Ahh, traffic. It's known as the hardest part of building an online business. It can take months or even years to build up a decent amount of traffic so that you can build a list or just sell a product from your website.
Before we look at the most cost and time effective ways to get targeted traffic, I would like to make one point:
If you'd like to work once for your traffic but get paid for life, then you absolutely must be doing one thing: Building a list.
I know, people always tell you this and you may already be doing so, but to those who are not then make sure you capture each precious, hard earned visitor that comes to your site, because once they leave, they are never coming back! Besides, once you have a list, you don't need to worry about constantly trying to find traffic anymore, because the traffic is just an email away!
And if you're already building a list, you may want to read on to find out why you're probably wasting 90% of your time and energy doing it the wrong way.
But first, let's look at how you can get some initial traffic to your website and start making some sales (and building a list of course!)
1. Blog Comments
Many people overlook this tactic because they think it doesn't work. This is usually because people associate blog comments with the usual "hey, thanks for the advice man..." type of blog comment that you see on so many blogs. However, blog commenting becomes a great way to piggy back hoards of targeted traffic literally overnight when you leave a solid, useful comment that actually adds to the original post. Perhaps add something that was missed, or extend the list of ideas, or present an argument...just show that you know what you're talking about and leave a link back to your site, the rest is history. Just don't spam multiple blogs with off topic or irrelevant comments.
2. Forum Signatures
Getting involved in forums does take a few weeks worth of work to build up a presence and trust, but once you become trusted and respected in a forum, you can drive tons of traffic through this method. Just pop a link in your signature box and watch the hits come in. This works best when you post a forum thread that truly delivers great content and gets people talking about you.
3. Social Networking
There's a whole world of social sites out there such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Bebo, Hubpages, MyBlog Log...the list is endless. If you get to know some people who have an obvious interest in your niche market, you can quickly form a platform to broadcast to all their friends, who pass it on to their friends, and so on. Again, good useful content will get passed around and talked about most of course, but the key is to build a handful of good friendships on several of these networking sites so that when you have something to say, they will likely pass on your message to the world through their collectively huge lists of friends.
4. Article Marketing
One of the time tested, most effective ways to get targeted traffic to your site is through article marketing. This means writing a quality article and posting it to an online article directory such as ezinearticles.com. Then in your resource box, you can leave a link to point to a resource where the reader can get even more information and resources to really solve their problems or enhance their current situation in whichever way is appropriate.
5. Video marketing
Video is really taking off online these days, and if you know how to connect with people physically or verbally, then video is a huge area to gain tons of traffic. With Youtube being one of the most visited websites in the world, along with these types of video sharing sites having the potential to make your videos go viral, this is something all marketers need to start using. The trick with video is to not come across as a corporation or sales person, rather a normal person in their home, trying to help others. You can leave a live link in the about this video section and get plenty of free traffic from this resource, particularly if your video is entertaining and appealing.
6. Yahoo Answers
Another overlooked resource is Yahoo Answers. I can account for 25% of my yearly traffic to come from a few good and useful answers I posted to people's questions on Yahoo Answers. The trick is to give really good, non-biased advice and simply suggest a link for them to check out to solve their problems (which will be your website of course!). As long as you are ethical and treat people with respect, and genuinely try to help people solve their problems, then you're golden at Yahoo Answers. You can actually find people looking for products and services that you might offer, which leads to easy conversions too!
These are just some of the many creative ways you can drive targeted traffic to your website. There are many more, but I have to tell you something:
These methods will require work, research and persistence. As with anything that is cost free, there is going to be competition that often shadows your hard work or knocks you off the spotlight completely. You always need to stay on top and out think your competitors, particularly when there's so many other people using free methods for getting traffic.
However, did you know that there are some underground ways to drive ultra targeted traffic and build huge lists of subscribers that will buy from you again and again, simply from you sending out an email?
It's true, and it doesn't require even half of the hard work that you see above. It can be done for free or at extremely low cost (think burger and fries) and you'll build the most valuable asset any online business owner could wish for - a targeted list of paying customers.
