Web Success Secret #2) Without Traffic- What’s the Point?

Part 1 of this series really got down and dirty about content.  Content’s main focus is twofold- make your visitors happy and make search engines happy.  This article is all about making you happy!  Think of this as your starter guide to increasing traffic and building a profitable business.

Traffic can be summed up in 2 words- free and paid.  I consider all PPC (pay-per-click), ezine advertising, offline advertising, and paid directory submissions a form of paying for your traffic.  I also consider any project that takes up your time to be paid advertising.  After all in the business world time is money.  Paid advertising is not bad.  It just means that you are paying to receive traffic.

Free traffic is harder to attract, but it costs you absolutely no money.  Almost all free traffic is the result of surfers finding your site on the search engines.  We talked about using content as your ultimate search engine ranking booster in the last article.

Here are several ways to increase traffic.  Some are paid advertising options and others are totally free.

- Write articles and submit them to several niche websites.  Manually submitting articles to many websites can take a long time.  I use a submission service to do all my hard work.

- Post in forums.  Many forums will not allow you to market your product or services.  That’s totally understandable.  What I recommend doing is finding a really great forum that you can participant in.  When people have questions, provide top notch and comprehensive answers.  No selling.  Almost all forums allow you to post your website in your sig file.  Take advantage of that.

- Submit each page of your website to all major search engines.  Also submit each page to all major search engines whenever you make a change on that page.  Be careful with this one.  Each engine has very specific directions and rules about submission rules.  Be sure you do not spam!  Submit pages according to each engine’s guidelines.  I also use a submission service that does this for me at no additional cost.

- Create joint ventures with non-competing websites.  Work with a company that compliments your product or service.  Also be sure the joint venture is a win-win-win for you, the other company and your customers.  Joint ventures can be a pain to set up and complete, but well worth it if done correctly.

- Look into ezine advertising, web advertising and/or PPC.  Each method takes an initial investment and some time to learn, but can bring back traffic.  Personally I do not prefer this method to increase traffic because it’s “iffy” at best.

- Print your website name on all business correspondences.  This is a simple task, but one that is simple to do.  Add it to your email sig line, forum sig lines, letterhead and business cards.

- Create an atmosphere of amazing customer service.  This always leads to referrals from current clients.  The more referrals the more traffic!

The bottom line is without traffic your site is floating in a sea of doom.  No one is seeing your content or services.  Traffic is the lifeline of any business, and the rule of thumb is more traffic means more income.

This brings me to my last and final point about traffic.  Once you develop a nice flow of visitors you need to know specifics.  Where did those visitors come from?  How did they find you?  What pages are the most popular on your site?  What page did they enter into your site?  What page did they leave your site?  What keywords did they use to find you?  You must know your visitor inside and out!

As I mentioned earlier, it is best to work smarter and not harder.  Traffic analysis and search engine submissions can be very time consuming, but your hosting company should be providing most of these services to you free of charge. There are a small few that do this, but it is well worth the investigation.

Previous parts:
4 Secrets to Turn Any Business Into a Successful Web Business – Part 1

Click Here And Learn The Best Traffic Techniques For Your Web Site…

You know how often I get asked about how effective social networking is for someone’s business, from my clients or when I’m out networking from random business owners?? Hundreds a month.

It’s amazing. It’s amazing how many of us are on the social sites but also how many are not!

I think if you’re an entrepreneur, no matter whether you do business locally or globally, you should be doing some amount of social networking as ONE source of lead generation in your business.

Of course there are hundreds of other ways to get leads too and I’m only talking about ONE right now (and it’s not always the most effective depending on how you utilize your time but it’s certainly affordable).

Lead generation is ONE goal to have when you network online but it can also do the following for you:

- solidify long lasting relationships – either personal or professional

- provide an easy way to connect faster with target prospects, referral sources or mentors

- establish yourself as an expert in your field by answering discussion questions, posting tips and articles or even inviting ‘friends’ to live events like teleclasses and webinars

- drive more traffic back to your site for special promotions, downloads or interaction

- provides a central place to share photos, videos and basically get more publicity than you could ever pay (or pray) for

Is it worth it to spend my time on the forums or having profiles on these sites?

I say definitely yes.

- You want to ask and answer questions on forums and blogs

- Post comments, articles, events, information, tips, surveys and polls, anything to get the visitors attention

- Record and post interesting or business related videos (nothing too embarrassing!)

- Send people requests to join your ‘network’, ‘fan page’ or ‘group’

- Pursue those in related groups for interaction, advice, joint ventures, etc.

- Dig deeper into the websites of those you’re really interested in working with or those you want to pay attention to you and relate to them on a deeper level if you can – this is the way to make the most of your time I think.

- And so much more….

Whew! I know this can seem daunting and more sites pop up every day right?

I mean, you can even start YOUR OWN social network these days (not that you want to).

So, what should your ROI (Return on Investment) be you ask?

Well, granted this stuff sucks up a ton of time! So, if you’re delegating some of the initial connecting and basic weekly/daily posts and then you’re only in there mostly to dig deeper, get personal and maximize your time; then you can really build a great following. One that’s loyal and interested in new things you send out. A following that clicks and interacts with your profile, your videos and your website.

This is how then you get them on your list over time, get them to attend teleclasses or join your programs or even refer you!

I can tell you that the hardest part of figuring out whether your time/money invested in social networking is paying off though is that it’s not that easy to track results.

