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When I browse forums, I constantly see webmasters asking the question, “What is the best way to drive traffic to my website?”
On the surface, this may seem a logical and simple question to answer, but the truth is that there is no one “best way” to drive traffic to any website.
In the forums, I will say that the “best ways” to drive traffic to a website are: article marketing, SEO, forum marketing, social media, paid advertising, etc.
But between you and I, that is a canned answer given to those people who are not yet equipped to handle the “big picture” answer.
What is the Big Picture of Traffic Generation?
The big picture is that there are literally dozens of methods to deliver traffic to your website, AND there are millions of sources through which you can get advertising.
Furthermore, no one can give anything more than a canned answer, until they fully understand your online business and its target market — the people “who are most likely to buy what you are selling”.
The big picture is that if you are not bringing the right kind of traffic to your website, your traffic is doing nothing more for you than feeding your hit counter and stroking your ego.
Traffic for the sake of traffic is vanity.
Choose Your Target Audience Wisely
Just because the word FREE is still one of the most heavily searched keywords online does not mean that your online business will be served well by FREE.
Back in 2000, I did a consulting gig for a small business owner. He was complaining that his website was getting 2000 visitors per month and people were signing up left-and-right for his mailing list, yet he hadn’t made a single sale online!!
I discovered that in order to “build his mailing list”, he was giving away one free office chair every month.
His site had a free link to it on hundreds of “giveaway websites”.
On the surface, this may seem a good thing, right?
Wrong!
An old girlfriend spent all of her time online, going from website to website, signing up for “free giveaways”.
She was winning about $500 per month in free stuff — ranging from computer hard drives to food.
Twelve years later, she still does not spend any money online!
She is a freebie-seeker, not a buyer.
And my client had a big list of freebie-seekers looking to get a chance to win his “free stuff”. Those people did not care that he was in the business of “selling office furniture”. They were not on his list to “buy”. They were on his list to “get”.
I advised the client to kill the “free office chair giveaway” immediately. He did. His traffic dropped 90% in 30 days.
I advised him to construct really cheap product offers for his freebie-seeker mailing list, but not to hold his breath. I also advised him to create a new mailing list for “buyers only”. He did both.
Then we started rearranging product displays on his website. Within 30 days, he was making money from his website, and 90 days later, he was making money from his buyer’s list too.
With 90% less traffic, he was finally making money, because he was able to focus his time and energy on the people who actually wanted to buy what he was selling.
Your Traffic Building Should Follow the Same Profit Principles
Traffic for the sake of traffic is a fools’ game. Don’t do it!
When people start to buy traffic from Google Adwords and other PPC (Pay-Per-Click) providers, the natural inclination is to construct the advertisement, so that MORE people will click the link.
Many people believe that all they need to be more successful is “more traffic”, but that is dangerous thinking — especially when you are buying traffic by the click!!
“More traffic” is NOT the answer. “Better targeted traffic” is the real answer to profits and success!!
Instead of using the word FREE in a PPC ad, I always pre-qualify the people clicking my paid ads!!
If I am paying for traffic by the click, I want to make darn sure that the people clicking my ad are more likely to take the action I want them to take!!
For example:
* Our $27 Ebook.
* Submit Your Email Address.
* Submit Your Telephone Number.
* Our inexpensive service.
* For a one-time payment.
As you can see, I am telling people what to expect when they land on my page, before they click my link and make me pay for their visit.
When people know you are going to expect them to take a specific action, they will decide how serious they are to learn about your offer, before they click. Those “stop words” in your PPC ad copy will STOP the freebie-seekers and tire-kickers dead in their tracks! The freebie-seekers and professional tire-kickers will go to your competitors, instead of to your site…
This is to your benefit on two counts:
1) You don’t have to waste your advertising budget on untargeted visitors. After all, you want buyers and action-takers to visit your sites, right? And,
2) Your competitors get to waste their advertising dollars chasing people who have little or no commitment to buying the offer or opting in to the sales funnel.
