Increase Web Site Traffic
Five Simple Traffic Tricks For Quickly, Easily, And Cheaply Getting Those First Visitors To Your Web Site
Let's
face it... It doesn't matter how many newsletters and articles
you read about starting your own affiliate program or building
your opt-in e-mail list, if your web site isn't getting any traffic,
these advanced techniques are about as effective as trying to
carry water in a bucket with a hole in the bottom. You're not
going to make any progress at all!
Affiliate programs and
opt-in e-mail are two techniques that you're probably hearing
a lot about these days. And with good reason. Both are powerful
ways to increase your online income and sales... if your web
site is getting the necessary traffic, that is!
Obviously, if your web
site isn't getting any traffic, then it's extremely difficult
to build a list of opt-in e-mail subscribers. And starting your
own affiliate program is pretty much pointless because if your
site isn't getting the traffic, then nobody is going to join!
So as a new e-business
owner, you may be left scratching your head, wondering, "How
the heck do I get these people to my web site?"
If you've been struggling
to build a steady stream of targeted traffic to your web site
-- so that you can eventually start profiting from some of the
more advanced techniques -- then I think you're really going to
enjoy the five simple traffic tricks that I'm about to
share with you...
Traffic Trick #1:
Purchase Ad Space In Newsletters And E-zines
The beauty of purchasing
ad space in online newsletters and e-zines is that you can target
your market with laser-like precision. Online newsletters tend
to narrowly focus their content to meet the needs and capture
the loyalty of a very specific readership… giving you the perfect
opportunity to get your ad in front of your best potential customers!
Of course, in order
for this type of advertising to work, you need to be very careful
when choosing which newsletters to purchase ad space in. There
are several factors that should be taken into consideration including:
- Who are the readers?
Do they fit the profile of your best potential customer?
- How many subscribers are
there? This question is important when deciding what you’re
willing to pay to advertise in a particular newsletter. Do the
math and figure out what you’re paying per subscriber.
- Where will your ad be placed?
Will it be at the top of the newsletter? The middle? The bottom?
Will it be surrounded by other ads?
- How big can your ad be?
Will it only be a few lines of text? A paragraph? An entire
article?
These are all factors
that should be taken into consideration when deciding what an
ad in a particular newsletter is worth to you.
The best way to find
targeted newsletters is by surfing the Web and contacting the
sites one by one. If you do this, you’ll likely find a number
of excellent newsletters with a loyal subscriber base that have
not yet taken advantage of their advertising potential. There
are plenty of sites that have developed a strong relationship
with their readers, but that have never offered advertising before
and likely don’t know what it’s worth.
These can be some
of the most profitable newsletters to advertise in! Not only
do you get quality advertising at bargain basement prices, you
also get first crack at advertising to a readership that is "ripe
for the picking!"
However, if you are
not having any luck locating ad space, then you may wish to search
the sites listed below for newsletters that cater to your industry
or niche:
http://ezine-universe.com
http://www.ezinehub.com
http://www.newsletteraccess.com
http://www.zdnet.com/filters/email/
http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/
http://www.nwwsubscribe.com/foc36/
Traffic Trick #2:
Buy A Top Spot In The Pay-Per-Click Search Engines
Pay-per-click search engines are
much like auctions -- they allow you to bid for top-ranking
positions under keywords of your choice. For each visitor
who searches the keyword(s) you rank under and then clicks through
to your web site, you pay whatever you bid. Prices typically range
from 1 cent to numerous dollars per click-through for popular
keywords.
For example, let’s say that your
web site caters to bowling enthusiasts, and you want to be ranked
in GoTo.com (the most popular pay-per-click search engine) under
the keyword "bowling." In order to be ranked in the #1 spot, you
would need to outbid the site that currently claims the top spot.
For the sake of this example, let’s
say that to be ranked #1, you need to pay 12 cents per visitor
-- the site that’s currently in the #1 spot is paying 11 cents
per visitor. So you submit your bid of 12 cents, and within a
couple of days, your web site is ranked in the #1 spot in GoTo.com
under the keyword "bowling."
Now when someone searches "bowling"
in GoTo.com, your web site appears in the #1 position. If they
read your site description and title, and decide that your site
might be relevant to their needs, they may decide to click on
your link. If they do click-through to your web site, you are
charged 12 cents.
There are a few advantages to bidding
on keywords through the pay-per-click search engines….
- You only ever pay for advertising
that works because you only pay when someone actually clicks-through
to your web site. This means that pay-per-click search engines
can be a cheap way to draw targeted traffic to your web site.
- Rather than waiting weeks, even
months, for your web site to be listed with many of the other
search engines, pay-per-click search engines will list your
site within as little as a couple of hours -- a couple of
days at most.
- All you need to do to be ranked
in a #1 spot is outbid the other sites. It’s a pretty straightforward
process compared to achieving and maintaining a top ranking
position in the "regular" search engines.
