How to get traffic to your websiteHow to Start with ZERO Visitors, Test Your Web Site to Maximize Sales, and Then Roll Out a Traffic Campaign That Attracts 1,000s of Qualified Buyers
I see it time and time again: The #1 challenge faced by brand-new Internet business owners is a lack of traffic. Obviously, if your web site isn't getting any traffic, you're not generating any sales. But worse -- without traffic, you can't test the key components of your sales process...
And if you roll out a large traffic campaign BEFORE you've tested your web site to make sure it converts maximum visitors into buyers, you risk losing sales and looking unprofessional to potential business partners and affiliates. So you're caught in a vicious cycle -- before ramping up a big traffic campaign, you need to test your sales process, but without any traffic, testing is difficult, if not impossible! In the following article, I'm going to give you an eight- step action plan that will show you... 1. How to get CHEAP, instant traffic to your web site -- so you can test key components of your sales process (salescopy, order form, navigation, and opt-in offer) BEFORE rolling out a large-scale traffic campaign. 2. How to ensure that every element of your sales process is optimized to convert maximum traffic into maximum sales. 3. The most effective strategies for attracting 1,000s of highly qualified potential buyers to your web site right away (cheap and FREE!). 4. The secret to putting your entire traffic campaign on autopilot. So even if your web site is getting ZERO traffic right now, you can be testing the key elements of your sales process tomorrow -- and as soon as two weeks from now, you can be rolling out your traffic campaign in full. Sound good? Let's get you started off on the right foot!
When I talk about testing with new Internet business owners, I hear the same two questions all the time: 1. How do I test my site? 2. What do I test on my site? As you may already know, there are an infinite number of things you can test on your web site to increase sales. From layout to copy to design, there are limitless combinations of changes that may improve your visitor-to-sale conversion rate. But what's "enough" when you're just starting out? What elements should you focus on testing before rolling out your traffic campaign? My advice is to stick to the basics. Focus on testing your... - Salescopy (especially your headline, benefits, guarantee, and call to action). - Order process (Is it simple enough for a novice web user to place an order?) - Opt-in offer (Are you successfully capturing visitors' cocontact information?) - Site navigation (How many clicks does it take to buy? Ideally it should take less than three.) These are the four critical aspects of your sales process that need to be tested before you start driving traffic. Later on, once you've generated sales and have some steady traffic, you can move on to testing other parts of your web site. Of course, all this talk of testing your new web site raises one BIG question: How can you test without traffic? If you're just getting started, chances are good that your web site doesn't get much traffic yet. The solution is simple: Buy traffic through PPC search engines. Pay-per-click search engines are a lot like auctions -- they allow you to bid for top-ranking positions under keywords of your choice. For each visitor who searches the keyword(s) you bid on and then clicks through to your web site, you pay whatever you bid. Prices typically range from five cents to a few dollars per click-through for popular keywords. There are a ton of PPC search engines out there, but the two best ones to get started with are... 1. Yahoo Search Marketing -- http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com 2. Findwhat -- http://www.findwhat.com With PPC search engines, you get cheap, instant, qualified traffic -- provided you bid on targeted keywords. Not only that, but bidding on traffic in the PPC search engines can help your site get ranked in the free search engines, too! Here are a couple of tips to help you start bidding for traffic without breaking the bank: 1. In Yahoo Search Marketing, bid to appear in the top three listings whenever possible, since these results are also "pushed" to appear in the search results for MSN, Yahoo, AltaVista, InfoSpace, AlltheWeb and NetZero -- reaching 80% of Internet users! 2. Bid on targeted, descriptive keywords -- don't just bid on "sock," bid on "red wool sock." Not only are targeted keywords and phrases usually cheaper to bid on -- they'll also attract more qualified potential buyers. Use a keyword selection tool like Wordtracker -- http://www.WordTracker.com -- to research targeted keywords that attract maximum traffic for minimal cost-per-click! After you've tested and tweaked your web site with a limited amount of purchased traffic, it's time to start generating qualified traffic for your site on a bigger scale. But how do you go from some traffic to a ton of traffic?
Once you've tested your site with limited PPC traffic, the fastest way to ramp up traffic to your web site is to roll out a PPC campaign on a bigger scale. Obviously, you should start with Yahoo Search Marketing and Findwhat, as mentioned above. But here are some more PPC engines to consider bidding with as you increase your investment: - Kanoodle -- http://www.kanoodle.com - Enhance Interactive -- http://www.enhance.com - LookSmart -- http://www.LookSmart.com - Espotting (for the UK & Europe) -- http://www.espotting.com This is also a great time to get started with Google AdWords -- Google's own PPC contender: http://adwords.google.com You get instant traffic -- with no waiting! As soon as you put the money down on your keywords, your ad goes up and starts working for you!
