One of the most common needs of online business owners is traffic. Without traffic, your web site barely exists, and is unlikely to make any profit whatsoever. With traffic, you stand a much greater chance of success - but not just any traffic.
As the owner of a network of web sites receiving well over a million hits a month, in this article I give you my five top tips for increasing targeted traffic to your web site.
Newbies on the web frequently make the mistake of just wanting traffic, and join any and every program offering just that - "thousands of hits to your web site", with the vast majority of them completely worthless. When their web sites fail to make any money, many of them give up on the web as a money-making myth.
For those that do persist, and try to learn from their experience, they realize it's not just any traffic they need - it's targeted traffic. That means web site visitors who actually want to visit (rather than those who are 'forced' to visit via some traffic exchange program), and so are actually interested in what you have to offer.
This type of traffic is far more profitable to you - your visitors are far more likely to purchase from you, simply because you have what they want.
But how can you attract targeted traffic?
Here are my five top tips:
1. An Affiliate Program
This works by giving those who promote your products a commission if they make a sale. Over time you can build up an army of people who are busy promoting your web sites for you.
My own affiliates account for well over half of all my sales, and to do that, by definition they have to be pushing a lot of traffic my way.
You can begin to see what my traffic and sales levels might look like without an affiliate program.
For beginners who are selling digital products such as ebooks or software, the easiest and cheapest way to start your own affiliate program is through ClickBank. That's how I started and I still use them today.
2. Add Content
Providing quality content on your web site is an excellent way to permanently increase traffic to your web site.
Search engines like Google appear to favor web sites with a clear navigation structure that provide quality content within a certain genre - that means not adding anything you can think of to your web site, but focus on a particular niche, and provide content broadly in line with that.
You don't even have to create it all yourself. For example, look in article directories on the web for free reprint articles you can use, such as http://ideamarketers.com.
3. Create Content
Just as you are looking for content you can quickly add to your web site, so are thousands of other publishers. By creating content yourself, you can not only put it up on your own web site, but also provide it to others for their use with a small resource box at the end of the article with a link to your web site.
In so doing, you can have literally hundreds of web sites all linking to yours. This provides a consistent stream of targeted traffic from readers of the article who want to follow through to your web site, and also from search engines like Google, where your ranking will broadly increase in line with the number of web sites linking to you.
Hundreds of ezine publishers are also on the look out for quality content that they can publish, on a wide range of topics - if a publisher with a large mailing list chooses to publish your article, this can lead to a surge in both traffic and sales on your web site when their ezine is published. Many ezines are published online too, providing another permanent link and source of high quality traffic to your web site.
There are various courses and ebooks available online that can teach you how to effectively distribute your articles and get them published - there's also a free e-course available at http://ideamarketers.com that tells you nearly everything you need to know.
4. Publish An Ezine
One of the most effective ways to build a loyal base of repeat visitors for your web site is your own mailing list, whether it's an ezine that publishes regularly, or a mailing list who you occasionally mail to.
By publishing quality information in your emails, you increase your credibility, build trust with your subscribers, and encourage repeated visits to your web site.
5. Pay Per Click Engines
When you use pay-per-click engines, you are effectively paying to have a high ranking position for certain keywords, on certain search engines. If you choose your keywords carefully, the traffic is highly targeted - the trick is to ensure you are not paying more per click than each visitor is worth.
To do this effectively requires some careful tracking of the visitors that arrive at your site from your keyword placements, but done correctly, the end result is net profit for you.
The main pay-per-click engines are Google Adwords and Overture - with Google, your ads are displayed within minutes; with Overture, it can take a few hours to a few days to have your ads approved and displayed.
I personally use all of the above methods to attract targeted traffic to my web site - of course, that's not the end of the road in terms of web site profitability. You then need to ensure that a proportion of this targeted traffic converts into paying customers. Once you've mastered this too, you are well on your way to online success.
------------------------------
About The Author
Steve Shaw has been marketing full-time online since March 2002, developing software products and systems for effective e-marketing - for more information see http://ideamarketers.com.
bathroom cleaning service Lake Forest ...1. Hunt for Catchy Domain Names and Get a Quality... Read More
You have to search a lot to find what is... Read More
Ever since the time websites became new to the World... Read More
One of the most common needs of online business owners... Read More
Why Award Sites?Award sites are, in essence, directories that hand... Read More
First off all let's define what is a link exchange?... Read More
Why submit to a Directory?Every webmaster is looking for ways... Read More
There's no shortage of ways to spend money promoting your... Read More
Traffic is the food that every website needs in order... Read More
By doing one thing solve other people's problems.That's it this... Read More
If you are looking for an immediate increase in your... Read More
Now that more emphasis (to get better ranking in SERPs)... Read More
In search engine optimization, "off page" factors have become more... Read More
Do you have your own site? Do you have any... Read More
Have you spent a lot of money on advertising with... Read More
It's a strange world, this place we call the internet.... Read More
Recently I came across a web site with the heading... Read More
Link popularity has been written about ad nauseum, but most... Read More
Online marketing is an area where you can find a... Read More
There's a stiff wind blowing in a new direction on... Read More
After all the debate over website design, shopping carts and... Read More
Many websites have great ideas, excellent content, brilliant deals and... Read More
The debate rages on forums all over the internet-should one... Read More
Did you know that according to alexa, www.eBay.com is ranked... Read More
To improve our website ranking and internet presence we need... Read More
house cleaning company Highland Park ...How would you like to make $4 for EVERY visitor... Read More
How can you have effective results in major search engines?... Read More
The subject of referral traffic may be a bit elementary... Read More
Yes, if need more web traffic, this free list building... Read More
Generating traffic for your mini-sites is the challenge.Search engines look... Read More
Getting links to your website all over the Internet is... Read More
The ProblemNo matter how good your product or service is,... Read More
Though each web site is different, it is possible to... Read More
If you don't create a successful strategy for marketing your... Read More
If you sell products or services, chances are you have... Read More
A classic way of getting seen and noticed on the... Read More
Yesterday, I got stuck in a traffic jam. It wasn't... Read More
This interesting idea is likely to drive your competitors nuts.It... Read More
Once again I used my wacky test marketing strategy to... Read More
There is so incredibly MUCH you can do to successfully... Read More
There are literally billions of Web sites online now offering... Read More
Traffic exchanges are everywhere. A traffic exchange is a clever... Read More
If you own a business online, would like to increase... Read More
Does anyone really enjoy the tedium of spending hours upon... Read More
This is part two of an article series which will... Read More
If you don't know by now one the best ways... Read More
It's no secret, the lifeblood of any website is the... Read More
We all know that the secret to success on the... Read More
In today's world of website promotion and traffic building, a... Read More
In search engine optimization, "off page" factors have become more... Read More
Traffic Building |