Apparently, you want TRAFFIC. Am I Nuts?
Wow.
So here’s something interesting.
It seems that almost every time I logged in to see the answers my readers are sending me to the “How can I help you” question…it’s like Déjà vu all over again.
Because almost every time I check, the most recent answer is the same: GET TRAFFIC
It’s not that everyone had the same answer, but it was the NUMBER ONE answer out of the 25 possible answers. Hundreds of people — 20% actually — picked Traffic as their number one concern.
Ken S. I think summarized his feelings well. He said…
“Building a list and generating traffic are the two most difficult tasks in generating an income online income. I need more information on how to best generate traffic in the shortest time possible. I don’t need more success stories from someone who built their business two or three years ago.”
Well said, Ken.
But it gets more interesting than that…There were also choices for SEO, Listbuilding, Adwords, Article Marketing, Affiliate marketing, and Web2.0 strategies — which are all different ways of getting even MORE Traffic.
So if you add up all of those as well, 41% of you and people like you are saying …
“GET ME SOME TRAFFIC!”
But Gene P. said this…
“I’m so mixed up I do not know where to begin.”
And Susan (no last initial) wrote me apparently frustrated and said…
“I have purchased so many schemes and in most of them they leave out the main ingredient that one needs to get started they tell you so much and then want more money for you to proceed. I am now at rock bottom financially, so any snippet’s of info to get me going would help.”
I’ve got hundreds of comments like these — from people like you (and from you!) who just need some help.
And so that got me thinking….
WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?
And so I had an idea, and I’d like your opinion on it. I may be opening up a can of worms here…and there’s probably a reason that no other marketing teachers have done this for their readers before — especially for free — (No one that I know, in any case).
I mean I may really be stepping into something here that might mess my shoes, but….
I’ve got a feeling that there are lots of people reading this message — people like you — who are in the same business as other people who are reading this message. And it’d be a VERY GOOD THING to get the two of your together.
But that’s not going to happen any time soon, unless someone does something about it.
So…CAN I HELP YOU get in touch with other people in your market who might want to send you traffic, and who you might also send some traffic to?
Is there some way I can post all your names and websites and email addresses so that you can find each other, get in touch with each other, and get something going?
I’m guessing that somehow there is.
My first idea was to just post all your contact info on my blog, but that might be a big problem. If you run a blog of your own, you probably get tons of blog spam posted to your site. I’ve got filters that automatically delete the spam, and hundreds of people every week trying to post their porn or “health” or scam links on my site.
Yech.
So I have to find a way to help you, while not leaving this open to the whole world.
I really only want to help my own readers.
SO LET’S TALK ABOUT THIS.
First, do you think that this is an idea that could help you? If your website and site description and contact info were posted here or somewhere close, would that help you?
Would you go looking for other marketers serving your same demographic and send THEM traffic? Even a little?
How do we keep out the riff raff?
How do we make matches?
And how can we do it so that it doesn’t take a mountain of energy and a staff of 12 to keep the thing working and helping you?
DO NOT, please, post your site info here and expect links or traffic. For now, I only want to have a discussion, and I hope you’ll participate.
My goal here is to help you get traffic. And I hope your goal is to make that easy — but also to help someone else in your field get traffic, too.
This will only work if we all give more than we receive.
Anyway, Am I nuts? Does this make sense? Would it help you?
Let me know. Please comment here.
I’ll follow up with this in the next day or two.
To Your Success (I mean it!),
–Mark Widawer
P.S. Something that I want you to think about is that traffic is NOT like toys in a playroom, where there is a finite amount of toys that you’ve got to fight some other toddler for.
No, traffic is more like Love. The more you give, the more there is to receive.
By the way, I’m not promising to do this — at least not yet. I’ve got to figure out a way to make it work first.
So give me your comments, and let’s figure out an easy solution to your traffic problem together.
–M
Greetings all;
I’m not sure how well the “matchmaking” thing will work. Speaking for myself, I’m so new at this, I don’t have much of a list to share (if indeed that’s what we’re talking about). I would be more interested in seeing some good reviews / rankings of the most popular and effective ways of (simply) generating new traffic for my site. As you mentioned in your post, there’s a myriad of different ways to do it… so many that I’m suffering “analysis-paralysis.” What works best? At the lowest cost? I’m willing to do whatever it takes, but I’d like some guidance on where to start, and what to concentrate on, especially in the early going.
