Traffic is the fuel of a web property. Without traffic you just have potential. No traffic, no sales, ad clicks, leads, feedback, community.

It is easy to understand why webmasters are obsessed with it.

Now as you know, there various sources of traffic, from free to way expensive. All have their place, and the less budget you have the more work you are likely to have to put in.

Small business operators seem to be getting the idea more recently. Larger businesses seem fixated on three tactics; Adwords, banners and SEO.

I am going to let you in on five “secret” sources of traffic. In fact they are common sense, but because common sense is rarely common practice they might seem like secret traffic sources to your clients …

1. Expired Domains - Old domains can be picked up when expired really rather cheaply. What many people do not realize is a lot of them have links pointing to them, or even garner some type-in hits. For a real snip of a price you can find some real bargains. Buy a whole bunch of them and funnel the search juice and hits to your main property.
2. Site Purchases - It’s not just expired domains that you can pick up on the cheap. Look out for sites for sale that have inbound links and steady traffic. Avoid the pumped and pimped sites from savvy sellers, what you want are the sites that can attract visits from a variety of sources naturally already but with a bit of tweaking can really perform. Again this traffic can be funneled, 301-redirected or just used as is.
3. OPT - Other Peoples Traffic. This is the heart of the Squidoo, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace etc tactics. Find a location that naturally attracts attention and leach off it. Another route is to build something attractive that friendly blogs will want to link to. I could even put guest posting under this heading!
4. Huge and Influential Lists - This is the oldest tactic in the book. It’s so old it makes people overlook it in favor of Social Media Marketing and any other recent buzzword. People forget, but you know it works, right? The key is how it is presented, and absolutely not spam. Call it a Joint Venture, an advertisement, a friendly mention, whatever, getting on a powerful list with a glowing endorsement can be the best converting traffic you have seen. The challenge is getting the right deal on the right list.
5. Hitching a Ride - Let someone else worry where the traffic is going to come from and just tag along for the ride. This is related to the last point in a way but it stands on its own. Think about the last big promotion in your niche. The PR, the advertising, the fanfare. While you might only be able to siphon off a small percentage of that attention, you will also pay little or nothing to get it. There are two versions of this tactic; partnering or freeloading. When you partner you actually give the main event some of your value, be it as a bonus, a prize or some other service. For example a big product launch might get a free pass to your seminar or ebook. When you freeload what you are doing is finding a bandwagon that is about to start rolling and jump on it. So you look for a story that is about to break big and you do all you can to suck down on some of that traffic.

Those are my lesser known traffic sources, what are yours? Share your secrets in the comments …

Tags: increase-website-traffic, link-building, sales-leads, viral-marketing
Posted in SEO

As online marketers and bloggers we have many metrics we can examine to measure progress.  Some are more useful than others. Looking around articles and blogs it seems we are becoming more and more in love with traffic for its own sake. Are we taking our eye off the ball?

When you elevate one metric to priority number one it is easy to build processes that appear on the surface to be working in your favor, while actually damaging your progress for the longer term.

The other week I walked away from a discussion that was going nowhere. I’m a lover not a fighter, it is not in my style to get into a heated exchange, heh. I just could not get through to the other person that Alexa ranking is not a good signal of business health. He didn’t agree, he wanted more linkbait, more Digg front pages, and would not hear advice to the contrary.

All the while his conversion rate hovers below 1%.

I tried to explain that by aiming for “traffic” at all costs he could actually be harming his business. That conversion rate is not going to increase while he is sending untargeted and uninterested visitors. In fact the more he tries to wow the Digg crowd the more he will actually alienate his prospects.

A past client was obsessed with industry press and awards. His product was a  popular consumer FMCG brand not business to business but he wanted the respect of his peers. While we would recommend campaigns that ultimately would put his product in customer hands, he was always awards-chasing. Not the way I would run a business.

Well, good luck to them. I can’t get through to those guys, but I can warn you

Consider the metrics you are working with. Which help you achieve your goals and which give you a  warm fuzzy feeling but are actually distractions from the job at hand?

My business is based on leads generated by having a successful blog and a reputable brand. I build trust and loyalty through community-building efforts. Subscribers, comments and Technorati links are good general indicators. While I celebrate like anyone else when my blog gets Dugg, the dashboard needles I watch closely barely budge even after 20k visitors drop by. On the other hand when I get linked to by a prominent blogger it is not as headline-grabbing but my favorite metrics all light up. I get more subscribers and people talk about me more and in a positive way - result!

You owe it to yourself and your audience to do what works, not the things that only make you feel good!

