It's easy? Right? Hardly. There are two components to earning money on the Internet: conversion and traffic. You can have all the traffic in the world, but if your page doesn't convert that traffic into newsletter subscribers or customers, it's worthless. Assuming you have a converting page, how do you get traffic to it? Here are the most common industry-wide methods:
Go Where Your Potential Customers Are Lurking
This is what's known as targeting or "targeted traffic". One visitor that's already interested in what you have to offer can be worth 100 or more that have no clue about your niche, or no interest in it. You have to go where the demand is red hot. This might be discussion forums, newsletters that are oriented toward your niche material, article directories focused tightly on your niche.
Set Your Site Up Properly
While on-page search engine optimization is nowhere near as important or effective as it used to be, don't overlook it. Get your descriptions and meta tags and how your content is put together in order. Make sure it's friendly to the search engines, and make sure it's unique! And don't forget to update it. Frequently. That keeps the search engines coming back for more.
Think Backlinks
These are the stock and trade of Internet traffic. There are a million ways to generate backlinks. Learn some of them. Backlinks need to be relevant to your niche, and ideally, from as high an authority web site as possible. The bigger the site, the more "link juice" the link will provide your site. You want one-way links over reciprocal links, but don't turn your back on reciprocal links - they can be beneficial as well.
Tap The World Of Web 2.0
If you've been under a rock the past couple of years, come out and look around at the maze of social networking sites. These are relatively simple to set up, cost little or no money, and are capable of providing very authoritative links back to your site. Get familiar with social marketing and watch your traffic soar.
Paid Advertising
Don't overlook paid advertising. Google adwords campaigns as well as other ad networks can bring in far more revenue than they cost in advertising, IF you know what you are doing, and manage your campaigns well. This takes some research, some regular, focused effort, and a little bit of money, but can be an important component of your overall traffic picture.
Build An Affiliate Program
No single traffic tactic can reap the same rewards as a large affiliate program. They aren't all that easy to establish, and they require careful care and feeding to nourish into a serious business asset. But once built, they are capable of outstripping all your other traffic sources.
Consider Joint Ventures
Collaborative list development and partnerships with other marketers who stand to benefit from promoting your products or services is one of the oldest tricks in all of Internet Marketing. It's also one of the most difficult to pull off, particularly if you are a new marketer with a small following and untested products. That doesn't mean you shouldn't get busy building relationships that can lead to future joint ventures, as you will find that few promotional activities are more powerful than the leverage provided by a great JV.
