I figured I'd write about something that would appeal to people here - traffic. However, I also realize that most people don't understand enough about online traffic methods in the first place. So I'll share my opinions about the way I think about traffic so that it can be understood simply. There are essentially four elements in effective traffic. When I say effective, I obviously mean there are some people who are driving vastly ineffective traffic.
Ineffective traffic is:-
1. fickle. You don't know if they will stay
2. non-converting. You don't know if they will buy
3. distant. You don't know if they will connect with you.
Essentially, this is because people think of traffic, traffic and more traffic generation techniques. But they don't know what to do with them once they reach the website.
The first element in traffic is the "source".
Since search engines are the largest pool of traffic sources in the world today, it's quite likely that SEO is one of the main pillars of traffic for most people running an international operation online.
Next, you also have traffic mechanisms. It's the process or steps of action required to attact a visitor to your site. SEO is one such process.
Next, you need bait. For instance, Qassia.com is focused on getting more content on its site. Likewise, many other marketers are doing this for extra content. Bait is free and can come in multiple forms of information or possibly gifts.
These three are still not enough to create effective traffic. Ultimately, you need to give your visitors an offer. This will seal the deal and convert them into buyers and clients. This is the stage where you can safely say that your clients like what you offer, and have bought them, and probably will look out for your next offer.
Source. Mechanism. Bait. Offer.
Using this model, let's take a look at SEO.
Firstly, there are obviosuly multiple search engines online. YouTube, Clickbank, eBay... all are search engines. So if you are really good at SEO, you'd not just be optimizing Google. You'd be optimizing many of the keywords that are popular in each search engine in other locations that people are looking. In other words, look at different search engine sources for traffic.
Secondly, the mechanism. We probably know by now that SEO requires backlinks and then on page optimization. This means you need to be very clear about keywords and how people surf. The more popular the keyword, the more traffic. But, they may not be viable keywords that get people to buy. You can get lots of passerby traffic! Instead, you can contextualize this. For example, because I run an internet marketing website and a personal development website, I'd write more articles on Qassia or Ezine Articles and lead people back to my websites. At the same time, this allows me to leave links on my articles so that I can get traffic based on the logic that my articles are of decent quality and people want to read more or learn more about me.
Thirdly, I'm considering the bait. Is it good enough just to have free stuff? Well, I know people like free stuff, but you have to definitely have a time limit to it. All the psychological triggers you can think of that activate a persons' desire to go get something should be used. After all, you need to create that sense of urgency in an individual to get the bait from
your site immediately. Sometimes, time-limited offers or quantity offers end up being very popular. You have to bait them in order to get them into your list. And consider this - what people want is what they will search online. This helps you to understand the kinds of keywords people might be surfing online.
Finally, the offer. You will have to have found multiple offers that your audience is really interested in. How do you know?
Alex Mandossian likes to talk about the ASK campaign. Ask your list, and the will easily tell you what to do and what they want. Satisfy them! Give them more and addvalue to them!
So, I've basically described traffic right? But where's the autopilot? Are you just saying to have articles optimized for keywords and that's it? Well, not quite.
Firstly, I know for a fact that when you are doing SEO, most people end up doing it themselves and get either really caught up with it, or dead bored with the repetitive and tedious task. My recommendation is to leverage of the systems that you see online.
Here's how it goes.
You must learn how to leverage social bookmarking, search engine traffic, social sites, and video sites. Essentially the web has many public content locations already accessible, and you simply need to know where to find those with a higher level of traffic. As you do more of that, you're going to potentially be able to get even more people joining you on your site. simple logic. You must
multiply your efforts through human leverage. For instance, you need a person to write you an article? Then outsource it. You need submissions to be done? sounds like its perfect for outsourcing too. Then, turn it into a system and then build more parts to that system.
By the time the parts start generating traffic, you end up realizing how simple it is to drive traffic. The synergistic element in traffic generation will cause you to build a huge list. Still, I know how vague I have been on the system behind really doing (1) optimization and (2) automation. I'll be running a teleseminar on this so that you can see exactly what I mean. They will be supplemented by handouts so you can see exactly what's going on.
To review my system and process for traffic generation, please go to
my traffic system page to register. It's free, and I want you to really benefit from this because in the long run, you and I could establish a deeper working relationship as a partner or as a client. So join me and fire away at your questions!
