    |
|
| Turn Your Site into a Traffic Building Visitor Magnet and Attract Swarms of Qualified Traffic with Our Top 10 FREE Traffic Building Tactics
No
matter how cool your site is or how fabulous your product is, you're
not going to generate enough sales to make your business viable unless
you have good traffic building! You have to get the word out about your site and
give people a reason to visit it, or else you'll go the way of the
dodo. The
good news is, there are lots of ways to effectively advertise your
site online and drive tons of "qualified" traffic to your
site -- for free! ("Qualified" traffic consists of people
who belong to your target niche market and are most likely to buy
the products or services you offer -- THESE are the people you want
coming to your site!) As
more and more people turn to the Internet as their first shopping
choice, enterprising entrepreneurs are coming up with increasingly
ingenious ways to attract visitors to their sites. In this issue,
you'll discover how YOU can use these tactics to turn your site into
one of the "main attractions" for your niche market -- without
spending a dime! Let
the "Top 10" countdown begin! VISITOR MAGNET TRAFFIC
BUILDING TACTIC #10: These
days, viral marketing messages are spreading through the Web like
wildfire. Viral marketing is any type of advertising that is "self-perpetuating,"
compelling people to share it with others so that it spreads through
a community like a virus -- but a good one!
Hotmail.com is a textbook example of viral marketing on the Internet.
Hotmail was one of the first free e-mail services on the Web. In its
first one and a half years, Hotmail managed to sign up an incredible
12 million subscribers! How did it accomplish this? Simple: At the
end of every e-mail, Hotmail included the following message: "Get
your private, free e-mail at http://www.hotmail.com,"
encouraging everyone who received an e-mail to sign up for the free
service themselves. Large
companies use viral marketing messages to perpetuate awareness of
their brand, often by creating humorous videos or animation clips
that people send to their friends for a laugh. Some smaller companies
have also used this traffic building strategy successfully. An example is "Homestar
Runner," a small business that's created a set of cartoon
characters and animated shorts that circulate around the Web, encouraging
people to visit the main site and buy the company's merchandise. If
you like to play around with video or animation, you might think about
adopting this strategy to generate interest in your own product. Just
keep in mind that it can be very difficult to determine the exact
return on investment for viral marketing campaigns, since it's impossible
to keep track of where the ad goes. This type of viral marketing is
good for generating interest in your site and products, but it doesn't
always translate into immediate sales. To
see more examples of viral marketing, check out the following sites
(warning: part of the popularity of some viral ads is their "cheeky"
or risqué nature. Some viral ads contain material that viewers
may find offensive): TRAFFIC
BUILDING TACTIC #9: Business
networking communities are springing up all over the Web. They're
similar to dating or social networking sites, but are used by entrepreneurs
to find other businesspeople with whom they can establish mutually
beneficial business relationships. Business
networking communities can also help generate traffic building by allowing
their members to create personal profile pages with links to their
main business sites. These links can improve a site's ranking with
the major search engines. If
you decide to join a networking community, be sure to partner with
people whose business is complementary to your own. Their site has
to attract visitors who are likely to become your customers as well
-- for example, it probably won't do you any good to have your all-vegetarian
tofu burgers featured on a Cattle Rancher's Association site! Here
are some business networking communities you may want to check out:
TRAFFIC
BUILDING TACTIC #8: A
great way to establish an online identity and develop relationships
with your potential customer base is by taking part in newsgroups
and discussion forums or starting up a blog related to your niche
market. These tools can really help you communicate directly with
your niche market and discover what their wants and needs are. For
example, if you sell special mountain biking shoes, spend some time
hanging out in mountain biking forums -- that's where your target
market's going to be! Or you could start your own blog in which you
describe your latest mountain biking adventures -- complete with attention-grabbing
photos, of course! You could even combine the two tactics and generate
interest in your blog by mentioning it in forums and newsgroups. Taking
part in newsgroups, forums and blogs can be very time-consuming, but
can still be a great way to establish a name for yourself in your
niche market as a traffic building magnet. TRAFFIC
BUILDING TACTIC #7: A
good way to drive visitors to your site is to ask your existing customer
base to do it for you! If
your site offers a free opt-in newsletter, contest, quiz, or "tip
of the day" -- in other words, any information that people will
want to share because it's fun, valuable, or exciting -- include a
"send to a friend" button in that feature as well. It's
a great way to get the word out about your site to as many people
as possible -- and there is nothing more powerful than a personal
recommendation from a friend or colleague as a traffic building magnet. Here
are just a few sites that offer free "tell-a-friend" tools:
TRAFFIC BUILDING
TACTIC #6: One
of the best ways to get traffic to your site is to offer valuable
content that's updated on a regular basis, so that your visitors are
prompted to pay frequent return visits to see what new information
you have available. Provide content that's relevant to your industry,
such as articles, product reviews, or "how-to" advice columns
-- anything you think your visitors will find useful or entertaining as Traffic building magnets.