The most popular pay-per-click search
engine is GoTo.com -- it receives the most traffic by far. However,
there are many others worth considering, including Findwhat.com,
7search.com, Bay9.com, and Kanoodle.com.
While the less trafficked pay-per-click
search engines may not drive as many visitors to your web site,
you will be able to purchase top ranking positions much cheaper
than you will in GoTo.com, so take this into consideration when
choosing where to spend your advertising dollars.
More and more pay-per-click search
engines show up each month, so for a current list of them all,
search "pay-per-click search engines" in any regular search engine.
Important Note:
Please understand that I'm not
suggesting that you start bidding a dollar per visitor when you're
just starting out. Focus on targeted keywords and phrases that
your visitors will be using to find you in the search engines,
but that are what you determine to be "reasonably priced"
(what you are willing to pay to attract a visitor will vary depending
on your business model, your visitor-to-sale conversion ratio,
and your profit margin).
Traffic Trick #3:
Secure Links From Related Web Site
A really effective way to start driving highly targeted traffic
to your web site is by persuading other related sites in your
industry to link to you.
You see, a link is equivalent to a
personal recommendation. A link from another well-respected
webmaster establishes your credibility even before the visitor
reaches your web site, dramatically increasing the likelihood
that they will buy.
Think about it… Gary arrives at his favorite
web site and notices that they have posted a link to your site.
Gary knows and trusts his favorite site and therefore assumes
that, because they’ve linked to you, your business must be credible
too.
Gary clicks through the link to your
web site and is immediately open to offers you present him with.
Why? Because your credibility was established before he
even arrived at your homepage!
But how do you do it? How do you persuade
other sites to point their traffic directly at yours with a link?
First of all, you need to do some
research. Who would you most like a link from? Surf the Net
for web sites that deal directly with your target market and collect
the personal contact information for the web site owners.
Don't talk about how you'll benefit,
how great you are, or how fantastic your products are. Focus on
showing potential linking partners how linking to you is going
to benefit their visitors. You need to talk about "what's in
it for them."
The beauty of this is, once you've secured
a link, the site could very easily funnel traffic to yours for
years to come. So it really is worth spending some time to start
building a mutually beneficial relationship with them.
For my Car Secrets Revealed site
(http://www.carsecrets.com/), we spent
two solid months locating high traffic car sites and convincing
them (by e-mail, phone, and fax) to link to us. It was hard work,
but now these links are generating over 22,000 visitors to our
site every month!
That's over 250,000 visitors a year,
for years to come. And all it took was a couple month's hard work.
I'm sure you can imagine the profit we make from 250,000 targeted
visitors per year!
Obviously, developing a linking strategy
that directs a high volume of targeted traffic to your web site
is not an overnight process. It will take you anywhere from two
weeks to six months to secure the quality links you need.
However, I promise you that it’s worth
the effort! Once you have done the initial footwork, the links
that are established will remain on these sites for years to come.
Traffic Trick #4:
Placing Online Classified Ads
When approached with
the right technique, online classified advertising can be a powerful
way to attract new visitors to your web site and generate impressive
sales… all with very little investment!
How can this be? Well,
think about it for a moment.. Electronic classified ads remove
the hassles and barriers… giving people greater incentive to
investigate your offer and BUY!
Think about it…
You've posted an ad
for your product. A curious shopper is snooping about, reading
the various offers when they come across your ad. Your offer intrigues
them and they want to know more, so they simply click on the
link that you have conveniently provided them with.
Voila! They
arrive at your site where they can view your product, read your
sales copy, and easily make their purchase online. It's quick,
it's easy, it's hassle free… and you capture the sales of impulse
buyers!
The truth is, the online
classifieds can be a great source of income. Unfortunately, the
majority of people don’t know how to take advantage of them.
Did you know that there
are well over 1,000 free classified ad sites on the Net? It’s
true… There are hundreds and hundreds of classified ad sites that
will allow you to post your advertisement at absolutely no cost,
giving you a cheap and easy opportunity to drive more traffic
and more sales to your web site.
Of course, you need
to be prepared to work at it -- placing your ad on one or two
sites isn’t going to do much for your business. While an ad site
might receive a reasonable amount of traffic, there might only
be a handful of people -- even just 1 or 2 -- each day who are
interested in the category that you’ve submitted your ad to. So
you might only have a few people read your ad… never mind click
through it.
Depending on how much
traffic a particular site gets, it may actually be a few days
before someone clicks through your ad to your site… and then it’s
up to you to convert this visitor into a sale. If only 1 out of
every 100 people who visit your site buys (this is pretty standard),
it could take months of posting your ad on one particular site
to finally close a sale.
That’s why submitting
your ad to the free online classifieds is a numbers game.
If you want to generate the most sales and traffic, you need to
submit your ad to as many sites as you possibly can.
