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Internet. Business. Profit. The thing that ties all these together in success is…traffic. Generating traffic is one of the most important purposes of every piece of writing, every blog post, every FaceBook post that a marketing site publishes.
Traffic is one of the most essential needs for any business to be successful on the internet. Of course, you have to have something to sell whether it’s a great product of your own or an affiliate product you promote. You also need to have your business and its main elements – website, autoresponder, etc., organized and running smoothly. Then it’s time to get down to it and start generating traffic.
Do you already have a website up and running but you don’t think you’re getting as much traffic as you should? Maybe it’s time to rethink some things. Do you want to compete in this market filled with hungry contenders? If so, you need to stay ahead of your competitors in any way you can, traffic being one of them. There is a common, though maybe not very popular, saying that goes – when should you start building traffic? Yesterday!
OK, let’s be realistic. You have to have some other things organized and in order before you start sending traffic anywhere. Some things, yes. But maybe less than you think. However, it’s vital that you realize your business’s need for traffic and how important it is. I’ll be more direct. As an Internet Marketer, whether you are in the Make Money Online niche, the Weight Loss niche, selling a physical product you make, or selling Amazon products as an affiliate on your site, getting traffic to your business site should be something you work on every day. So if you didn’t start a traffic campaign yesterday, you really should do that today so you don’t have the same feeling tomorrow!
Since we all need more traffic to our sites, here are some suggestions for how you can get some. Ten suggestions, in fact. I hope some of these will be helpful to you and to your business.
1) Use Search Engine Advertising For Paid Traffic.
Google Adwords and Bing Ads have great advertising programs, and they are great traffic sources. This is, obviously, the paid option. There are free methods, but paid traffic brings the quickest results. And results can be scaled easily, unlike free traffic. Some people refuse to give paid traffic a try for fear they will be ripped off by unscrupulous sellers. But services don’t get more reliable than Google Adwords and Bing Ads.
It’s not hard to find good reasons to use Google Adwords or Bing Ads. Here is an article by WordStream.com that gives 10 Reasons to use Google Ads. Most of those benefits would be the same for Bing Ads. You’ll see Google Ads and Bing Ads displayed on tons of websites. Businesses are constantly signing up for these, and other similar services to reap the rewards. You can do the same. Money invested in a carefully planned campaign with either of these services is usually absolutely worth it.
2) Develop A Backlink Strategy
In the past, it was a big thing to swap links with other sites. These have sometimes been called reciprocal links. Actually, this traditional technique of arranging swaps is now frowned upon by Google. Although they still use the same results as a ranking metric. OK, what does that mean, exactly? Well, I’ve read that Google says it’s OK to have reciprocal links as long as there are not “excessive reciprocal links”. How many is “excessive”? Sounds pretty subjective.
But this is a conundrum that Google has ended up in and sort of created themselves. You see, one of the criteria that they use to rank websites is to count how many other sites link to that site. These are called backlinks. But they don’t want people creating backlinks by agreement or for compensation. They want it to be more out of respect or admiration, I guess. But at this time, they can’t tell if two sites with links to each other created those links as part of an exchange agreement or not.
Google updates like Panda and Hummingbird have made this a more touchy subject than it used to be. And they’re stuck in the middle. If you want to use this strategy to increase your site traffic, it’s best to be educated and informed. Here’s a free online training course about Backlinks and Link Building for SEO from MonitorBackLinks.org.
3) Use Viral Marketing
First of all, let’s start with some clarification. What, exactly, is viral marketing? Lexico.com defines viral marketing as – A method of marketing whereby consumers are encouraged to share information about a company’s goods or services via the Internet.
In other words, this is what we used to call “word of mouth” advertising. Of course, that was before the internet came along.
Successful viral marketing will let you market your company or products without advertising costs, or minimal cost at most. Success with this approach can be very difficult to predict. Although results, when this is done correctly, can be outstanding. By using video, games, or written content as the medium for your marketing message, your campaign can be shared by hundreds or even thousands of others with no advertising cost to you. This way, people’s connection to the medium will often be the motivating factor that makes them share these materials freely. In many cases, they often don’t even realize that they are taking part in a viral promotion.
4) Use Good Focus Keywords And Phrases
From the perspective of the search engines, a keyword is any search term entered on Google (or another search engine) that has a results page where websites related to that term are listed.
Keywords are used as search terms that a website owner or SEO professional will use to optimize a website in the hopes of ranking at the top of Google’s results for that specific keyword.
Anything searched for on a search engine, whether it’s a single word or a phrase, is considered a keyword. If you type in one word, like “autoresponder” or a string of words in the form of a phrase – “how to build a WordPress site”, both of those search terms are now keywords.