Which metrics do you measure and why? Let us know in the comments …

Tags: increase-site-conversion-rate, increase-website-traffic, online-marketing, sales-leads
Posted in Sales & Marketing

Everybody’s looking for that quick fix to increase their traffic.  So is there something out there that’s really fast and effective?  Well, there’s an option of signing up with sites that will most likely scam you  out of your money, or you can implement any of the following tips:

• Get with the program: start blogging!  So if you haven’t noticed yet, everyone is blogging.  Big companies, small companies, and professionals at every level have taken on blogging, and so should you.  Don’t think that your line of work or your organization doesn’t require a blog; if you have a website, you need to blog! It’s such a great way to drive a natural traffic to your site.  People will begin to link back to beneficial posts and may refer friends to check out your site.  Don’t underestimate the power of a blog.

• Don’t write regular posts:  Too many bloggers think that posting short 100 words blogs is enough to get readers interested and to keep them coming back. I have to admit I was guilty of that when I first started blogging. Although there are no rules about the length of a post, what matters is that your posts are intriguing enough to create a faithful reader base. Most successful blogs will publish at least one lengthy and well researched post per week. Some call these lengthier posts “pillar posts” because they are a pillar to establish a great blog.

• Establish Strong Social Media Connections:  Well there isn’t much point to blogging if you haven’t established strong connections with other bloggers, forum members, and users of social media sites.  Why is this so crucial?  Because great content is not enough; you have to market that content. And social media marketing is probably when of the best ways to market your content online. So remember:

• The more you comment on someone else’s blog, the more likely it is that they will comment on yours. 
• The more you participate in forums, the more you encourage people to visit. 
• The more you link to other blogs within your own entries, the more bloggers will link-back to you, thus helping you generate more and more traffic to your site.

• What about Articles?  Usually blogs can range from 200 words – 1500 words. Those entries are very valuable for ranking well within search engines because of the new content you’re offering.  However, writing SEO articles is a valuable technique as well.  SEO articles are keyword rich, useful content that can be designed to target specific words and phrases that you would like to rank for within search engine queries.  This can help generate a lot of natural traffic for you.  Additionally, you don’t always have to publish these articles on your site: consider article submissions or notable online magazines.  The amount of link-backs you will receive, in addition to the recognition of publishing on a worthy site will help double and triple your traffic in no time.  Article publishing sites use to work very well couple of years back but I believe that search engines discount the authority of these sites to a great extent nowadays. So the real value is not in these sites themselves; it is one someone picks up an article from these sites and publishes it on his own site or forum. I know we got couple of good clients when our articles were published on web pro world. 

• Make it easy to subscribe:  Once you have an RSS feed to your site, you can easily expect people to subscribe to your blog, thus generating more traffic. Of course, be weary of partial vs. full feed  because this will impact whether or not people will continue to subscribe to your blog.

• Give them a reason to come back:  Offering a valuable resource such as a whitepaper is a great incentive to get people coming back and referring others to your site. If you have the capability to write a whitepaper that is going to offer valuable information to your community and/or client base; than write one and offer it as a download.  If you are just starting out, offer your whitepapers for free. Most websites require visitors to subscribe to your site before downloading whitepapers. That can work very well in building up a mailing list.

• Can I trust you?  Nobody likes to subscribe to, our visit a site that seems fishy.  If you want to get more people coming to your site, you need to show that them that you value their privacy.  This can happen through simply stating the importance of their privacy, become a member of authentic groups, and placing the icons of your memberships throughout the site.

• Winning something:  If you want a surefire way to get you publicity throughout the web, then hold a contest and offer prize money or some material reward.  Our $400 blog contest generated tons of link backs from other bloggers as well as a ton of traffic to the site. People love it and will come flocking to your site, write about you, and give you lots of link love.

• Widgets and more…:  There’s no secret that if you offer something valuable on your site, traffic will come. And online tools do just that! You’re offering something free and useful to online visitors, and as a result you become bookmarked, referred to, linked to, and even mentioned throughout the web. But please, no more calculators and calendars.  If you want good ideas for tools, visit any forums and see what people are actually looking for!

So, let’s come up with an action plan:

1. If you have not started blogging, then plan on installing a blogging software in the next three days!
2. Come up with a list of 20 blog topics that you can write about. At least 5 topics from your list will be lengthier posts of 1200 words or more.
3. Select two online forums which you will start participating in regularly. At a minimum, you should post in each forum once a day. Your comments should be meaningful and enhance the discussion on the forum.
4. Select 10 different blogs that write about something that interest you and start reading and commenting on them regularly. Just like forums, no spammy comments. The goal is to establish real relationships with bloggers.
5. Come up with a list of lengthy articles that will be of interest to your client base. Plan on publishing one article per month.
6. Come up with a list of authority sites in your field that accept article submission. Contact these site to understand what editorial guidelines they have for publishing articles
7. As you go through forums and blogs, be on the look out for ways to create tools. If someone is complaining about a problem that does not have a real solution, that might your first tool.

There are more ways to get traffic, but these ways will help you significantly see growth in less than 60 days. What other great techniques do you implement?

Tags: generate-traffic, increase-readership, increase-website-traffic
Posted in SEO, Sales & Marketing