The Real Truth About Traffic Generation

[invitetheweb]

Articles are pretty darn easy to get on sites like EA so I don't know why more people do not take advantage of this technique.

Thanks Steven!

[Chris Kent]

A very interesting opening post and thread. I think it raises a lot of good issues to discuss and share some different viewpoints and tips.

On SEO: I think a lot people have problems with this, whether you backlink or not, due to the time delay and the difficulty in relating results to actions.

I mean, how many really good SEO tests have you seen done? You'd have to do them across several hosts and try to keep as many factors the same to do a true test. I've rarely heard of anyone doing any major extensive testing.

And the lag, I think this is what causes many marketers to tear their hair out and get very frustrated. Many people do the right thing naturally without even realising it and many others do the wrong things but even those who did the right thing cannot necessarilly tell them where they went wrong!

I say the above for popular niches anyway. Much less so for tighter niches.


On PPC: I go even further than Steve. The average person who has tried PPC has lost money quickly and given up. They don't dare risk any more money.

Really, to succeed at it, you have to assume you will not be profitable immediately and be willing to commit an amount e.g. 1000 bucks - enough to allow you to tweak and test until your campaign turns profitable.

Some people might be great straight out of the blocks but this is rare in PPC.

The only way out of it is to have a good PPC mentor who can look over your campaigns.


Actually Steve, given your six figures, I'm amazed that you haven't set aside a few grand to learn PPC. I think it's an easier task to become good at it compared to trading forex profitably or playing poker profitably (many parallels between them all). If I had a few grand spare and more, I'd definitely do it. You'd break even in a matter of weeks anyway.

The idea of getting the supreme targeting of SE traffic and being able to turn it on like a tap is very attractive.


On Video: I think you have it wrong but then I think most people have it wrong. Most think that you need a video to go viral and then you will make bucks. And any other videos will get only trickles.

Actually, there's a lot more to video than that and a lot of different strategies that can serve you well. I'm using some of them at the moment and it definitely pays to be different.

You even said a few things about video that are commonly portrayed myths. I won't even correct you because the more these myths are propagated, the better for me

But you're not alone. Video is in its infancy and is still evolving. Most people are misunderstand it.

My advice on video is to look around Youtube and spot all the different strategies going on. Often, you can take a strategy and just go to another niche and use it and be the pioneer in the niche!


On Forums:

I have recently found forum participation to be a great source. One of my new blogs gets nearly all its traffic from a forum. I am not talking about IM niche here either.

And I plan to take advantage of forum traffic even more soon.

Think outside the box a bit on forum traffic, people. Forums in popular niches are notoriously hard to get into.

Best thing to do is look at the non-IM forums you like to visit. Why target new forums in new niches to put your sig link in when you can do it on the forums you already visit? Don't think in terms of "yeah but there's no money in those niches". There is DEFINITELY money in niches where you speak from the heart. You are underestimating your own trust value.

[tpw]

I disagree with you on one major point Steven.

As you can see, there is no magic bullet to traffic generation.

I doubt that there ever will be.

The truth is that some of us will eventually find our personal magic bullet, magic button, or magic elixir for traffic generation.

My magic button will likely not look like your magic button, but we both have them.

You and I are both article marketers, and we do pretty well with that.

You and I also avid forum marketers, and we do pretty well with that also.

Although we share some commonalities, my magic button does not look like yours, nor yours like mine.

We all have the capacity to find our personal magic button, but even if you described in precise detail what yours is, I likely could never duplicate it to the point that I could mimic yours with any consistency.

It is a mistake to believe that you and I could ever have a corner on the Traffic Generation knowledge, although both of us can and do generate a substantial amount of traffic for our websites.

In my business, I have the opportunity to talk to people with very diverse backgrounds, who play in article marketing exclusively, and those who do article marketing as a sideline.

I know people who spend $100,000 per month on PPC at a profit.

I know people who spend $300,000 per month on Facebook ads, at a profit.

I know people who use press releases almost exclusively and generate five figures per month.

I know people who successfully utilize social media as the front end of their sales funnel, and they are making a killing.