Let your competitors spend their advertising dollars and time serving those people who are least likely to take the desired action, so that you can focus on closing more sales.
When you are paying for traffic by the click, pre-qualify the people who are going to look at your offer.
When you are paying for your advertising by a set price, such as with daily placement or display advertising, then it is fine to pursue those people who are a little less targeted, with a FREE offer.
Warm Up Your Prospects With Your Promotional Copy
There are dozens of free and paid traffic generation methods you can use to build traffic to your website.
Regardless of the traffic methods you choose, if you can pre-qualify and “warm up” your prospects before sending them to your website, you may find as I and others have done — that you can increase your conversion rates for the traffic you do receive.
This is why professional article marketers take so much time to fine-tune and perfect their articles. When you utilize article marketing to its fullest potential, you can talk directly to those people in your target market, pre-qualify your prospects, and warm up your readers to the possibility of purchasing what you are selling.
But honestly, article marketing is not for everyone.
If you don’t fancy yourself a writer, there are still dozens of additional methods you can use to deliver targeted traffic to your websites.
With experience, you will find that the better you target your traffic, the more likely you will be to close the sale.
And with a better closing ratio, you might even find that you have more advertising dollars available to grow your business at a faster pace.
Unless You Sell Clothing, One Size Does Not Fit All
While “one size fits all” seems to be a “perfect fit” for clothing manufacturers — pun intended, it should never be considered as a workable marketing plan for any real business.
Article Marketing works for me, but it may not work for you.
But the good news is that there are more than three-dozen free and paid traffic generation methods available to help you drive traffic to your websites — get acquainted with them. Then figure out which ones will be the “best fit” for your business.
About the author
The first step to learning how to increase your traffic is discovering the diversity of traffic sources available. Reviewers are praising Bill Platt’s new Traffic Generation Report for its quality and attention to detail. One reviewer called it, “Comprehensive!!” Another said, “You could always spend $1500 or more for one of the ‘guru’ courses and still get less info.” Get your copy here: http://thephantomwriters.com/multiple-traffic-streams/.
Clik here to view.
When I browse forums, I constantly see webmasters asking the question, “What is the best way to drive traffic to my website?”
On the surface, this may seem a logical and simple question to answer, but the truth is that there is no one “best way” to drive traffic to any website.
In the forums, I will say that the “best ways” to drive traffic to a website are: article marketing, SEO, forum marketing, social media, paid advertising, etc.
But between you and I, that is a canned answer given to those people who are not yet equipped to handle the “big picture” answer.
What is the Big Picture of Traffic Generation?
The big picture is that there are literally dozens of methods to deliver traffic to your website, AND there are millions of sources through which you can get advertising.
Furthermore, no one can give anything more than a canned answer, until they fully understand your online business and its target market — the people “who are most likely to buy what you are selling”.
The big picture is that if you are not bringing the right kind of traffic to your website, your traffic is doing nothing more for you than feeding your hit counter and stroking your ego.
Traffic for the sake of traffic is vanity.
Choose Your Target Audience Wisely
Just because the word FREE is still one of the most heavily searched keywords online does not mean that your online business will be served well by FREE.
Back in 2000, I did a consulting gig for a small business owner. He was complaining that his website was getting 2000 visitors per month and people were signing up left-and-right for his mailing list, yet he hadn’t made a single sale online!!
I discovered that in order to “build his mailing list”, he was giving away one free office chair every month.
His site had a free link to it on hundreds of “giveaway websites”.
On the surface, this may seem a good thing, right?
Wrong!
An old girlfriend spent all of her time online, going from website to website, signing up for “free giveaways”.
She was winning about $500 per month in free stuff — ranging from computer hard drives to food.
Twelve years later, she still does not spend any money online!
She is a freebie-seeker, not a buyer.
And my client had a big list of freebie-seekers looking to get a chance to win his “free stuff”. Those people did not care that he was in the business of “selling office furniture”. They were not on his list to “buy”. They were on his list to “get”.
I advised the client to kill the “free office chair giveaway” immediately. He did. His traffic dropped 90% in 30 days.
