This is a guest blog post written by Dave Whitworth.
In the early days of your websites life you might wonder where your next visitor is coming from!
You thought you had done all the hard work in building your site. Surely it is only time before floods of traffic crash your server? (If only)
Giving up is not an option but what is wrong, is it you, is it the content on your site, just what are you doing wrong?
Well the truth of the matter is that you are probably not doing much wrong at all! Some sites take years before they become popular but that’s not very comforting as you need traffic now. Well the good news is with a little patience and a proven traffic generation strategy you can soon create a flow of traffic to any website.
This is of course assuming that you are offering something that people want? If so it is only a matter of letting them know where to find it.
You can spend a fortune on paying for traffic and in my experience it is an area which should be approached with caution. An ill advised campaign here and some vastly overpriced keywords there and you will very soon be soon over budget and probably out of pocket.
Using free methods of traffic generation can be time consuming and require you putting in some effort but unless you have a huge budget, going down the route of free targeted traffic is always the best option.
You have probably tried some free traffic methods and had some success but gave up because you weren’t sure what worked best for you, here’s 3 methods I have found to work very well.
Dave’s 3 Top Traffic Tips:-
1, Blog & Forum Commenting – This is a fantastic way to generate free traffic back to your website. Simply look for blogs & forums related to your niche and submit quality comments.
Both blog commenting and forum posting can bring lots of targeted traffic to your site but for me forum posting just edges it.
When you comment on a blog, that post soon moves down and sometimes out of the picture quicker than a forum post. With a forum post, you can join a thread that stays around for as long as people post comments to it.
There is an art to forum posting and if you just go along and say ‘nice one’ or ‘that’s just what I was looking for’ you will just get ignored.
Provide quality comments on blogs and forums and you will get noticed. Provide thought provoking topics on a popular forum and you can have thousands of eyeballs on your signature following your link back to your site. There are actually people on the Warrior Forum who do exactly this and earn a full time income from this type of traffic generation method alone.
2, Article Writing – Some people think this is no longer a good way to drive free traffic but let me assure you it is. As long as you write interesting articles for humans to read and not some spammy re-spun article that is worthless to anyone reading it.
Article writing should be approached as if you were telling an interesting story. It could be a story which leads you from title to author resource box by giving a solution to a problem but above all it should leave the reader wanting more. When writing an article don’t hold back, share everything you know and this will make people interested in your paid offers.
3, Writing Guest Articles For Blogs – Blog owners love unique quality content for their blogs and if you can get your articles published on other marketers blogs this will help get the word out about your website/offer. Again your article should be the best quality it can be and it should also be 100% unique for the blog it is published on.
Make sure you tell the blog owner that your article will be written exclusively for their blog and explain any benefits this will bring and you will find many blog owners take you up on your offer. I know this method works as you are reading my article on John’s blog 🙂
There you go, 3 simple traffic generation techniques that will provide your website with all the traffic it can handle.
These 3 methods are just a few of the tried and tested methods used in the 30 Day Traffic Flow System. I designed it when my own traffic generating attempts began to frustrate me. There are many methods of traffic generation inside the member’s area and a spreadsheet which when used on a daily basis will let you know how you are doing against your targets. Not all methods of targeted traffic generation work for everyone and you can soon drop the ones that are not working and increase the ones that are.
As the name suggests you will create a flow of traffic within 30 days. Depending on your efforts this flow could turn into a flood. You do have to put some effort into it, but once set up, you can pick and choose your battles.
If you are struggling to get targeted traffic to your site or offer 30 Day Traffic Flow could be just what you need. There are many reports inside which could easily sell individually for more than the price of the whole system!
This was a guest post written by Dave Whitworth, partner at http://www.30daytrafficflow.com
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Very good advice John. I found that article marketing combined with blog and forum comments do wonders for your traffic and page rank.
Hey Dave, nice post!
I have found the key is to get out as much quality content as possible and you have listed three great ways to do so.
I actually pay to have my guest post written, then I proof and edit them. The traffic, which leads to opt-in to my list is worth the small investment.
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the kind words. That’s great advice about paying for guest posts.
Maybe I should charge John for this one:-)
What do the these 3 methods all have in common – quality content. I’ve always believed that content is king, but of course it has to be of high quality and people will naturally flock to it and of course want more of it.
Thanks for this great post.
You are so right Damielle. I try to preach that quality content is the only content you should use.