So, if you want to really find out if it’s working for you, you have to set up systems that allow for really detailed tracking – tracking your traffic, conversions, customers and more.

Online forums are a fantastic reminder of the influence the internet has had on society. Using forums to connect with your market is a natural progression.

Forums are online communities where individuals can discuss topics ranging from fly fishing to breast feeding to internet business. Discussions are conducted by posting notes to the forum. A single discussion is called a ‘thread’ and most forums have several – even hundreds – of threads going at any time.

What is truly remarkable about the use of forums is the personal quality of the discussions. Read some of the posts on forums such as warriorforum.com and you’ll soon see that the members become more like neighbors (and even friends) than strangers connected only by the keyboard and monitor in front of them.

Where brick and mortar businesses used to prosper based on their involvement in the community – online businesses now have a neighborhood all their own – online forums.

How can participating in a forum help YOUR business?

NETWORKING:

Online forums are a fantastic place to connect with others who are knowledgeable about your business. You probably cater to the same audience and share a common interest. If your businesses compliment one another you might just find a highly profitable partnership or joint venture.

Even if you don’t find a working relationship you may find the referrals or discussions highly beneficial.

TRAFFIC BUILDING:

Along with the referrals you may get when you’ve developed a trusted online presence with other members of the forum, you are also likely to attract targeted visitors to your website.

If the forum permits you to post a signature (your website URL) onto the posts then you can be sure that some of the members and quite likely some of the ‘lurkers’ (people who view but don’t post) will come check out your site.

EDUCATION:

Using the forums wisely can open you up to a great education. Whether it is from fellow entrepreneurs in your field or experts and other posters – you are participating in an ‘inner circle’ type discussion that may open your eyes to new developments and opportunities in your business.

ADDICTIVE:

The only downside is the highly addictive atmosphere. With members posting from all over the world it can be difficult to reign in your viewing time on forums.

On the flip side, other members are hopefully as interested in what you have to say and you may quickly develop a reputation as a reliable source for information.

Be very cautious to follow forum rules. Never spam a forum – your aim should be to participate in a conversation, not interrupt it. Have fun and watch your business grow!

Albert

Traffic generation, I can say, is like the “heart” of the whole Internet Marketing business – you can have a really solid-looking, content rich website, you can have a very attracting offer put up for your customers, but if there’s no traffic going to your website, then you’ll not be able to get any recognition, and any sales at all.

There are lots of ways you can use to drive traffic to your websites and offer pages, both free and paid.

In this post, we’re going to take a look at some of them.

Search Engine Optimization

Getting your site well-optimized for the major search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) will get it ranked high (in the top 10) for the keywords you’re targeting. You can get lots of traffic to your websites from these search engines – for free!

Link Exchanges

This is another free way to drive traffic to your websites – by contacting fellow webmasters for link exchanges. If you do not know what link exchanges are – they are basically, in layman terms, you asking fellow webmasters to place your website’s link on their websites and in return, you put their website’s link in yours as well.

You can contact the webmasters via email or, if they have a phone number on their website, give them a ring. I personally prefer giving them a ring, as it is more sincere.

Submission of Articles To Article Directories

This is one great way to get massive amounts of traffic to your websites – for free. Here’s one tactic you can drive torrents of traffic to your websites – try to write about 3 articles everyday, submit them to the various article directories. In every article directory, there’s a column for you to enter the author’s information – here’s where you can insert a link to your website. This link will appear at the bottom of all the articles you’ve submitted.

Joint Venture (JV) Marketing

If you have a product, Joint Venture (JV) marketing is a very powerful tool – you can get your JV partners to help you promote your products to their list of customers, bringing you torrents of traffic to your product offer page, and earning you cash almost overnight (when they purchase your offers). You, too, can also promote your JV partners’ products and receive affiliate commissions for every referred sale you make as well.

Setting Up Affiliate Programs

If you have a product, you should set up your own affiliate program and attract affiliates to promote your product for you (by having affiliate commission payouts).

By doing so, you’re essentially getting free traffic to your product offers via your affiliates (through the various traffic generation methods they use to promote your products), and sales as well (if they end up purchasing your product).

Building Your Own List

By having your own list of prospective customers (you can build up your lists by having your visitors to give you their first name and email address in your websites in return for a free report, email course series, audio and video series), you can email them over and over again whenever you have updated your websites – this will get lots of traffic to your websites.

Also, you can also promote any products you have to your list, as well as products you’re promoting as an affiliate to them, bringing you massive commissions for every sale through your product offer page (if you are the product owner) or affiliate link (if you are promoting a product as an affiliate).

Understanding Your Target Market

Many people create websites based on what they want, and not what the target market wants – this is a very wrong move. If you are not targeting and giving information on what your target market wants, there’s absolutely no way you’re going to get anyone to visit your websites, or products you’ve created.

Therefore, understanding your target market is very important. Carry out a thorough market research, find out exactly what they want, and crate unique, original, valuable contents in your websites based on what they want. I can guarantee you that you’ll be able to drive massive amounts of traffic to your websites.

So there you have it, traffic generating strategies that will help you drive torrents of traffic to your websites / product offers. If you follow these traffic generation strategies I’ve outlined above closely, I can guarantee you that you’ll not have any problem with traffic generation anymore. Good luck.

Resources:
The Traffic Hybrid System
Forum Traffic