Thanks!
Bill S.
Looks like I get to go first…
We’re rather firmly set in one niche and are actively working on establishing ourselves in others.
It would be valuable to be able to find others who are crossing niches and offer our strength in return for theirs.
Perhaps a forum would be a good way to sort all of this out.
I appreciate your efforts Mark. This is a worthy project and I’m sure all who benefit from it will have long memories when your release new products in the future.
Cheers,
Scot
Mark,
I agree with Scot. I think a forum would be good. But it might take a lot of admin to maintain it. I’m not sure. You’ve got to have a method to screen people who sign up and you’ve got to moderate posts (though you can let subscribers notify you if they think something is inappropriate).
The nice thing about a forum is that there is a lot of protection from SPAMMERs, since posting is restricted to subscribers. Also, it gives people a way to post links in their signature (one way to get everyone more traffic and backlinks). And people can make a post when they want to “advertise” for others to share links. A lot of what you are trying to achieve will naturally develop if people have a place where they can post safely and have like-minded people to interact with.
–Rob
One of the things I love about the Internet Marketing business, is that very rarely are people in direct competition. Mostly, you can find ways to help each other even if you are in the same niche.
Mark – I think this is a great idea. Scot’s suggestion of a forum is a possible solution. Rather than you (your staff) trying to match-make, put the onus on us to take action.
Cheers,
Chris
Hey Mark,
Beautiful idea. I like it.
Perhaps limit people to three topics that apply. For example, my product is for parenting children with problem behaviors. So I may pick parenting as one topic. Another aspect of my product is psychological diagnoses, for example, ADHD, etc. So I may pick psychology. Another aspect is school problems. So, perhaps education is my third topic.
Then you apply for traffic from as many sources as you are willing to send traffic to.
That’s as far as I’ve thought it out. Perhaps this will get the ideas flowing.
You (or someone) would become a traffic directory/director of sorts. More like a traffic light – opening and closing the conduits of traffic, floodgates of traffic – getting some great visuals here.
A traffic conductor – yes, you would make a fine one.
Hope that helps, Mark.
And thanks for asking.
I like to work my creative muscles.
Sincerely yours in parenting success,
Debra Sale Wendler
“Respect Effect Mom”
http://www.adhdparentingtips.com
Chris,
Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to make individual matches between members. What I’m looking to do, plain and simple, is to provide a free or very inexpensive way to help you and the others who are responding here, with some immediate and easy ways to get EXPOSURE to people who can send you traffic.
Debra,
Certainly the right idea…but to be a conductor would be a full time job. We’d need to find some automated way to do most of the heavy lifting — much like a blog or forum does the heavy lifting for creating new pages.
Thanks for your input.
-Mark
Hello Mark :
I have read and listened to some of your articles and Audios and I was really impressed. I know it takes alot of time and expertise to give expert advice for free but now I nderstand thats how you get people to trust you.
As a web designer and SEO, I have learned more on how to increase your conversion rate on thr landing page.
I highly recommend you.
Thanks for your hard work.
Best regards ,
Mr.Daniel Chege
Poppa Productions Web Designs .
Nice thought Mark but the fact is that people who only get 1 or 2 or maybe 7 unique visitors a day are reluctant to send them away.
They are frightened they will lose whatever they have got and don’t want to share it.
Just a thought. But I agree with you there should be something that could be done.
Dave
Hi
I thank you for your offer and great suggestion. I think any efforts to help each other out and generate traffic is worthwhile… I’ve been involved in a few “projects ” where info and contact details about our blogs and web sites have been posted on one place… great in theory but I don’t know that much traffic ever came from it. My feeling however is that the word gets around… and if nothing else it is another place where people can find out about you and what you’re doing.
Jeanne
IT took me 5 years to get the traffic I was looking for. It was not easy…there is no magic wand or bullet. Most Guru’s or Internet marketers are still looking to get more. It does not matter if they are new or are already at the top.
My advice here to anyone is stick to “do your own thing”! The tighter the niche the better you will do. The traffic will eventually come!
