Top 5 Traffic Generation Methods…

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In our last discussion my intent was to define TRAFFIC, and illustrate for you the different types of traffic you will encounter and the affects these differences will have on your business. I want to continue the discussion and share with you five of the best traffic sources that I use every day in my own business.

Understand that to make money online you must get potential customers to visit your website. To do this successfully you need to be ‘in front of them’ regularly; explaining your product, expounding upon the unique attributes and actively comparing your product to those of lesser quality.

This would best be explained as ‘pushing’ your product, in the beginning…then, as the quality and price of your product becomes more well known you realize that you are now just ‘pulling’ your product along. This is the part of an online business where you relax a little and allow the quality of your product to sell itself.

So how do you get there?

Here are a few sources that I use.

(1) FORUM MARKETING

The easiest and the most fun. Forums are just an online discussion by anyone and everyone with an interest in your niche! CAREFUL though, it’s also the biggest time ‘waster’. Go to Google and type the name of your niche, then add the word f-o-r-u-m, or f-o-r-u-m-s, you’ll be amazed at the number of like-minded forums and blogs.

This offers you a great opportunity to visualize the size of your niche’s market as well.

Select one of the forums and begin browsing the conversations. This is where you can waste a ton of time so browse analytically! Try a few, when you find a conversation that interests you and to which you can add VALUABLE information, jump in and give your opinion.

Don’t just Spam the conversation with mindless dribble! It’s like your mother used to tell you, “if you don’t have something constructive to say…don’t say anything.” Works here too. Only add value.

After posting your comments; at the bottom in the signature block area include something like, “Click Here to Learn More, Receive Free,” etc. and insert your URL.

Hopefully your comments have impressed other readers to become customers by clicking your site for more information.(Many of the ‘social networks’ can be used in this way to market your niche as well)

(2) SEARCH ENGINE (SEO)

Traffic from search engines takes longer to develop but lasts much longer once you get the ball rolling. It will become your best source of traffic because these visitors to your site are actually looking for you. You will generally get more visits and make more sales.

Search engine traffic is driven by the quality of keywords you’ve included on our website. If you passed on this step in your attempt to sprint for the pot of gold at the finish line…STOP and go back. Learning to research and select keywords is a must-do.

Start by doing what we all do…use the free GoogleKeywordTool, with the free instructions given to you by the folks that rank your website.

Research and select about 3 to 5 keywords and put some in your heading, then create content for your site based around these keywords. A little more advanced are META tags. If you’re using WordPress, plugins like “All In One SEO Pack” makes the process much easier. Now just build a few high quality direct links to your website. Done.

(3) PAY-PER-CLICK (PPC)

Pay per click is one of the fastest ways to get traffic to your website. The most popular of the PPC services are Google Adwords, Microsoft Adcenter, and Facebook Advertising. As the name implies you build a small advertising campaign around your keywords then pay a small fee each time someone clicks your advertisement that directs them to your site.

PPC fees per click will range from as little as $0.05 to $1.00 and as much as $10 depending upon the competition for the keywords you’re using. Until you’re a well seasoned veteran of PPC best to stay with the smaller niches with the lesser per click fees.

(4) ADSWAPS

This is a great traffic source that many in the online marketing niches use every day. And the best part?

Adswaps are 100% Free! Really.

Here’s how it works. Find someone else with approximately the same size list as yours, and then just promote each other’s product to each other’s lists.

Where do you find these people? Safe-Swaps.com has a list of business owners just like you. You join the group, confirm the size of your list, and start shopping for someone with roughly the same list size! Kinda like on-line dating.

CAUTION: Investigate and insure that the product you will be promoting to your list is reputable.

Note: Some places like Safe-Swaps may charge a small monthly fee.

(5) SOLO ADS

Another commonly used traffic source that is just as easy and productive is called “solo” ads because you’re going to pay just one ‘large list’ entrepreneur to promote just one product to their list…yours.

Just approach any of the major players in your niche (try similar, complimentary niches too) and ask them if they do solo ads. This is a source of income for many large list entrepreneurs. They’ll know exactly what you’re talking about and if so will offer you their fees.

Fees are usually based upon the number of ‘clicks’ that they guarantee that you will receive from their list – 250 clicks ($75), 500 clicks ($150), 1000 clicks ($300), or more.

If they like your product and agree to promote it to their list, you pay the fee, they write the ad promo about your product (you often times can write your own short promo) and send it to their list.

Note: This is a good traffic source if you are in a large niche product. If not, better to stay with the other traffic sources.

It all sounds easy enough right? Well it’s not. You’ll have plenty of anxiety and frustration with any one of these traffic sources till you learn the ins and outs. But we’re all nervous about trying new things. Just try one.

*Here’s a little bonus traffic source I’ll pass along in addition to the 5 traffic sources above:

YAHOO ANSWERS  http://answers.yahoo.com/

It’s simple, it has backlinks, it’s recognized by Google, it’s fun, and it’s free (again, the entrepreneur’s favorite 4 letter word).

Yahoo Answers is an extremely diverse community of people asking questions, seeking answers about things I didn’t even know were questions!

Go to the home page and type in a niche or interest (maybe your niche?).

On the left side of the page you’ll see questions people have asked about that interest, the date asked, and the answers listed in order of relevance to the question. This is just one day’s answers to the question…go back again and again!

Wanna play?

ANSWER A QUESTION. It’s that simple.

Where do you the backlinks come in? How does answering a question drive traffic?

After you answer a question with a great problem solving reply, you put in your URL with a hyperlink straight back to your website i.e. backlink. Continuing on, Yahoo then asks for a knowledge source from which the answer was determined….you put in your hyperlinked website, i.e. backlink AGAIN!

Answers to the questions are voted upon by the public. Most votes wins, then those answers are posted as the best answers to the question. (Don’t Spam the voting box by voting for yourself….BUT you can ask your friends to read the answers and give an honest vote as their favorite!)

See, this business isn’t all work, work, work; sometimes we can work and have a little fun at the same time.

Relax and have some fun with it!

Talk soon!
-Jonathan

P.S. – What did you think about this post? Please leave a comment below.