Search engines look for certain keywords to show in their results page to help searchers understand what that page is about so people know if that page is worth opening and investigating further. This makes it important to have to right keyword or phrase to both help your pages rank higher in the search results and to tell searchers what your site is about. This helps the searcher know if they are likely to find the information they are looking for on your site.
5) Use Social Media Promotion
Optimize Your Social Media Profile – These days it’s very possible for a prospect to discover your brand on social media before they’ve ever been to your site. It’s one of the few chances you’ll get to make the best first impression possible.
If you can create a section of content that you can present as “exclusive”, you can bring prospects to your site to sign up for, or to check out the exclusive content. It doesn’t need to be a password-protected section or anything like that. Your promotion material could just say “Get this. Don’t be left out!”. Most people don’t like to be left out.
Also, don’t try to automate all of your social media presence. Show up as a real human being and engage with your followers. Too much automation can prevent people from feeling connected to you or your brand.
And don’t forget influencers. Utilize their services and their reach when possible. Just because you have a team (which you should, eventually if not now), doesn’t mean you should work in a vacuum. Use influencers to get your message out, then use those new connections to attract people to your site.
Just be sure to work with influencers whose platform is compatible with your own goals and values. Don’t work with an influencer that is going to rub your followers the wrong way, no matter how big that influencer’s “tribe” might be.
6) Consider Publishing A Newsletter
Another option, if you either have the time or can consider outsourcing, is publishing a newsletter.
The traditional form of a newsletter will allow you to bring up current events or new happenings in your industry as well as new product releases. The offer of a newsletter can bring people to your site to subscribe, or once they are subscribed you can offer information or links to other things on your site, such as an article, a product, or a service you are promoting.
7) Autoresponder Email Campaigns
Whether you can do a newsletter or not, another option is to create automated email campaigns. You can present it to your visitors as an update type email list or as an e-zine.
The idea is to create a series of messages in your autoresponder that will go out automatically and in the process will promote your site, your products, or whatever promotions you write into your series of messages.
While newsletters need to be written or updated for each publication, an autoresponder series allows you to tweak elements such as the headline or the Call to Action.
This lends itself to A/B testing which in turn allows you to increase the effectiveness of your autoresponder campaign.
8) I Need More Video, Not More Cowbell
Here’s a suggestion you can always keep in mind: Use more video.
Video has been a powerful marketing tactic for several years and shows no sign of slowing down.
The engagement capability of a good video can make your prospect feel a more powerful bond with your brand. Types of videos you could consider are – tutorials to engage the visitor or customer, testimonials to help convert visitors into customers, and behind the scenes, or daily life videos to enhance the bond they feel toward your brand.
9) Allow High-Quality Guest Blog Posts
This is another way to have a greater reach. Let people submit guest blog posts. Of course, you need to publish your criteria and requirements for guest posts. By posting a detailed list of your criteria, you reduce the number of incompatible submissions and the guest blogger knows from the start what is expected of them in order to get their guest post approved.
Not only does the guest blogger get a backlink to their site and a chance to demonstrate their expertise, but it also enhances your site’s image as a repository of helpful and educational material in your field. These articles can boost the number of leads you attract and increase organic traffic.
10) Update Your Content
This could be one of the easiest ways to boost traffic, but while it’s a simple proposition, very few people seem to be on board. Maybe they just aren’t aware of this option.
Remember, even though a post has been published, it’s not written in stone. That’s always been one of the recognized characteristics of the web…it’s dynamic!
We all know that Google likes fresh content and site updates. But a lot of us have always addressed that by adding more articles and more pages, etc. Well, Google seems to have a freshness rating that will not treat your 6 month or 1-year-old content kindly.
So don’t be afraid to update or add content in your old articles and posts. Google will notice and will reward you with better-positioned search results.
11) Update The Date (Bonus Tip)
When you do edit an existing post that you published in the past, remember to update the published date to help Google recognize it as an article with new content.
Believe it or not, your rankings can really jump as a result of this approach. Remember – Google likes “fresh” content, but it doesn’t have to be completely “new” content. That can make this approach an easy “win” on Google SERP’s.
OK, that’s “enough” words in “quotes”. I’ll give it a rest.
That about wraps it up for today. I hope some suggestions I’ve given you prove to be helpful. Just go back through them and pick one that you think will work for you. Apply it, then come back, look at the list again and pick another one that you think you can put into action. Keep going from there.
I hope you build your business big and fast and I hope I’ve helped a little.
‘Til next time,
Dave
Owner/President of DUH Web Media Group
Sites:
DUHWebMediaGroup.com
DUHWebMarketingInsight.com
DUHWebMarketingReviews.com
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