Instead of the right and wrong ways to
advertise, I’m giving you the different ways to generate traffic. I use
these and they WORK! I think this post will help you much more than the
one I was planning.
Before we get into the “meat” of the
article let me say this. The best way to build traffic and receive
visitors is to build an interesting and accommodating website (or blog).
This will go a long way towards having your site recommended and
building a subscriber base. If your website has many pages with good
information, each one of those pages will be packed with words and
phrases – keywords- that people will find when they make
searches. Another plus in building an interesting site is that other
sites will want to link to you, viewing your site as an important
resource, giving you even more visitors. In fact, this is what Google
had in mind when it set up its current ranking system. A site that is
informative and filled with useful information will be noted and other
sites will link to it. Each of these links is viewed by Google as
important to your niche. Make your site interesting, and people will
want to link to it. A content rich site is the first secret of building
ongoing traffic.
Paid Ads:
For immediate traffic to your site the
best way is to buy it. It’s also the most expensive way as opposed to
the more natural and organic ways. By buying traffic (pay per click – or
PPC), you can target the people already looking for the product or
service you’re providing. The biggest player here is Google. For those
new to this industry, whenever you run a Google search, the listings
that show up on the right hand side can be bought by anyone. They are
the sponsored links. You pay a certain amount for each click as defined
by the preferences you set beforehand in your account. You can have
traffic showing up to your website 5 minutes after setting up a Google
AdWords account. Other search engines also offer this PPC service
-Yahoo, Bing, Facebook and LinkedIn also have PPC services. The next
step after paying for traffic is to your monitor results. You can track
the number of hits from various sources to focus on those ads that are
producing sales. Every type of advertising must have a tracking system
with good accuracy. Just keep the ads that produce for you and delete
the others.
Publish on other Websites:
This is one of the most effective ways to
build ongoing traffic. By publishing some of your information on other
websites you’ll be getting backlinks from those websites as well as some
of their visitors. Using this “link juice” is one of the most effective
ways to get your site or blog noticed as an authority by the search
engines. Search engines LOVE both good content and high page (PR) ranked
backlinks. If your site is full of useful content, other people will
also want to publish your content on their websites. Webmasters are
hungry for content to beef up their own sites and their newsletters.
Article Marketing:
This is one of my favorites. For every
article you publish to an article directory, you’ll get a backlink. Just
make sure that you insert your website or blog URL and contact
information into each article. Good article content is the key here,
just like good website or blog content. If you provide useful
information and quality content in your article on a consistent basis,
the article directories will remember you – and your site. By submitting
consistently good articles, higher page rank directories will want to
publish your articles. Just like the higher PR websites, higher page
rank article directories will provide quality backlinks to your site.
Emailing a List:
If you own a list, that can become one of
your greatest assets over time. There are no overheads – unlike PPC
marketing – and you can create a huge rush of sales every time you send
an email. Creating an email list absolutely takes longer than most of
the other methods here, but this is one of the best methods of
generating traffic to whatever you choose to advertise. By using an auto
responder, you can attract these visitors back to your website again.
There’s a study that was done a while ago that says people need to see
an invitation 7-10 times before they’ll actually buy or join what you’re
promoting. Knowing how often to send emails to your list is also
important. The key here is to add value and send regular free content In
between asking them to buy something. Send something free that has
value. Generally, once a month is an appropriate time period between
emails, or maybe more often depending on your market.
Joint Venture:
This strategy is simple. Other websites
send out emails and place strategic links on their website to attract
visitors to your website. You only pay them for the sales produced from
any clicks you receive. Generally 50% of the profits generated is the
best, since it’s an equal share. The key here is to make it as easy as
possible for your JV partner to advertise for you. Create emails for
them, banner ads and any other promotional material that will help them
advertise your product or service. JV deals allow you to create a lot of
traffic to your site in a short period of time and help you to build
your own mailing lists very quickly. You can receive JV support from all
of the established companies in the field you wish to enter if you
approach them correctly.
Creativity combined with activity is a
good recipe for traffic building. Build a good site, then spread the
word about it. Use these guidelines and you are sure to succeed.