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TRAFFIC GENERATION ~ The Number One Skill That Will Generate Cash Flow.


If you're feeling a bit of confusion and frustration about how to get visitors to your website and generate more sales, I know exactly how you feel. I felt the same way until I stopped listening to every "big time" marketer that came along with the latest traffic generating trick.

You've got dozens of gurus vying for your attention and every one of them has the solution to all of your problems. Right? The proliferation of messages that promise a traffic explosion using new techniques can become overwhelming.
Time out.


Take a deep breath.
Sit back in your chair.

Relax.
Now, if you will focus your energy on a very short list of traffic generation strategies that actually DO work, and commit to continually improving your skills in these few areas, you will be amazed at what you can achieve... WILL achieve.

In part 1 of this article series, we discussed the fact that...
There are only 3 ways to get traffic to your website:


1) Buy it.


2) Borrow it.


3) Steal it.

Since 3 is not an option we're going to consider, that leaves us with "buy it" and "borrow it".


We also talked about the "Holy Grail" of web traffic. What is it? FREE TRAFFIC! I want it. You want it. Every disillusioned internet marketer wants it.
Here's the truth...
It's a myth.


It doesn't exist.
 There is no such thing as free website traffic.

We'll resume our discussion where we left off...


Ezine advertising.


I'll spare you all of the details regarding conversion ratios, etc. since we've already covered that in part 1 of this series.

Ezine advertising is very much a viable way to pay for traffic, but don't use it until you've formulated a profitable ad in the PPC search engines. It's important that you know you have a winning ad before spending money on ezine advertising. Use something that's proven to get results.


Ezine ads can be purchased at reasonable rates and the cost will vary from one ezine to another depending on the newsletter's circulation, track record of producing sales and the exposure that you'll get.

By exposure, what I'm referring to is the type of ad that you buy. Your options typically include solo ads, top sponsor ads, middle sponsor ads, bottom sponsor ads and classified ads. A solo ad is sent in an email with no other distractions. You get all of the attention, and for this reason it's also the most expensive form of ezine advertising. Top sponsor ads allow you between 5 and 8 lines of copy and are included in regular ezine issues near the very beginning of the newsletter. Middle sponsor and bottom sponsor ads will be similar to top sponsor ads with the exception of the position within the newsletter. And lastly, classified ads are usually shown in groups near the end of a newsletter and are the lowest cost.


My personal opinion is not to advertise in ezines that you haven't subscribed to. If you're considering advertising in any particular ezine, subscribe to it and read it for a few weeks before spending any money there. That way you'll be able to get a feel for the value of the content, the kind of reader that will be interested in the publication and whether or not the advertising opportunity is a good one.


Here are a few sites where you can begin researching ezines that accept advertising:


http://www.gothrive.com/directory-of-ezines-lifetime


http://emailuniverse.com/


http://www.ezineadvertising.com


http://www.ezinehub.com


http://www.ezine-marketing.com


http://www.ezinewizard.com


There are only 2 ways to get traffic to your website:


1) Buy it.


2) Borrow it.


In part 3 of this series, we'll continue our thoughts on "(2) Borrow it" - traffic that is.

The 3 Best Website Traffic Sources

Not a day goes by that any serious website owner doesn't wonder how to get more traffic to their site.

This intense desire to generate more clicks makes virtually any online entrepreneur easy prey to many of the traffic schemes and scams that pervade the Internet like conmen on a carnival midway.

Promises of fast traffic and big bucks often separate even the most savvy business person from their money because they want to believe the promises made by these traffic hucksters.


However, rather than thinking "complicated equals better" in the traffic game, the best website traffic sources rate extremely easy to separate from the useless garbage traffic.


Fact: "Good Traffic" equals "Targeted Traffic!"
That means the visitors come as a result of desire to find out more on a specific, niche topic, not as a result of "exit" traffic or membership in a "safe" list where members simply pitch each other in an incestuous spam fest.

Good traffic comes from people clicking links on topics targeted to their interests and getting directed to a website containing information they want and expect as a result of clicking the link.


Bottom line, when you get right down to it, the best, most dependable sources of targeted traffic come from links that people click.

So, next time you're considering spending money on a traffic source, understand that unless it involves a targeted link that a targeted visitor can click to get to your website, think twice before opening up your wallet.

To my knowledge, only three ways exist to get a link to your site: buy it, "voodoo" it, or grow it.


** Buy Links**
Buying links actually rates the fastest way to get traffic to your website.

You simply sign up for Google AdWords at Google.com or you open an account with Overture.com.
You then run ads with a link on those sites and any time someone clicks the link, you pay for the click through a relatively straightforward bidding process based on the popularity of the keyword.


You can also buy links in ezines, newsletters, and on other people's website either on a per-click basis, for a period of time (a week or month), or in exchange for paying them a commission if a sale gets made as a result of a click on the link.