As
you develop your collection of written content, consider placing it
in a searchable archive so that your visitors can access past articles
and product reviews. This will encourage people to think of your site
not only as a place where they can buy things, but also as a valuable
source of information. You
should also consider offering other free resources to attract your
target audience. Remember,
the most powerful word in a marketer's arsenal is "free"!
The more useful tools and resources you offer your visitors, the more
they'll appreciate your site. Offer
fun or helpful interactive tools that relate to the purpose of your
site. For example: This strategy
tends to be better for getting repeat traffic than for attracting new
visitors, but if you include a "tell-a-friend" button with
your interactive traffic generator, you may prompt visitors to share
the news about your site with others -- and get them to drive new traffic
to your site for you as traffic building magnets! TRAFFIC
BUILDING TACTIC #5: If
you want your site to be seen by as many potential customers as possible,
try to get it mentioned on sites they're likely to visit. You want to
find sites that are related to yours, but not competing with it. A great way to get
your site mentioned on other sites is to contact those sites directly
and offer to "link swap" with them. Tell them you'll put a
link to their site on your site if they'll do the same for you. Not
only will this generate a lot of increased exposure for your site as a traffic building magnet--
it can also boost your ranking with the search engines. Search the Web for
sites that cater to your niche market -- AND that get a lot of traffic!
If you own a souvenir shop, for example, see if you can get your site
listed on local hotel and restaurant sites, as well as other travel
and hospitality sites tourists are likely to visit. One
of the best ways to make sure your site gets mentioned on other sites
is to offer them valuable free content. IMPORTANT
NOTE: Remember, this tactic will ONLY work if you include your contact
info and a link to your site at the end of every article! That'll make
it easy for people to visit your site and learn more about the products
or services you sell -- so make sure that every site or e-zine that
publishes your content includes this contact info and link. TRAFFIC
BUILDING TACTIC #3:
The free search engines such as Google,
Yahoo!, and MSN
are still one of the most effective ways to get the word out about
your site. There are lots of different techniques you can use to ensure
you get a good ranking with the free search engines. For example,
you can... ... And these are
just a few tactics that will help you improve your search engine ranking!
You can spend the time needed to do all this work yourself, or you can
use software that will do the job for you, such as WebPosition
Gold. To explore search
engine optimization strategies in more detail, check out Issue
96 of the "Marketing Tips" newsletter. TRAFFIC
BUILDING TACTIC #2: Yes,
it's true: E-mail promotions are one of the top two ways to attract
qualified traffic to your site. If you have list
of customer or subscriber e-mail addresses, then you're set! People
who have visited your site and signed up for your newsletter (or
a contest or survey) are far more likely to buy than someone who
has never heard of your site before. It's essential that you stay
in touch with these people as visitor magnet! You
can manage your mailing list and automate your e-mail promotions
using software like Mailloop.
To learn more about how to build a substantial list of opt-in e-mail
addresses, start by checking out Issue
49 of the "Marketing Tips" newsletter. For more advanced
strategies, you'll want to read "The Insider Secrets to E-mail Marketing." And
now, the time has come for... TRAFFIC
BUILDING TACTIC #1 (drum
roll please...): Without
a doubt, an affiliate program is the BEST way to increase your site's
exposure! You can get your affiliates to drive qualified traffic to
your site using all the techniques we've mentioned so far, as well
as other effective advertising techniques that require an initial
investment. You
can literally get your affiliates to do ALL your marketing for you!
In fact, one of our most successful clients doesn't spend ANY time
optimizing his site for the free search engines -- he lets his affiliates
do it for him! Many of them go to great lengths to make sure their
sites are highly ranked -- and because they all link to his site as traffic building magnets,
they boost his search engine ranking as well! And
the best thing about affiliate programs is that you don't pay your
affiliates a dime for all the work they do unless they help you make
a sale! It really is a win-win proposition:The more sales your affiliates
help you make, the more money they earn as well. For
more on growing your own affiliate program, check out "The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet,"
which is filled with lots of in-depth information on how to start
up and make the most of an affiliate program. Final
thoughts In
order to maximize your site's exposure, it's best to use a combination
of the traffic building tactics listed above. For example, if you're sending out an
e-mail promotion, you may want to include a "tell-a-friend"
option in the e-mail so that the people on your mailing list will
send the promotion to others. If you have an affiliate program, ask
your affiliates to post your articles and product reviews on their
sites in order to help you build a reputation for yourself as an industry
expert. Remember:
When it comes to online marketing, there are three words you need
to keep in mind: LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION! Your site has to be
mentioned often in places where your niche market hangs out if you
want your site to be a traffic building magnet and seen by as many potential customers as possible.
If
you think you could be doing more to boost your site's traffic numbers
(and really, who couldn't?), start putting these top 10 Traffic Building
Tactics to work for you today -- then sit back and enjoy all that
free visitor magnet traffic coming your way! |