Paul
Paul,
You’re definitely right. There is no magic bullet. No pill to take. No spell to cast.
Except for one…
If you can get someone to mail for you to a list of a few thousand, to promote you and your site, then you’re golden.
Would that help the site-owner? Yes, most certainly.
Would that help the list-owner? Also yes, in one of two ways.
If there is an affiliate relationship, then the list owner gets paid on sales. Or he can get paid a flat fee for doing the mailing.
Or he can do it because he’ll make a new friend in his field of endeavor, and what comes around goes around.
Friends of mine mail for me frequently, and I for them — in this field and in others.
We always have an eye out to benefit those who read what we write. When that happens, everyone wins.
By the way, your advice about Niches being tight — VERY true words. In my Landing Page Cash Machine workshop, I just did an interview about how to find and dominate a niche with someone who has done it about 30 times.
Here’s the lesson — for anyone looking to get traffic.
Example: Your audience for your automotive product is not “everyone with a car”. It costs way too much to advertise to these people. Just ask Exxon, or Firestone, or Ford.
No, your audience is “People who commute an hour a day or more” or “People who need to get out of their car lease.” or “1965 Mustang owners”.
These are niches.
“Everyone who owns a car” is NOT a niche.
So, for everyone who wants more traffic — go NARROW.
As I wrote in a prior post, you need to know your customer and what they need and what they will buy.
Once you figure that out, you’ll have a much better idea where to find them. And you’ll likely spend FAR LESS in attracting them.
-Mark
Hi Mark,
I’m not sure exactly how it would work but it sounds like something I would be interested in. I am always trying to figure out how to generate more traffic and would like to hook up to help others and myself get things going!
I would love to see how this develops and partiipate.
Thanks,
Karla Deacon
I appreciate what you are attempting to do. It goes to core belief of mine, that by helping others achieve success, we invariably achieve success. This is one of the natural laws to success. Kudos to you, Mark!
I believe to start, a basic roadmap needs to be articulated; everyone could relate to it in one way or another. The content could be delivered online via audio or video, both streaming and downloadable. Perhaps a podcast might be possible. As you well know, people consume their content in many different ways.
Perhaps as Scott mentioned, a forum may be a something to consider when it comes to discussing specific sites.
I’d like to hear some suggestions from others.
Again Mark, kudos!!!
Warm regards,
Glenn
Don’t know if this would generate traffic, but it is a way for us all to communicate (in short spurts!) You can post links if you find something useful with a short blurb. And it is fun. So follow me: http://www.twitter.com/joyceallen
Hi Joyce.
You can follow me on Twitter, too.
http://www.Twitter.com/markwidawer
I don’t “tweet” as much as I should, but I’ll be tweeting more soon.
And if you don’t know what Joyce and I are talking about, just go to Twitter and sign up.
It’s like a mini-blog with micro-posts.
Consider it the start of your web 2.0 education, if you’ve got none.
-Mark
p.s. My friend Harris Fellman (http://www.Twitter.com/harrisfellman) created a twitter guide to introduce you to what Twitter does. You’ll find it here:
http://theweeklybuzz.com/blog/twitter-tutorial-video/
A Forum was the first thing I thought of. We can always make one of the categories Private for just these people, Or the whole thing for that matter, with just one area for public posting. Settings can take care of spammers no urls or what not It is “do”able but not the easiest thing to throw together.
My second thought was trading/rotating signature files in our emails. That way it works for people who just have a friends list they send too(regular e-mails)…. I know I have a wide range of friends into many different things than I am.
Even if our niches didnt work together, there is bound to be someone I know into what your into. Pretty basic but a thought.
YES! I want TRAFFIC…and lots of it! I’m always on the lookout for what strategies are my fastest path to cash. So, presented with the opportunity to get in touch with other people in my market who might want to send me traffic, and vice versa, I would DEFINITELY jump on it. I think it’s a great idea that would revolutionize traffic exchange.
I’m open for discussion and participation.
Success & Profits,
Iman
The devils in the detail of course. Maybe if you set up a Squidoo lens as they have Links Voting (Plexo)
Plexo lets you make a list of your favorite links on and lets your visitors vote them up and down. You can also let people add links to your Plexo module. OR, they can grab your module and stick it on their own lens! (Sends traffic back to you, btw).
