social
Media - Social
media sites like Facebook and Twitter are a relatively new way to get traffic,
and as a result they tend to be misunderstood. A lot of marketers use them as a
kind of "announcement" service, posting links to new offers,
affiliate promotions, new blog posts and anything else they want people to
visit.
But
that's all they ever post, and then they think social media doesn't work
because nobody ever clicks through on their links.
The
fact is, social media is a longer-term traffic strategy. You need to build
relationships with the people you follow before you can expect them to click on
any of the links you post.
Example:
Think of it in "real world" terms. If you went to a party or some
kind of meeting, would you just make a sales pitch to everyone you talk to? Or
would you have a conversation first, so you could get to know one another and
what you could offer?
Treat
social media like you would a "real life" meeting - offer value first
and build up some trust with your followers before you start hitting them with
a bunch of offers.
3.3 - Relationship
Building - Building
relationships isn't really a traffic generation method in and of itself, but it
applies to virtually every other strategy to some degree. If you build
relationships with the visitors to your website, or to the other places you
post your content, you're going to be a lot more successful in the long
run.
When you have strong relationships with your visitors, they're a lot more
likely to return. And return traffic is one of the keys to a really successful
website.
Look
at it this way. If you get 100 visitors per day and you have no way of getting
them to come back to your site after they click an ad or an affiliate link, you
have to find 100 new visitors every day to maintain your results.
But
if you get 100 visitors every day and get 10 of them into your
"relationship funnel" so they return to the site, you've increased
your future traffic without having to find "new" visitors. It's
over-simplified, but let's assume that they come back the next day. Now you've
got 110 visitors, of which 10 will again become return traffic.
Every
day that goes by, you're getting more traffic while you're still only having to
generate 100 new visitors. Over time, your traffic will continue to grow even
if you don't do any more work to find new people than you already are.
One
of the best ways to build these relationships and generate return visitors is
with our next traffic strategy - list building.
3.4 - Generating
Traffic Through An Email List - One
of the biggest advantages of building an email list is that it lets you control
your own traffic. If you have a list of people interested in your market, it
doesn't matter if Google, Facebook and every other traffic source shuts off
tomorrow - you can still generate traffic just by sending out an email to your
list. And
if you have a brand new page or website that you want to direct traffic to, you
can do that as well. You
could set up a website in the next half hour, send an email
to your list and see traffic to your site within a few minutes.
Even
when you're paying for traffic, it's pretty tough to get visitors within
minutes of finishing a new site.
List
building as a traffic strategy is a bit of a Catch-22, however. You won't be
able to generate that "on demand" traffic until you've built a list,
and to build a list you need to get some traffic from other sources first.
That's
why it's important to use all the strategies we're discussing, but get those
visitors to subscribe to your email list so you can contact them over and over
again in the future.
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