** Linking "VoodDoo" **
Linking "voodoo" refers to attempting to manipulate the search engines into displaying links to your website.
You can find a large number of automated software programs online at any given time that will claim to help you get more search engine traffic.

Depending on the intensity of competition in a specific market and the fact that search engines change their rules frequently, pursuing search engine links this way can quickly turn into the online equivalent of Alice chasing the rabbit down the hole.

** Grow Links **
I personally prefer this method to get links to my websites: growing them.
The best type of link to get involves one person telling another person, either explicitly or implicitly, they should click the link and visit the site at the other end.


One way to do this is simply to exchange links with another site which targets the same audience as your site.
You can manage this process manually or use one of the many software packages that will mange the process for you.
A search on Google.com for "reciprocal link manager software" yields a good start.
The easiest way to grow a link is through using articles other people post on their websites which link back to your website.

The reason articles work so well for "growing" links involves the numerous ways in which articles get distributed online, each of which can create dozens, hundreds, even thousands of different links back to your website by publishing a single article.


In fact, the following represent only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the places you can grow links by publishing articles online.
~ Blogs - Your articles can not only appear on your own blog, but get posted by others on their blogs with surprising ease.


The links in these articles can point directly back to your website.


~ Article Directories - Article directories such as IdeaMarketers.com abound online.

They not only provide an easy way to display your articles to allow others to pick them up for posting on their websites, but also in and of themselves attract readers searching for content.


~ OPS (Other People's Sites) - Popular websites like WebProNews.com attract repeat visitors by offering targeted content to their readers.


Since they can't produce all the content themselves, they publish articles created by others. Links from these sites can bring a steady stream of targeted visitors by giving you targeted exposure.


~ Ezines - By getting your articles published in other people's ezines, you can get a link on the most valuable real estate online, a targeted prospect's email "inbox."


Many ezine publishers run articles written by others to their targeted readers, and your link in the resource box can bring you a veritable avalanche of targeted site visitors when hundreds, even thousands of people receive your article at the same time.

Whether you choose to buy them, "voodoo" them, or grow them, getting targeted links to your site posted on the Internet represents the absolute best way to get steady traffic to your site.


Though not as fast as buying them or as exciting as trying to manipulate the search engines, growing links with articles gives you a long-term, dependable presence online.

How to get traffic to your website!



Today, the biggest problem that new website owners have is: “How they can get traffic to their website?” Significant amount of time and energy is spent today on this single task. You or your webmaster needs to commonly focus on:


- Get ranked well on the most important search engines (Google, Yahoo, Msn, Ask.com, etc.)


- Pay Per Click (PPC) programs


- Cost Per Click (CPC) programs


- Link Exchanges


- Directory Submissions


- And more…






All of these methods are valuable for getting traffic to your website. If you are not competent enough to rank well your keywords, you can obviously hire a SEO (Search Engine Optimizer) for this work. From search engines you can get a very large portion of traffic to your website.


Today, everyone wants to know the big secret to driving traffic to their website. Every day I see an article or an ad talking about driving people to your website; driving traffic to a website has become the “holy grail” on the Internet. People are realizing that if you build it, they won't come... unless you give them a reason. Website traffic just doesn't happen by itself. Your website is just one of many millions on the web and people rarely just stumble upon your site by accident.


There are many ways to drive traffic to your website. You can buy traffic from vendors that will pummel your website with hits from automated programs. This will increase your hits but will it increase your bottom line? Probably not. You can set up blogs that spider (connect to) your website increasing your traffic count. Does this drive users to your website? Only if your blog is so interesting that people are reading it. There are thousands of blogs posted on the internet and your blog is just a needle in the internet haystack.


Another trick is to create RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds for your website and subscribe to other RSS feeds. This again will increase your hit count but will do very little to drive potential customers to your website unless you're providing valuable information. Tricks will increase your hit count but do very little todrive potential customers to your website.


People often turn to traffic exchanges. Quite simply, a traffic exchange is a program where you sign up and agree to surf sites in exchange for some credits. These credits are then used when other members of the exchange surf to your site. This traffic is not highly targeted traffic. In fact, if this were your only method of advertising your website, you'd probably fail. BUT it is a great method of getting traffic to your site in addition to the other methods listed above.


So, why do people use traffic exchanges? Here are a few of the benefits:


- Increase your Alexa rating! Did you know that some search engines factor your Alexa rating into their algorithms? More traffic means higher search engine placement!


- Increase your branding awareness. Any marketing expert worth his salt will tell you that branding is extremely important to stand out amongst the billions of websites out there. More traffic equals more sales. A percentage of people surfing will be enticed by your ads and click on them to find out more information. Another source of revenue. Many traffic exchanges will actually pay you money to surf. More importantly, as you refer other people to the network, you'll earn a percentage of the money that they earn! It may be small amounts but if you work the system it could amount to a lot of money.