If everyone votes it will send the lens ranking up and bring more visitors.
Mark, you hit the nail on the head for me. Getting enough traffic to get a list built is definitely my biggest problem. I sell portable air conditioners, so building a list of facility managers is what I need. Any ideas on how that could be accomplished would be welcomed. I’m open to joining a discussion with your viewers on how we might assist each other.
Thanks!
Bruce
Hi Mark,
Thanks for the offer. I am currently suffering from so much learning and things to implement and not enough time or resources to do this effectively. It seems like everytime I open an email, there is a new system or course. For instance, I finally got into Jeff Johnson’s SACC module 4 and spent the weekend adding my site to 200 different search engines, adding new blog posts and then adding those posts to 47 different social networking sites, but was this effective use of my time. I don’t know until I analyse the results.
I suspose I need to priorize my activities for generating traffic the most effective way. Any suggestions?
Regards,
Lorne
Hello Mark
that sound like a great idea. Count me in. I am sure everyone won’t have a match but it worth trying.
Yes Mark,
Traffic is the big one. Everyone wants it. It is in high demand and will always be in big demand. Actually, a good little niche to get into because of the huge demand.
What’s great about traffic is that there are many ways, tips, tactics and strategies to increase it. There isn’t just one way, so everyone has their own take.
LOL, OK Now you got me started! I have a feeling this was your whole point though! If we put our minds to it, we can figure out how to get traffic?? LOL
Anyway…
Something else just hit me in the head.
With a forum….One of the areas could be about looking for niches others are into and joining their lists…Lets say each person makes a breif post about what they are into….”No replys able though”….just able to join their list…..Maybe offer something free to join LOL The join my list forum lol or whatever…..Just another thought….Knowing me ill be here 10 more times lol ;-)
Dawn
Lorne,
Yes, sometimes too much learning is a bad thing.
You need some DOING. And I guess you had a lot of that this past weekend.
I’m sure your efforts will pay off. Getting inbound links is exactly what you need to do. Few people are willing to do what it takes. Internet marketing is easy, once you get it going.
It’s hard at the start.
Yes, there are lots of courses to buy (Like the http://www.TrafficSecretsV2.com course I recommended).
But that’s why I came up with this idea.
If it were in my power, I’d just GIVE YOU all some traffic. And that’s what I’m trying to do here.
However, I don’t think my readers would take too kindly to daily emails about all the different things my readers sell — air conditioners, t-shirts, “The Secret”, Parenting, Potty Training, Stock Trading — it’s just not a good match, and I’d quickly find myself with no readers at all.
So it’d need to be a list you could go look at online.
Forums are a possibility. But what we’re looking to do here is create a social network of sorts. A community of people who understand — or are beginning to understand — internet marketing.
People who are looking to learn together, swap traffic, share knowledge, and help each other out.
Yes, maybe that’s a forum. Maybe it’s a directory or a blog. Maybe it’s a special discussion group or a Google group or something similar.
Let’s keep going. This is getting interesting.
We’ll figure it out.
-Mark
What frosts me most is the email telling me how good this person is and how much money they make every day or week or month or year. Now just buy my product and I will tell you how I do/did it!
My feeling is they do not make what they say they do and in fact, if I do not buy their product/report they make nothing.
If your ‘system’ is making you millions you should be finding a way to give it away. After all you are already making your millions, RIGHT?
Just my rant.
Mark
What a great idea.
Cross mailing is a great way to go.
Perhaps a simple spreadsheet with the niche and url. If there is an interesting niche then people could email the site contact address. Or even put a post on the blog.
Yep. More traffic would be great!
You know the old tree in the forest thing…
Is it a landing page when nobody finds it?
(or very few people)
It seems the techniques I know of are either incredibly time consuming or costly. Or they overtax my tech-abilities.
I can’t keep up with all the various things I’m already doing or trying to do rather. All those accounts in cyber space with my name on it (and no, I won’t list them here). I have a plan to create a huge binder with lots of dividers and organize all that info in some sort of hard copy format!
I can’t even keep up with reading/listening to all the info on how to generate that oh-so elusive traffic and make it stick.
