After all the debate over website design, shopping carts
and credit card processors, every website owner eventually
comes to the startling realization that they need one more
thing to survive - website traffic!
Without website traffic it's the same as building an
expensive billboard and, instead of placing it alongside a
busy highway, hiding it in your *basement* where nobody can
see it.
Upon realizing they need traffic, most website owners run
out and start blowing chunks of money and time trying to
get "hits," but they fail to grasp that there are really
only three (3) reliable ways to get traffic to any website.
Method #1 - Buy Traffic Currently, the fastest way to get
traffic to any website involves using the little classified
ads on the right side of search giant Google's results
pages.
Called Google AdWords, the system allows any advertiser to
open an account with a $5 activation fee and start seeing
their ads appear on Google within about 15 minutes.
Advertisers only pay when visitors actually click through
from their ad on Google to their website or affiliate link.
Overture.com also sells traffic by the click, but they make
you wait three to five days to go through their editorial
review process before allowing ads to appear on their
network.
You can also buy advertising on dozens of other
pay-per-click search engines.
They all follow the same basic model of only charging
advertisers for targeted visitors who read an ad based on a
keyword search and decide to click through for more
information.
Log on to www.payperclicksearchengines.com for a list of
over 600 choices ranked by market penetration.
A word to the wise on pay-per-click advertising: Watch your
costs and track and measure everything. Even though you can
get traffic for as little as a penny, you should track your
results by search engine and by individual keyword if you
want maximum success.
Many a company has lost its entire advertising budget
paying only a nickel or a dime per click, but not watching
their conversion rates and pouring money into keywords that
don't convert... while neglecting the keywords that do
bring sales (mainly because they don't know which is
which!).
Method #2 - Borrow Traffic If you need traffic to a
website, then borrow it from people who already have it...
especially people with lists of loyal subscribers or
traffic from search engines, affiliates, or other steady
sources.
"Endorsed Mailings" and "Reciprocal Linking" by other
people represent the two fastest ways to borrow someone
else's traffic.
If they maintain a list of subscribers, convince them to
send an email out to their people telling them why they
should check out your site.
Also, negotiate a prominent link on their web pages to
siphon off targeted visitors who find their website.
Often the best way to persuade someone to do this involves
paying them a commission, agreeing to do a similar mailing,
or providing a link to them on your site (or a combination
of all three).
Imagine how much traffic you could get if someone with a
list of 10,000 loyal subscribers told their people to go
look at your website!
Method #3 Recycle Traffic The most economical way to get
traffic involves turning one-time visitors into regular,
repeat visitors that you direct to multiple sites over time.
You do this by pulling website visitors into your sphere of
influence by enticing them to sign up for your newsletter,
autoresponder sequence, or "mini-course."
Then you keep in contact with regular articles, special
reports, and recommendations enticing them to visit your
own and other people's websites.
Ultimately, every website owner should orient all of their
marketing efforts towards this end of developing a stream
of recycled traffic, because it costs the least and creates
the best return on time and money invested.
It doesn't matter if you promote your own product, promote
only as an affiliate, or some combination of the two... if
you don't recycle traffic and get more than one hit out of
each visitor, you're making one of the biggest mistakes
anyone can make online.
----------------------------------------------------
Sean Matteson has been building business online in one form
or another for the past eight years. To learn more about
the system he uses to build his business, please visit this
website: http://lighthousemarketingbook.com/sean
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