Now, before you head over to Google and search for Traffic Exchange, I'd recommend knowing a few facts:


- Some traffic exchanges are simply out to get money from you and will refer very little traffic to you.


- Some traffic exchanges have poor systems in place to stop cheaters from running programs to increase their credits faster.


Finally, some traffic exchanges will allow popup, active x controls, site rotators, etc. in their network. Any of these can stop your auto surfing from working, or even worse, allow your computer to be infected with a virus.


The best part about Traffic Exchanges is that you really have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The worst thing that could happen to you is you get a little bit of traffic which increases your Alexa rankings and you don't get any money.


Of course, for the system to work, you've got to make sure that you do some surfing yourself. The makers of the exchange programs realize this and some of them even have an auto surf feature where you get a reduced number of credits while your browser happily loads page after page every 10 seconds or so.

Traffic Exchange Sites


Traffic Exchange Sites are websites where you get page views of your own site in exchange for visiting others. Many such sites are available. However, choosing the right one or a combination of them can be a very time consuming process.

Basically there are two types. Manual surfing and Auto surfing. Some Traffic exchanges cater for Manual surfing only, some cater for Auto surfing only and some cater for both.

Manual surfing - This requires your input by clicking a button after a specified time period, generally 15, 20 or 30 seconds, although there are a few other variations. With manual surfing, the surfer is expected to view each site. However, with most exchange sites, it is possible to minimize or resize the windows. This defeats the purpose because it allows multiple sessions to be run simultaneously. On the better exchange sites, security measures are often used to deter this. These are normally random prompts that require user input. For example, after x number of page views, you may be required to enter a code, select a color or image or perform some other variation of this.


Auto surfing - This requires no input. However in reality, your input may be required because of popup or frame breakers. Some traffic exchange sites require that the pages run are maximized and although you can minimize the page yourself, it will automatically maximize at the next refresh. You will also find that with some exchange sites, pages will run on top whereas with others, pages will run quite happily underneath, allowing you to do what ever you like without ever viewing the page content.

Both manual and auto surfing will bring traffic to your website, but there is a much greater likelihood of your web pages being actually seen with manual surfing.


Credits - As well as surfing, credits are usually acquired for subscribing, for referrals and for any winnings associated with exchange site lotteries, games or competitions. These credits can then be used to increase the traffic to your site. Some exchange sites will also allow you to sell your credits to other members.

Free or Paid - The majority of Traffic Exchanges offer a paid option. This option may give you a better surf ratio, bonus credits, money for referrals or other benefits. Before paying however, it is important that you test how targeted the traffic is that you receive. There's no point in paying for extra traffic if it doesn't generate any more income for you.

Click for Credits or Buy Credits - Is it worth buying credits?


This can depend on a number of reasons. The two main ones are time and money.

Let’s take an example

At the time of writing the cost of 2000 credits for free members of a well known Traffic Exchange Site was $40. This works out at $0.02 a click. For pro members the same $40 bought 2200 credits.

With the number of clicks limited to 250 per day and page views of 20 seconds this means that in theory it will take you 250 X 20 = 5000 sec or 83 minutes 20 seconds to view the 250 pages. However in practice you must allow extra time for clicking the next button, clicking the title of the page you will be viewing and any sites worth looking at.


Since I am a firm believer in practical results, I viewed the 250 pages. It took me 2 hours and 12 minutes to accomplish this. During that time, I accumulated 854 credits. To buy these credits would have cost $17.08 as a free member and approximately $15.53 as a pro member. Allowing for rounding up, this equates to almost 390 credits per hour or $7.80 per hour cash value.


Now ask yourself this. Would you work for $7.80 per hour?


I must emphasize that this is only one example and that other results will differ because of the random allocation of credits. It is shown here only as an example and to give you an idea of the cost implications for one particular traffic exchange site. The cost of credits may differ dramatically for different exchange sites. If you buy or intend to buy credits from a traffic exchange site, you can apply what is shown in the example. There's no need to click on a large number of websites to find out if your exchange site is giving you enough credits for your money. A sample of around 20 sites should give you enough information to produce a rough value-for-money guide.


If you enjoy this sort of thing or want a break from train spotting, you could expand on this. Increase your sample size, increase the number of samples, select a good representation of traffic exchanges and tabulate your results. Choose enough sites and you will be able to create your own league table. There’s a market for everything.




Whether you use traffic exchange sites or not in the quest for more visitors to your site, you should at the very least know what they are and what they do. But don't totally dismiss them. They are part of an expanding market. I recommend that you try at least one traffic exchange site. You could read every book on the subject, but without active participation, you will not be qualified to comment on their worth or suitability. The time taken for a few mouse clicks is a small price to pay. If it works for you, you have learned. If it doesn't work for you, you have learned.