One possibility of helping your trusty readers with getting traffic:
the give-away thing, and considering, as you said in your post, that we have rather related interests, maybe you could organize one that’ll help us all ;-) That way you won’t have to actually publish our contact info, yet it’ll be a very cool way to give all of us a chance to see what everybody else is doing and opt into each others’ lists to get the freebies etc.
And even though some of us don’t have big lists, smallish lists of lots of people can add up too!
TANSTAAFL – There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch
There are only a few Categories for generating traffic:
* Advertising via Pay-per-Click campaigns, banners, or other methods where a potential visitor clicks to arrive at your landing page.
* Direct traffic from your Web 2.O marketing – incoming clicks from the whole basket of Web 2.0 like back-links from Social bookmarking sites, etcetera.
* Organic SEO SEM – what many people mistakenly call “free traffic”.
That last is the one everyone seems to be looking for, but it really isn’t free. It costs money and takes some effort.
Organic traffic means you have keyword-rich, keyword-specific pages on your website that answer a need for a target group of Searchers… and your pages begin showing up on the first page or two of a search in a search engine.
That’s where SEO comes into play. You must do market research, keyword research, and build your pages accordingly tailored to your target market of “searchers’.
Then what do you do… wait until the Search engines index your site and give you ranking? You can, but that takes a long time to get some ROI.
The truth is this… most of us experience that 70 to 90% of our Organic traffic results come from the authority links we have to our site pages. “Authority” meaning that Google or the search engine has ranked that linking website highly in the same Theme or specific keyword as my page.
It’s an entire stragegy of getting your inbound links that are relevant and on-target for the specific keywords. Using the specific text in the link’s Anchor tags, link’s URL, Title tags, met tagsAnd you need a lot of them for most themes
The manual effort in doing link exchanges and the other linking strategies is usually more than the return you get these days.
How does one get those highly prized Authority links?
For a new domain/website, the only way to get a linking strategy going effectively, in my experience, is to be part of a large network of compatible sites/blogs where I can get links easily. Links that come from relevant sites to my site.
That usually requires paying to join a networking service… it’s not really cheap to do this either, but you get biggest bang for your buck.
Done well a proper linking strategy delivers “qualified site visitors”. Buyers, in other words, who are searching for you have to sell or promote.
If you’ve done the job well planning your marketing funnel, then you usually find that 100 qualified visitors delivers more sales than 10,000 unqualified visitors
And that’s what a strategic linking plan can do for you.
Regards,
Jan
Jan,
I have a sign on my desk…I’ll take a picture and post it one day soon. It says TANSTAAFL. Used to be on my father’s desk, may he rest in peace.
You are absolutely correct about creating traffic.
You pay for it one way or another — with cash or with time.
Unless you’ve got a fairy godmother who likes to send you traffic.
But what you’re talking about — the network of highly ranked sites. That would be the highest goal of what we’re discussing here.
It’s not going to happen with a half dozen sites in the parenting field, but over time that might grow. If we’ve got zero sites — if we never try — it never will.
Stompernet does this to some degree…you become part of a network of websites that link to one another. The rising tide raises all ships. On the other hand, the $800 can put quite a drain on your dingy.
Maybe we can help reproduce part of what Stomper does by linking sites together into common-themed networks.
Oh, I should mention here…I’m not wondering whether the linking would work. It would.
The pondering I’m doing is how to implement it.
So thank you to you all for helping to hash this out.
-Mark
Traffic is always a good thing BUT its the right type of traffic one needs the most.
You know the buying kind ;) And once you got that traffic how to turn it over to sales.
That kind of goes hand in hand.
The only problem with forums is keeping out those
who sign up just to leave spam sites etc. Who is going to want to share, if you get touch with crap emailing you all the time?
There has to be some way of putting together a list kinda like a dating site list, only helping match up niches that could really help one another. And also not be worried that you are taking their sales etc.
Not all of us who read your blog, and get your newsletter are in the field of selling digital content. So whatever you do ended up deciding to
do to help, don’t forget those who sell items as well.
Just my thoughts about it anyway..
Have an awesome evening!
Kim,
I hear you!
