Top 5 Most Effective Methods for Traffic Generation

[lpstoops]

I'd like to start a thread targeted to the 5 most effective ways to general traffic. Now, before some of you jump to say there are more that 5 effective methods of traffic generation, I'd like to say the point of this thread is to offer the best starting point for anyone new to online marketing. I'd like to know your opinions for traffic generation that will best serve others who are just starting out.

We need to highlight the least technical, quickest results, and longest lasting traffic generation strategies that will be easiest for the newest of marketers to implement.

I'll list mine first, you all list yours and the final thread post before we close the thread will list the definitive solutions that best suit the needs of new marketers.

1. Social Traffic: Facebook, Myspace, Twitter
2. Forums: like this one and others
3. Article: unique content posted to top article directories
4. Video: submit video to youtube, google video, etc.
5. Blog/lenses: wordpress, blogger, squidoo

I'll get into the formatting of each in later entries. I just wanted to get this topic started for others to post their advice.

Let's keep this friendly and full of rich advice, keeping the new guys in mind.

Thanks,

Jonathan

[Simon_Sezs]

1. Organic
2. PPC
3. Organic
4. Organic
5. O-r-g-a-n-i-c

[talfighel]

PPC is one of the best. Then you have forum marketing, video marketing, and article marketing.

It is all about taking MASSIVE action and never giving up.

Tal

[Chris Monty]

Well, I revealed one of my traffic secrets right here for you. Give it a shot.

[lpstoops]

Originally Posted by talfighel

PPC is one of the best. Then you have forum marketing, video marketing, and article marketing.

It is all about taking MASSIVE action and never giving up.

Tal

I'd like to stick with organic traffic generations strategies. I agree that PPC is great, if you know what you're doing. But, I would like to discuss methods that don't cost the new guys any money.

[dvduval]

Create a site people love and will return to again and again.
There is no substitute for that, and people spend so much time marketing, that they fail to see the snake in the grass right in front of them.

[chad90382]

Articles and Blogs will give you TONS of traffic. It takes sometime but the return will be great and FREE!

I recently wrote an article about getting free traffic, check it out, its on my website. The site is new, that is one of my first articles.

[Alminc]

Here are another 5:

Create Hub Pages
Submit Your RSS Feeds To RSS Agregators
Writing Quality Comments On High Traffic Blogs
Giving Away Ebooks/Reports Containing Your Links
Posting Free Classified Ads

[lpstoops]

Originally Posted by Alminc

Here are another 5:

Create Hub Pages
Submit Your RSS Feeds To RSS Agregators
Writing Quality Comments On High Traffic Blogs
Giving Away Ebooks/Reports Containing Your Links
Posting Free Classified Ads

Perfect! Thank you!

[Easy Cash]

Organic results has to be the easiest and cheapest by a long shot........

[PatricKrost]

ORganic results for sure.

I tried ppc once and got busted.

[lpstoops]

Organic results is not a traffic generations method....

[dbarnum]

- Call people are on your targeted lists or reach out via chat (Skype = best).

- Follow up with email marketing (and print postcards, if possible - very affordable, made from your PC / MAC & printer -- just pay pennies for postage).

- Get tons of free tips, counseling via email and even for more ideas from the SBA, starting with this helpful list from them:

http://movingaheadblog.com/2008/04/2...ds--sales.aspx

[Mike Williams]

I think everyone left out the best traffic source out there.
It's free. It's high quality. It's pretty darn easy to get it once you get the idea and it grows and grows the more you do it and there's really not limit to how much it can grow.
You can see hundreds of thousands of hits in a day if you do it right.

Did you guess it?

I'm talking about joint ventures.

[lpstoops]

Originally Posted by Mike Williams

I think everyone left out the best traffic source out there.
It's free. It's high quality. It's pretty darn easy to get it once you get the idea and it grows and grows the more you do it and there's really not limit to how much it can grow.
You can see hundreds of thousands of hits in a day if you do it right.

Did you guess it?

I'm talking about joint ventures.

That's a great point, but Joint Venture will be very difficult for the new online marketer to get. Would you like to explain the best way to go about this for anyone interested?

[Mike Williams]

Originally Posted by lpstoops

That's a great point, but Joint Venture will be very difficult for the new online marketer to get. Would you like to explain the best way to go about this for anyone interested?

Sure!

Go up the ladder. That means to start with small marketers with small lists. You want to do an adswap. But your list is non existent. So offer services in exchange for a mailing e.g. 30 articles for a mailer (you can even outsource the articles). Do this a few times to build your own list. Then once your list has grown you can start approaching bigger marketers without having to do any services, just an ad swap. I mail to my list, if you mail to yours.