Now that you've bid on keywords for a strong showing in the PPC search engines, it's time to tackle the organic search engines and directories! Search engines (like Google) and directories (like Yahoo) can still be great sources of free traffic for your web site. The trick is getting a competitive ranking for your best keywords. The first step in getting a top ranking in the search engines is submitting or suggesting your site to them. In other words, you have to provide them with details about your site! You want to make sure that the "spiders" -- automated programs that crawl the Web indexing sites for the search engines -- find your site and include it in the search results. While the spiders DO index sites and pages that have not been submitted, you certainly don't want to leave this to chance. A spider might find your web site and index it next week... or it might be two years before it finally happens. Take the time to submit your site, and you can be sure that you're included! Once your site has been submitted, expect it to take two to six weeks for your listing to appear. Every search engine has a slightly different process for site submission, and it pays to follow their guidelines. For example, there is a fee to list your site in the directory at Yahoo, but Google does not charge for their submission process. If you submit your site exactly as they ask, you stand a better chance of getting a good listing on the first page ofsearch results. To submit or suggest your site to the major engines, follow the simple instructions they provide: - For Google: http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl - For Yahoo Directory: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest - For Yahoo Search: http://submit.search.yahoo.com - For MSN: http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx - For AOL, submit your site to the Open Directory Project, which uses ODP data: http://dmoz.org/add.html And don't bother with companies that offer to submit your web site to the search engines. Since each search engine uses a different set of criteria to rank your site, free submission services can actually end up doing more harm thangood, since they submit the same information to all the engines.
Believe it or not, a really easy, frequently undervalued strategy for getting traffic is giving away free content to other web sites. Even just two or three well-written articles can generate truckloads of traffic, as long as they don't contain a sales pitch. You want to include rare, hard-to-get information that will lend your articles automatic value: the kind of information that establishes you as an expert in your field! Once you've finished, write a short bio paragraph about you and your business and place it at the end of your article along with (and this is the most important part!) a link to your site. E-mail other web site owners in your industry -- be sure to choose sites that receive attention and visits from your target market -- and invite them to use your article on their web site or in their newsletter at absolutely no cost. Many site owners need fresh content, so they'll be more than happy to post your articles -- and it won't be long before those articles start driving traffic back to your web site. Another option is to give away your articles through free content web sites like: - http://www.ezinearticles.com Your articles will be made automatically available to thousands of web site owners seeking free, quality content -- and all you have to do is submit your articles once! This was the key strategy that Maria Gracia put to work with her home organization site at http://www.GetOrganizedNow.com She exchanged great free articles for links on high-traffic sites and got tons of free exposure and traffic. Now she gets over 1 million visitors per year and earns a 60% profitmargin! Don't underestimate the power of giving away free content. And as your articles gain more exposure, don't be surprised if you're contacted by high-profile magazine and portal sites related to your industry looking for free articles to include on their sites, too!
Imagine a marketing strategy so simple that you could put it to work immediately -- without spending a dime -- walk away from it, and trust that it would keep working without any extra effort from you. That's what viral marketing is all about. Simply defined, viral marketing enables you to spread your marketing message like a virus. You encourage people to pass on information about your web site to one another and use that word-of- mouth publicity to advertise your business! Once you start the "virus," it spreads without you lifting a finger! Hotmail.com, the free web-based e-mail service provider, is a classic example of viral marketing. At the bottom of every single Hotmail e-mail sent by Hotmail members, there is a simple one-line message: Get your free, private e-mail from MSN at http://www.hotmail.com How much time do you think it took Hotmail to include that signature line as part of their e-mail service? Not much at all -- but look at the impact that this simple strategy had on the growth of their business. In my personal experience, more than 35% of e-mail users have Hotmail accounts! You can easily duplicate this strategy by doing something as simple as including a "pass it on link" at the end of a free newsletter. Something as simple as... "If you've enjoyed this article, please be sure to forward it to a friend!" By simply asking readers to take action and forward your newsletter, you'll prompt free "word of mouth" exposure for your business -- without any extra cost or hassle! And there's no limit to how far your message can travel! So how do you put viral marketing to work for you? Here are a few simple ideas: - Give away free articles (like the ones in Step Four!) with a "pass it on" link. - Give away free demos of your product. - Offer a free trial of your service with a "share this great resource" button on the page. - Hold a contest on your web site and give participants an extra entry for every friend they refer. - Start an affiliate program (see Step Seven!). As you can see, you don't need to be the next Hotmail to get started with viral marketing -- by simply encouraging people to "share this resource with friends," you can attract some great "word-of-mouth" traffic. CONTINUE TO Part 2 of How to get traffic to your website
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