-Mark
Hi Mark,
An interesting idea…
I guess I would have to say that for MOST folks (in my experience as a professional SEO/PPC consultant), the real problem is that they want a magic wand for $3.47 that they can wave over their website and all of a sudden, 54323 visitors will magically arrive and buy everything they sell, and/or click on their adsense ads!
The reality is that getting traffic takes time, effort and (sometimes) money. If a site owner is not prepared to at least put in the first 2 items, you can forget getting much traffic of value.
There are PLENTY of great free resources out there to help teach people how to get traffic, whether via article marketing (Travis Sago’s Bum Marketing method is very good AND Free), blogging (Yaro Starak’s Blogging Blueprint is also free and very good), using Yahoo Answers or other web 2.0 sites. It’s just that most folks won’t do the work consistently UNTIL the traffic arrives.
You can lead a horse to water, but you sure as heck can’t force him to drink, and therein lies the problem with most people who want traffic but don’t have it.
Seems to me that you’d be better off tracking down some great intro products to teach beginners traffic generation from several different sources (I mentioned some above – I would start with these) and either sell them or give them away for free.
THEN, we’ll see how genuine folks are about wanting traffic when it comes to either shelling out the clams for the products and/or doing some work!
Rather than end on a pessimistic note, 2 suggestions I have are to create either an article directory where folks can submit QUALITY article/s to help build their link popularity (and traffic) or put together a site review service where members can pay people to write a review of their site and post that review on their own site or on your site review site.
You might even wish to offer either of these services for free to those on your list, if you feel so inclined.
Just police it a bit to keep the spammers out.
OK Mark, good luck with this. I hope it works out – happy to help if I can.
Eran Malloch
Perth, Western Australia
Eran,
Thanks for your continued support!
Yes, as I wrote above, most people aren’t interested in doing the work…
Often the work is simple. “Just do this for 10 minutes every day, and in 1 month you’ll see nothing. In 2 months you’ll begin to see the traffic increase. In 3 months it will be obvious. And in 6 months it can’t be stopped — a flood.”
Yet, people quit after a week because they don’t see the traffic.
Or forget.
Or went on to something that promised a quicker result.
Pshaw!
I only know this is what happens because I’ve done it too…as you probably have done as well. But not any more.
Look, this whole Internet Marketing thing is EASY.
It’s a fary cry from digging ditches, driving a bus, or trading stocks on the floor of the exchange.
Heck, it’s easier than being the CEO of a big corporation.
But, like ANY job, you’ve got to actually DO THE WORK.
It’s not as hard as hacking at stones with a pickaxe.
Just typing. Reading. Learning. Posting.
and…here’s the key…
Remaining committed.
Fighting distraction.
Staying focused.
Do one thing and do it well until you reach your goal. THEN move on.
‘Tis the key to success in any endeavor.
And, for what it’s worth…it’s how you’d use a pickaxe, too.
-Mark
P.s. Remember, oil wells are dug inches wide and miles deep, not the other way around.
Hi,
I like the Idea as well. It’s been 2 years for me, and I’m still spending more money on advertising than profit.
At the moment I’m blogging, but even there I don’t see much happening. I was told If I paid $250 + $95 per month my blogs would be seen by thousands!!! Who knows, I don’t have this kind of money. It is overwhelming what’s out there, and just when you think you found the answer something new pops up. I think going back to basics in marketing and starting over with a straight forward lesson could work.What ever you come up with, keep it simple! please! I have enough e-book to last me forever.
Looking forward to your magic!
Thanks
Ingrid
How about a networking group online style [ similar to BNA and such that meet early mornings weekly to bring and share what they do.] I just launched my 2nd site, a product website. It took some years of studying and doing various marketing techniques and I am just slightly taking off with my services website. What I know about what I do is that it is fairly unique and I hear from people how hard it was to find me. I do not know the answer and but I do know that with the balls I have in the air, I need to be in collaboration with online people who can help each other and help sort out the marketing info and what works for whom.
Thanks for ‘forum’, Mark
Ellen
Hello Mark,
I got a hunch that you will eventually be starting your own community website like Apsense and Direct Match. When that happens, count me in as long as joining is free and members are given a share when the communities become large enough to be purchased by a giant corporation.