I know people who make a lot of money creating affiliate products, and training their affiliates to drive traffic from a multitude of sources.

When I sat down to take a solid look at all of the Traffic Generation Methods that I could describe and contribute positively to the understanding of, I came up with 35 Traffic Generation Methods. I gathered information from people I knew, who utilized the defined techniques, and turned that knowledge into my most recent product called, "Multiple Traffic Streams".

But I didn't just write the information, I am practiced in the information as well. Of the 35 methods I described, I have used 31 of them myself.

I like best article marketing, SEO, forum marketing, social media, and press releases, in that order.

I have even been profitable with PPC myself, but on such a small scale that it did not make sense to ramp up those campaigns.

Most of your critics in this thread have been critical for what you left out of your post, and your assumption that you had a corner on the truth.

While the criticism is fair, the critics also failed to realize that while their magic button is different from yours, that does not make your magic button wrong -- it just means that their magic button does not look like yours and vice versa.

The new person who has not yet found their magic button for traffic generation is best to sit down and take a look at all of the various traffic generation methods available to them, and then to test those methods to find the best matches for their business.

[Joshua Rigley]

Well this is going into the best threads list. Nice one Steve. I absolutely agree with your take on forum marketing; it can be extremely rewarding, but you have to put in a lot of hard work first.

I don't agree with your method of social bookmarking though. I feel the problem with the traditional approach is that people are just using them to get the backlink. But there's a lot more potential in there that people just aren't taking advantage of.

The whole point of sites like Digg is to share your favorite web pages with your friends. If IM'ers were to participate on those sites (like forums), they would get better results.

Thanks for your post Steve.

[Matt.Lake]

LOL... two years old. What brought this thread back from the depths?

[tpw]

Originally Posted by Matt.Lake

LOL... two years old. What brought this thread back from the depths?

The evergreen quality of Steven's threads. LOL

[ReignBird]

Originally Posted by Matt.Lake
LOL... two years old. What brought this thread back from the depths?

Originally Posted by tpw

The evergreen quality of Steven's threads. LOL

Definitely an oldie but goodie (a WF Classic?), glad someone bumped it for noobs like me.

I might not ever have clicked on 10 or 12 of the links in various sigs in this thread, based on the excellent informative points made, nearly so soon, if ever.

Thanks to all, quickly learned a lot I'm already at work putting to actual use.

[kytro360]

Thanks this must of tooken you a while to write

[RobDB5950]

Interesting thread, old but has some good info. i love copying and pasting good info's into my research text folder!

[Steven Wagenheim]

I have no idea what brought this thread back and, quite honestly, I have
learned a lot since I first started it.

I don't even agree with everything I posted back then because, as I have
discovered, things change...constantly.

So the one thing, and the only thing, I will say for certain now is that there
are no absolutes.

Some things that I swore would always work very well have turned out
to not work so well because of changing times. Other things that didn't
work as well, now work much better.

I am constantly learning and reinventing myself online.

I won't even rule out someday putting big bucks into PPC, even though
I don't need the money anymore and can't find the motivation to go
through the hassle.

But I will never say never...not anymore. I have learned too much and
have been humbled too much by what I thought I knew but come to
realize I didn't have all the facts or that the facts changed.

The biggest mistake ANYBODY can make in regard to their business is
to think that they know it all and that nothing will ever change.

I learned those lessons the hard way.

You don't have to.

Keep an open mind, test, and adapt to changes.

Because trust me...things WILL change.

[celente]

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

I have no idea what brought this thread back and, quite honestly, I have
learned a lot since I first started it.

I don't even agree with everything I posted back then because, as I have
discovered, things change...constantly.

I learned those lessons the hard way.

You don't have to.

Keep an open mind, test, and adapt to changes.

Because trust me...things WILL change.

Yes, hit the nail on the head with that one. We are currently changing many things with our sites, and its time consuming...but it is just to test and move our sites into more moden times.

The internet is constantly changing, and you have to keep up with it.... There are not too many big changes.....but the smaller changes all add up in the end.

i am not sure why and old thread like this has come back and reincarnated.....hmmmmm