It is a simple concept of getting out what you put in.
Rubbish in = rubbish out!
Dave
Hi Dave
Good tips for getting more traffic!
I love your comment “Rubbish in= Rubbish Out”
Couldn’t agree more!
If you write good, unique content that people like, then the search engines jump on it and you get the benefit in more traffic.
German Shepherd Dogs-Don’t You Just Love Them!
So true Graham.
If you provide content to please your visitors you will please the search engines too.
Put your self in the search engines position. Would you want to give your customers rubbish?
Some good solid tips there Dave. Taking all three into account guest posting for me is the main one which will bring in the most traffic. By guest posting, you project expertise and authority within your niche and as you say by writing some killer content pick up some new fans along the way.
There is a lot of controversy around article marketing lately due to various Google updates killing low rank content, so you do have to be careful where you place your articles. I used to submit to a lot of directories, but now only use the ones with a high PR for a quality back link rather than any old back link which can hurt your site.
Good stuff Dave
Dan
Hi Dan,
Great advice and gone are the days where an article could rank number one for a keyword on its own merits.
We shouldn’t discount them completely and I agree your quality content should be submitted to the top sites.
Guest posting, as you say can get you lots of exposure and anyone who is put off by the thought of approaching a blog owner shouldn’t be.
They can only say no. If you offer something which complements the blog not many blog owners will turn you down.
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Hi Dave
When I look at the stats for my blog the top link back is always the warrior forum, and it’s not somewhere I visit that often – too many trolls at times, but the content I have added gets found by those who like my helpfull advice.
With guest posting I know that it also works a treat based on the sales generated by John when my post was published here. If you provide quality content to an established audience people will click through to the authors bio link at the bottom.
So if anyone reading this wants to arrange a blog swap let me know as I’ve set myself a challange of 1 new blog post per week.
Andrew
Great comments Andrew. It is a pity you can’t bold words in comments. ‘HELPFUL ADVICE’ and ‘QUALITY CONTENT’ are the most important ingredients to forum posting and other forms of information sharing.
Dave
Hi Dave,
Great tips I’ve tried all but the guest posting but I think it will do as good as the others. Some people say these methods don’t work anymore like they used to. I used them and they do work very well. Thanks for the lessons on how to get traffic when you need it.
To your success in 2012 and beyond
Regards
Zora
Hi Zora,
Glad to hear you are having success with your traffic generation.
You have no excuse with guest posting now as you can take Andrew up on his offer. I know I will.
Hey Dave (and John)
Excellent stuff! I have just got into this information marketing and I’m looking forward to applying some of these techniques.
I used to be in an MLM (pardon the language lol) and it took me a few years to realize that the industry is only geared towards the company.
I used to use a technique for traffic, posting free ads on classified sites but with auto-bots it became a waste of time. I hear now that most sites are now blocking the bots it has become a worth while venture again.
Do you have any input on that subject?
Thanks again!
Kelly
Hi Kelly,
I used to have my own Classified Ads site but gave up when it became apparent that nobody actually purchased any of my stuff.
Bear in mind I could run as many ads as I pleased and other members only one.
That was a long time ago and recently I have had some success with Leads Leap.
Whilst it is not a classified ads site, it is an ad site and the best way to use it is by promoting a squeeze page.
One thing I like about it, is that you only receive an admin email every 2 weeks or so. No member emails flooding into your inbox.
Dave
Great advice have been churning out articles like a mad man. Can anybody give a time frame as to how long this all takes to kick into gear or is it just a slow snowball like effect
Hi Clive,
That is a really good question as some articles will get tons of visits and some not many.
Sometimes you will write an article or a blog post and think that it is OK but nothing special and it will go viral.
Other times you will think you have just created the best article ever and it gets few visits.
A good thing about articles is that once created they can give you targeted traffic for years.
One other thing to consider is where you are submitting your articles to.
Put your best work on the top article directories and sprinkle a few others about here and there.
It sounds like you are an article machine and I am jealous.
Dave
Great post Dave, some nice nuggets in there for us!
Have to say all of the above are effective but my favorite out of the bunch is Article Marketing. You can write a quality article once and submit as many times as you like to different directories – very powerful indeed.
Another one I like is Video Marketing, with the way that Youtube is growing at the moment I feel it’s just another great weapon to add to the arsenal.
Thanks – Noel.