Generating online traffic is always the big problem faced by every newbies. If you can afford it, the best instant online traffic generation that brings good results is using Pay per Click advertising like Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing. You will get instant traffic even if your website is not yet indexed by any search engines.
Never use your website home page, instead, use a landing page when advertising using PPC. Your landing page must have your auto responder opt-in form to collect your online visitors’ information where you can follow up later. Mark is a guy you should look up to when it comes to landing pages.
Next invest on Search Engine Optimization to get free traffic on the long run. Why SEO can get you free traffic? Because, most people use the search engine to look for stuff online but 90% will not go beyond 3 pages of search results. Optimizing your website for online searches to get on the top 10 search results will get you free qualify online visitors to your website. Be sure that your website has opt-in form on every page to collect visitors’ information by offering free valuable opt-in gift just in case that visit is their only visit to your website.
Finally, keep on building your list and does your follow up. Experts said it will take up to a minimum 7 emails to a prospect before a sale or a sign up is made off them.
So to Ken, Susan and Gene P, I hope this will help you out a bit. Who ever says making money online is FREE is telling a heck of a lie. Newbie, get this fact right. It will definitely take money to make money online when you are just starting. And it will have to take you to make money online. If you have burn money on online opportunities then maybe it is time to consider starting your own business selling your own product.
Making money online will become FREE only when you have build a minimum of 500 mailing lists on your own, not from buying leads and when your site shows up on the top 10 of search engine results.
Good Luck.
Hello Mark,
what a great idea and I hope you can get it to work. Traffic generation is always a struggle for new people like myself and like you say in your article, I really don’t have th resources for a big advertising budget.
I support you 100% on this one and I applaud you for coming up with the idea and sharing it with all of us.
Thanks,
John van de Linde
NSW, Australia
http://www.vandewealth.com
http://www.vandewealth.com/articles
Hi,
The “problem” is that its a holistic problem.
Traffic (assuming its targeted) is not enough if-
your site doesn’t convert.
I’m beginning to think that creating your own product is the only way to escape the “affiliate rat-race”.
Especially as more and more people (who can afford it) are hiring high-priced PPC consultants to run their campaigns…
Thoughts / comments?
Ken
[...] you´re interested to read what others think about how to generate [...]
Hey Mark, you hit the nail on the head when you said that folks give up too quickly in the quest for traffic.
AND, you are also spot on when you said it’s not actually that hard to get traffic – you’ve just got to be persistent doing the right things over & over.
Last but not least, as Mark said, internet traffic building is a HECK of a lot easier than driving a pick or a shovel outdoors, or cleaning up after sick folks in a hospital, and a large range of other jobs.
The difference is that you don’t (usually) get paid to do it, like in a “real” job, and that’s why most (95%+) quit too soon or don’t even start!
Guess the old 95:5 rule works, even in Internet Marketing, as well as wealth building, investing, getting fit and so on.
If only they could see AND believe in the end result before they started, it would be sooo much easier to get them self motivated! :)
Anyway, at the end of the day, it’s YOUR choice (the reader) whether you’re in the 95% or 5% group with your Internet business. Nobody else’s.
You will never be able to force your readers to make that choice Mark, although a little motivation and stimulation doesn’t hurt, because it is THEIR choice, no matter what you say or do…
So good reader, the good news is that you CAN succeed, regardless of where you are at at the moment, but the bad news is that it’s up to YOU! :)
Go for it!
Eran
Hi Mark, I think it is a good idea to support each other to generate traffic but like others who are doing this as a secondary job I need it to be non complicated and easy to understand, I really do not mind doing it over and over again, I am very persistant.
Let me know how.
Many thanks
Gradle
Hi Mark,
as mentioned by you and some others it´s essential to do the work that´s necessary to be done. For instance posting a comment on your article here.
Thus this page is part of the solution to get traffic. I already visited one or the other homepage while reading the comments.
What about this: You set up a page where we may present ourselves (like a business card), and everyone of us will implement this page in our websites (may be similar to Amazon´s aStore).
By the way: I was impressed by your initiative and put a link to this page on my blog as my way to say thanks.
Success to us all
Christoph
Firstly hello Mark and hello all of you guys and gals from the UK!
(we have some sun today, for once, so it is a good day!).