Before we look at the most cost and time effective ways to get targeted traffic, I would like to make one point:
If you'd like to work once for your traffic but get paid for life, then you absolutely must be doing one thing: Building a list.
I know, people always tell you this and you may already be doing so, but to those who are not then make sure you capture each precious, hard earned visitor that comes to your site, because once they leave, they are never coming back! Besides, once you have a list, you don't need to worry about constantly trying to find traffic anymore, because the traffic is just an email away!
And if you're already building a list, you may want to read on to find out why you're probably wasting 90% of your time and energy doing it the wrong way.
But first, let's look at how you can get some initial traffic to your website and start making some sales (and building a list of course!)
1. Blog Comments
Many people overlook this tactic because they think it doesn't work. This is usually because people associate blog comments with the usual "hey, thanks for the advice man..." type of blog comment that you see on so many blogs. However, blog commenting becomes a great way to piggy back hoards of targeted traffic literally overnight when you leave a solid, useful comment that actually adds to the original post. Perhaps add something that was missed, or extend the list of ideas, or present an argument...just show that you know what you're talking about and leave a link back to your site, the rest is history. Just don't spam multiple blogs with off topic or irrelevant comments.
2. Forum Signatures
Getting involved in forums does take a few weeks worth of work to build up a presence and trust, but once you become trusted and respected in a forum, you can drive tons of traffic through this method. Just pop a link in your signature box and watch the hits come in. This works best when you post a forum thread that truly delivers great content and gets people talking about you.
3. Social Networking
There's a whole world of social sites out there such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Bebo, Hubpages, MyBlog Log...the list is endless. If you get to know some people who have an obvious interest in your niche market, you can quickly form a platform to broadcast to all their friends, who pass it on to their friends, and so on. Again, good useful content will get passed around and talked about most of course, but the key is to build a handful of good friendships on several of these networking sites so that when you have something to say, they will likely pass on your message to the world through their collectively huge lists of friends.
4. Article Marketing
One of the time tested, most effective ways to get targeted traffic to your site is through article marketing. This means writing a quality article and posting it to an online article directory such as ezinearticles.com. Then in your resource box, you can leave a link to point to a resource where the reader can get even more information and resources to really solve their problems or enhance their current situation in whichever way is appropriate.
5. Video marketing
Video is really taking off online these days, and if you know how to connect with people physically or verbally, then video is a huge area to gain tons of traffic. With Youtube being one of the most visited websites in the world, along with these types of video sharing sites having the potential to make your videos go viral, this is something all marketers need to start using. The trick with video is to not come across as a corporation or sales person, rather a normal person in their home, trying to help others. You can leave a live link in the about this video section and get plenty of free traffic from this resource, particularly if your video is entertaining and appealing.
6. Yahoo Answers
Another overlooked resource is Yahoo Answers. I can account for 25% of my yearly traffic to come from a few good and useful answers I posted to people's questions on Yahoo Answers. The trick is to give really good, non-biased advice and simply suggest a link for them to check out to solve their problems (which will be your website of course!). As long as you are ethical and treat people with respect, and genuinely try to help people solve their problems, then you're golden at Yahoo Answers. You can actually find people looking for products and services that you might offer, which leads to easy conversions too!
These are just some of the many creative ways you can drive targeted traffic to your website. There are many more, but I have to tell you something:
These methods will require work, research and persistence. As with anything that is cost free, there is going to be competition that often shadows your hard work or knocks you off the spotlight completely. You always need to stay on top and out think your competitors, particularly when there's so many other people using free methods for getting traffic.
However, did you know that there are some underground ways to drive ultra targeted traffic and build huge lists of subscribers that will buy from you again and again, simply from you sending out an email?
It's true, and it doesn't require even half of the hard work that you see above. It can be done for free or at extremely low cost (think burger and fries) and you'll build the most valuable asset any online business owner could wish for - a targeted list of paying customers.
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