It’s for this very
reason that most netrepreneurs will never harness the full marketing
potential of electronic classified ads. This goldmine of potential
sales will never be within their reach for one simple reason…
manually entering classified ads is just too time consuming!
First, you would need
to locate the URLs for the various ad sites. This can be a daunting
task in itself! How do you know which sites are worth your time…
and which aren’t?
Then once you've
actually chosen a URL, you need to:
| 1) |
|
Wait
for the page to download |
| 2) |
|
Choose
"Post Ad" and wait for that page to download |
| 3) |
|
Type
in the ad for each classified |
| 4) |
|
Confirm
the ad and submit it |
| 5) |
|
Press
back for a new submit or new category |
| 6) |
|
And then
go back again to choose another URL. |
This is no
small time commitment! Did you know that you can expect to spend
anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes submitting each ad?
This means that in
order to submit your classified ad to 1,000 ad sites, you would
need to work full-time for THREE weeks … repeating the same
steps over and over again!
Do you have the time
-- and patience -- to sit in front of your computer for three
whole weeks, submitting your ad to classified ad sites? I know
I sure don't… And this doesn't even include the time involved
in actually maintaining your ad placement within the sites!
Unfortunately, it doesn’t
take long for your ad to start sliding down the page of these
sites as other advertisers submit their ads -- and this means
that to stay on top, right where you’re most visible to your potential
customers, you’ll need to resubmit your ad when it starts to slide!
This is a lot of work…and
I should know!
This is the same problem
that was driving me crazy. I knew that classified ads held explosive
sales potential… but the time commitment involved in submitting
and maintaining them was just too great to make it worth the effort.
Fortunately, I encountered
a really great piece of software called Power Submitter
that remedies all of the old problems of classified ad submission.
It automatically submits your ad to the top 1000+ Free Classified
Ad sites… all with the click of a few buttons here and there.
It's just that simple!
All you need to do is...
| 1) |
|
Type
in your ad |
| 2) |
|
Pick
the categories and sections of the classified ad sites that
you would like your ad to appear in |
| 3) |
|
Press
Start |
| 4) |
|
And then
walk away! |
In less than
one hour, from start to finish, Power Submitter submits
my ads to the top 1,000+ sites, and it only takes me a few minutes
to set the whole thing up. It’s an easy way to give your sales
a dramatic boost… and begin seeing
results in only a few short hours!
Is classified ad submission
worth three weeks (or more) of your time? I doubt it. Is it worth
one hour of your time? Absolutely! If you're interested
in learning more about Power Submitter, click here now.
Traffic
Trick #5:
Participate In Relevant Newsgroups
Look. I’m not going to kid you --
promoting your e-business through newsgroups is not an overnight
moneymaker. This marketing technique takes a serious commitment
to the long-term success of your business.
However, with hundreds of thousands
of newsgroups to choose from, and millions of people reading and
participating in these worldwide discussions every day, newsgroups
can still be a great place to…
- Kick-start your sales campaign
when you’re first getting your business off the ground by getting
your name and your URL in front of targeted potential customers.
- Develop your reputation as
an industry expert by making yourself available to answer
questions and provide participants with information that they
will value.
... with the
right approach, that is!
You see, newsgroup promotions are
ultimately about selling yourself as industry expert with a
wealth of knowledge to share. Gimmicky sales tactics and hype
do NOT work! People participate in these online communities because
they want to share information -- not because they want
to be "sold" something.
So this means that you should be
looking for opportunities to respond to questions with the exact
information the poster is looking for in order to gain the
respect of the community. The trick is to sit back, listen,
and wait for legitimate opportunities to share your expertise.
The best way to locate newsgroups
that relate to your industry or niche is by using the "search"
or "find" feature in your newsreader. You simply type in one or
two keywords, and this will bring up a list of potential newsgroups.
You may also want to try searching
"newsgroup directories" in Yahoo! as this will provide you with
a current list of some of the top newsgroup directories. Some
good places to start looking for discussion boards and newsgroups
related to your area of interest include…
http://groups.google.com
http://www.talkcity.com
http://www.topica.com
http://www.forumone.com/index/index.php
… but a quick search in any major
search engine should also produce good boards and chat rooms to
check out.
Final Thoughts:
My best advice is this: don't spread your energy and
your budget thin, trying to do everything at once. Clearly focus
your efforts, and you're going to see much better -- much more
profitable -- results!
Take things one step at a time:
| #1: |
|
Get the traffic to your web site!
|
| #2: |
|
Make certain that your
web site and sales copy is converting your visitors into paying
customers!
|
| #3: |
|
Develop a strong relationship
with your growing opt-in e-mail list!
|
... and then start looking into more advanced techniques
like opt-in e-mail promotions and affiliate programs. You'll be
far more successful if you do things one step at a time, with
your best efforts focused on each.
|