This sounds like a great idea – I would love to connect more with like minded people – there are not many where I live!
With best wishes,
Jon :-)
Traffic rules. Targted traffic rules even more.
The worrying about spam seems a little hokey to me as WordPress and Akismet do a really good job of taking care of it.
The worst things I have for spam are SMF forums. I now have to approve each and every poster by hand but I don’t have to do that with my WP blogs. I expect bots are the major problem on SMF so a captcha would solve most of that.
SEO isn’t that hard anymore so that shouldn’t be a real excuse for anyone. Links and link reputation count for more than SEO nowdays.
All that said I don’t bother with sites outside of my own network, to often. I’ve got about 30 sites and 12 blogs and forums, all on different class C IP addresses so I can control what I need to control.
Wgat’s worked best for me, lately, has been adding links to bookmark sites that follow links. A couple of links per site per week is enough to keep my positions in the serps and keep the free trafic flowing.
It took me about a month to set it up the way it needed to be but now it’s just to simple.
For me traffic is fairly easy, it’s the converting the traffic that’s harder. Most don’t understand traffic or getting it to buy after you have it.
It seems to me that most people aren’t very focused on the basics and are looking for a quick, easy way to get rich.
Focus on the basics and you’ll get there, eventually.
I just started a website called Coastal Computerized Information Services and during this process I have read everything I could get my hands on about getting traffic to my site. Unfortunatly I am more confussed now then I was when I started reading all the info. So many ways and they all cost money I don’t have. I know that you have to put some money in to get money out of it.
SiteBuildIt offers what they call Value Exchange. They will hook you up with other people who are their clients or affiliates and are in the same nich as you. I haven’t joined because I honestly don’t know how to link others to my website. I don’t know what it would take to develope the same system.
Personally I could use a step by step process of how to set up a traffic system not more computer programs that will cost me and then they don’t work. I get e-mails telling me that this or that system really doesn’t work so try mine. I’m so confused!
Mark,
I think I need more than shared traffic. I’m in the mortgage niche, information sites, and I make about 1k per month. Nothing to brag about. I want to branch out into other niches. Here is my need.
I’m here at home all day by myself. I don’t have anyone to talk to or share ideas and thoughts with. I feel so isolated and frankly it can get depressing. There are days that I am close to disfunctional and only doing the bare minimum.
I need a master mind group to share success and failures with, thoughts and ideas. Preferably this relationship should not be over a keyboard but face to face contact sometimes. The group should be diverse.
Sharing traffic would be part of that relationship but also learning and sharing ideas, and honest critiquing of our efforts.
I need like minded people to talk to! I’ve been thinking about running an ad on craigslist but worry about finding crazy people.
I am succeeding, I know how to increase my income, and I can do it. But I seem to have lost my vision or excitement about it. I need people!
I have been playing with a tool that requires the good will of others to work.
It is a traffic generation tool which exchanges traffic with like minded sites on a 1 for 1 basis. If you send me a visitor, I’ll send you one.
The script is free and seems to work well but I struggled to get it functioning properly, due mainly to a lack of understanding on my part.
Now I am not going to give you a link here and it is not running on the site I listed above because I would like to do more testing with an outside site before I open it up to more people.
Since this is a self regulating tool you, as end user, get back, in quality and numbers, what you send and the software monitors the traffic for you.
No, I didn’t write it but it is a pretty cool tool.
Mark, email me. This might be what you are looking for.
Regards
Looks like you have alot of folks responding to the issue at hand Mark– you have found a “Need” that exists– now we just need to figure out how to “Fix” the need…
I don’t have time today to read all the other pots, but I would love it if you could:
1. find a way for me to meet other people in my niche to promote me and visa versa. (I would have to be in charge of quality control I assume)
2. Protect me from spam…big time!
i would just like the list of people in my niche,….not the universe out there. Is that possible?
Great idea if it works.
Hi Mark,
I agree, a forum or networking site would be a great way to connect people together.
I have a a good deal of experience with both of these type scripts and would be very interested in donating the installation and maintenance of either one for you. It would be very useful for me, you and anyone who wants a no cost way to find “like-minded” sites with which to cross link.
Please contact me if you have any interest. Enjoy the day!