I advised him to construct really cheap product offers for his freebie-seeker mailing list, but not to hold his breath. I also advised him to create a new mailing list for “buyers only”. He did both.
Then we started rearranging product displays on his website. Within 30 days, he was making money from his website, and 90 days later, he was making money from his buyer’s list too.
With 90% less traffic, he was finally making money, because he was able to focus his time and energy on the people who actually wanted to buy what he was selling.
Your Traffic Building Should Follow the Same Profit Principles
Traffic for the sake of traffic is a fools’ game. Don’t do it!
When people start to buy traffic from Google Adwords and other PPC (Pay-Per-Click) providers, the natural inclination is to construct the advertisement, so that MORE people will click the link.
Many people believe that all they need to be more successful is “more traffic”, but that is dangerous thinking — especially when you are buying traffic by the click!!
“More traffic” is NOT the answer. “Better targeted traffic” is the real answer to profits and success!!
Instead of using the word FREE in a PPC ad, I always pre-qualify the people clicking my paid ads!!
If I am paying for traffic by the click, I want to make darn sure that the people clicking my ad are more likely to take the action I want them to take!!
For example:
* Our $27 Ebook.
* Submit Your Email Address.
* Submit Your Telephone Number.
* Our inexpensive service.
* For a one-time payment.
As you can see, I am telling people what to expect when they land on my page, before they click my link and make me pay for their visit.
When people know you are going to expect them to take a specific action, they will decide how serious they are to learn about your offer, before they click. Those “stop words” in your PPC ad copy will STOP the freebie-seekers and tire-kickers dead in their tracks! The freebie-seekers and professional tire-kickers will go to your competitors, instead of to your site…
This is to your benefit on two counts:
1) You don’t have to waste your advertising budget on untargeted visitors. After all, you want buyers and action-takers to visit your sites, right? And,
2) Your competitors get to waste their advertising dollars chasing people who have little or no commitment to buying the offer or opting in to the sales funnel.
Let your competitors spend their advertising dollars and time serving those people who are least likely to take the desired action, so that you can focus on closing more sales.
When you are paying for traffic by the click, pre-qualify the people who are going to look at your offer.
When you are paying for your advertising by a set price, such as with daily placement or display advertising, then it is fine to pursue those people who are a little less targeted, with a FREE offer.
Warm Up Your Prospects With Your Promotional Copy
There are dozens of free and paid traffic generation methods you can use to build traffic to your website.
Regardless of the traffic methods you choose, if you can pre-qualify and “warm up” your prospects before sending them to your website, you may find as I and others have done — that you can increase your conversion rates for the traffic you do receive.
This is why professional article marketers take so much time to fine-tune and perfect their articles. When you utilize article marketing to its fullest potential, you can talk directly to those people in your target market, pre-qualify your prospects, and warm up your readers to the possibility of purchasing what you are selling.
But honestly, article marketing is not for everyone.
If you don’t fancy yourself a writer, there are still dozens of additional methods you can use to deliver targeted traffic to your websites.
With experience, you will find that the better you target your traffic, the more likely you will be to close the sale.
And with a better closing ratio, you might even find that you have more advertising dollars available to grow your business at a faster pace.
Unless You Sell Clothing, One Size Does Not Fit All
While “one size fits all” seems to be a “perfect fit” for clothing manufacturers — pun intended, it should never be considered as a workable marketing plan for any real business.
Article Marketing works for me, but it may not work for you.
But the good news is that there are more than three-dozen free and paid traffic generation methods available to help you drive traffic to your websites — get acquainted with them. Then figure out which ones will be the “best fit” for your business.
About the author
The first step to learning how to increase your traffic is discovering the diversity of traffic sources available. Reviewers are praising Bill Platt’s new Traffic Generation Report for its quality and attention to detail. One reviewer called it, “Comprehensive!!” Another said, “You could always spend $1500 or more for one of the ‘guru’ courses and still get less info.” Get your copy here: http://thephantomwriters.com/multiple-traffic-streams/.