Traffic Building
By: Jon "TrafficJon" Williamson
http://www.trafficjon.com
We all want "more traffic"
But, before rushing off to "build traffic" (AND
before you spend money!), have you stopped to consider what KIND of
traffic your site needs?
In a nutshell, there are only three ways to get traffic:
1. Trade for traffic. Traffic Trading includes:
- Banner Exchanges
- Exit and Pop-up Exchanges
- Start Page, Surf For Clicks, and AutoSurf programs
- "Guaranteed Hits" purchases (this is
still "traded" traffic, with "Open Rates" -
(the number of people who actually LOOK at your site - in the single
digits, about 4.7%)
There are several problems with "traffic trading".
- It is not well targeted traffic
- In the case of start page, surf for hits and autosurf
programs, it converts VERY poorly (more on that in another article)
- In some cases, such as the exit and banner exchanges,
you have to have traffic in order to get MORE traffic. There are
ways around this, which will be the subject of a future article
2. Buying traffic. This includes:
- Pay Per Click Search Engines
- Paid Inclusion, such as LookSmart or Google Keywords
(very similar to PPC search engines)
- Purchase Optin bulk emails (NOT SPAM!!)
- Ezine Ads
- Your own affiliate program, where you pay a commission
on sales
Why buying traffic doesn't work for many people.
When you buy traffic, you MUST track your visitors on
your website. You MUST be able to calculate exactly which campaigns
are making money and which are not. Otherwise, you WILL lose money.
Been there, done that. Lost money until I learned better.
There are numerous ad tracking programs available. Most
offer free trials. Take advantage of those free offers. Try several
to find the one best fits your needs, then USE IT. Your profits will
increase manyfold.
Pay Per Click or Pay per Inclusion
There are several expensive mistakes that are commonly
made with paid inclusion/PPC search engines.
- Poor choice of keywords. You don't even have to
pay for keyword research. Most of the second level PPC's either
have online automated keyword assistance (7Search, for example)
or have employees who will help you with your keyword selection
(Kanoodle)
- Do NOT, ever, "fight it out" for the
most obvious, most expensive keywords. Instead of 25 expensive keywords,
bid on 250 or 2,500 less expensive keywords. You'll save a lot of
money
- Don't get fixated on the "top spot".
Because of what is called "bid gap" (the difference between
the bid for different positions), you can save 25% to 90% per click,
by settling for 2nd or 3rd place
- Write your descriptions to FILTER OUT casual visitors.
You're paying for these clicks!! Mention price, qualifications,
anything that could help limit your clicks to visitors who good
prospective customers.
Opt-In Emails
It is hard to find good, clean productive Opt-In email
providers, but not impossible.
Be sure that the list provider can provide evidence (email
addresses used to sign up with, date of sign up, and IP address signed
up from) that any particular subscriber did, indeed, subscribe, in case
of a spam complaint.
Some other questions to ask:
- How often is the list cleaned?
- How often a month is the total list mailed to?
- Approximate response rates?
- Do they provide you with stats on click through
rates?
Ezine Ads
There thousands of ezines available on any conceivable
subject. For many marketers, ezine advertising is THE foundation of
their business.
There are also a number of ezine directories which will
help you choose which ezines to advertise in.
Again, tracking is critical. It's like this: an ezine
with a subscriber base of 2,000, where your ad costs $20 and gives you
15 responses, is a lot better deal than an ezine with a subscriber base
of 40,000, an ad cost of $100, and 60 responses. Size is NOT the only
issue.
Spam Filters
With both Opt-In Emails and Ezines, you will run into
the issue of actual delivery. There are so many ISP's and Web Hosts
providing "spam filters" that a LOT of legitimate email is
being filtered out which people asked for and want.
You can't do much about the ezine delivery except ask
the publisher.
If you use Opt-In email services, write your email carefully.
Don't capitalize a lot of words, don't repeat the word "Free"
over and over, etc.
There will be an article coming out soon on that subject.
Spam filters blocking legitimate email is becoming a real
problem across the 'Net. Corporate network administrators who use spam
filters on their networks estimate that 10% or more of the mail that
is rejected is something that the addressee wanted and needed to receive.
Remember one thing. If you rely exclusively on buying
traffic, when you stop paying, your business STOPS.
Affiliate Program.
An excellent traffic builder, but use a program like ClickBank,
which has its own "pool" of affiliates, otherwise you have
to generate the traffic to build up your affiliate sales force.
3. Search Engine Traffic (From the major search engines)
There are currently only a few significant search engines
you need to concentrate on.
- Google
- MSN
- AOL
- Yahoo
- Inktomi, which provides "back end" results
to several major search engines. This is a paid inclusion program,
but well worth the $39.00. It is also virtually the only way to
get into MSN.
This article is already pretty long, and the subject of search engines
needs a few books all by itself!
Remember these points:
- Don't waste your time and money "Submitting
to 300,000 Search Engines and Directories". Most of them are
FFA sites and will hurt, not help you
- Submitting is not the same as Search Engine Optimisation!
There are usually thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of websites
competing for the same keywords you use. Without detailed, legitimate,
ethical Search Engine Optimisation, it is almost impossible to get
a high ranking on the major search engines
- Remember that 80% of Internet users routinely rely
on search engines to find what they need. You cannot afford to ignore
this traffic source
In summary, a successful traffic building strategy involves:
- Planning. What type of traffic fits your website's
needs? What is the fastest, easiest, and cheapest way to get it?
- Tracking. If you are buying traffic, you MUST be
able to measure your responses and conversions.
- In the long run, search engine traffic is probably
the most cost effective, targeted traffic you can have.