Make a goal to get 2 new JV partners each week and you'll soon be getting more traffic than you can handle.

Getting JV partners is just like getting customers. Don't expect a 100% conversion rate. Approach 100 and get as many as you can. Also if someone is really worth pursuing, don't give up. Send an email. Then a Twitter. Then a Fedex letter. Then a fax. Keep trying different modes of communication and keep trying to improve your message so its making it an irresistable offer for the guy or gal and eventually you'll get 'em.

[PatriotsFan84]

Being on the first page of google for your targeted keywords!

This will get you an AVALANCHE of traffic!

[lpstoops]

Originally Posted by PatriotsFan84

Being on the first page of google for your targeted keywords!

This will get you an AVALANCHE of traffic!

Great! That's the idea...but that's not a method, that's a goal.

[hummi]

he pretty much summed it up =x

[livingdreams]

Traffic, Traffic, Traffic! How do we get it? There are lots of possible ways to get traffic. All you need is to look at this list for your reference and check if you have done any of this yet.

Free methods:
Submission to SE's and directories
Article marketing
Email campaign
Forums, blogs and board postings
Social Bookmarking Etc. etc.

Premium ways: (Should require a budget)
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Targeted Link backs
Professional SEO services
Ad spaces
Offline campaigns Etc. etc.

Random and unique traffic is good to any site but getting targetted traffic is what makes the difference. This kind of traffic yields the highest conversion which would determine your site's success. Given a budget, I would always opt for PPC. PPC is a very effective way of getting targetted traffic given the proper treatment. Identify your niche and select the market you want to cater to and start from there. Research also on the keywords your desired market would most likely be looking for. IMO, one should be more focused on getting targetted traffic than just page views. Buying targetted link backs are also effective at getting targetted traffic. It really all boils down to what your site offers to your traffic.
Notes: Bottom Line - Make your offer Irresistable!

• PPC (use keywords that's generating traffic...my lil secret)
• Offer FREE giveaway (the first 100 people...to my lil secret)
• Know Your Customers...give away Free Videos showing how to generate FREE Traffic...know how's
• Offer Irresistible Valuable Training, Genuine help...No HYPE! No BS

With all this you will not only get FREE Traffic, but you may meet some friends!

[Ken Preuss]

Originally Posted by Mike Williams

I think everyone left out the best traffic source out there.
It's free. It's high quality. It's pretty darn easy to get it once you get the idea and it grows and grows the more you do it and there's really not limit to how much it can grow.
You can see hundreds of thousands of hits in a day if you do it right.

Did you guess it?

I'm talking about joint ventures.

THANK YOU!! It's amazing to me that so few people here talk about the power of joint ventures.

JV's are the THE reason I've been able to consistently do mid-five figures per month. It's not rocket science folks!!!

1) Figure out who is already buying stuff
2) Figure out what they're already buying
3) Figure out the list owners who are already selling it to them
4) Create something valuable that compliments what customers are buying
5) Work with the list owner and sell it to their customers

That's it. Traffic AND profits at the exact same time. What could be better than that?

Ken

[Dave Allen]

I would say...

1) Your own affiliate program
2) Joint ventures
3) Press releases
4) Viral reports
5) Video marketing

[affiliateppc]

Your own product:

1. Affiliates. Nothing can beat an army of affiliates promoting your product. If you have a solid product and a good offer that converts, your affiliates will do all the work for you. They will make use of all the methods mentioned above to generate traffic and other methods you will never think of.

2. Joint Ventures. Instant, targeted traffic.

If you are an Affiliate:

1. PPC Traffic. Yes it will cost you money and there is a learning curve involved. But if you master PPC, nothing comes close. It's instant, it's targeted and it converts.

2. Social PPC Traffic via Facebook. I am still testing this one, but early results are very positive. Facebook allows very tight targeting and the traffic converts.

Other traffic methods I also use but never do myself (I always outsource these):

Yahoo Answers.

Ask the question yourself, and with a different account, answer the question with a link to your site, log back in to the other account and rate your answer as the best. A little "grey hat", but it works for me. Don't spam.

Videos.

Distribute videos to video sites like Youtube and others. Make video
replies to other related videos on Youtube. Always link back to your site.

Ezine Ads.

Solo Ads in targeted ezines. (Still works for me)

Forum promotion.

Make posts in relevant forums with link in sig, don't spam

Blogs

Comments on related blogs. Leave a link in comment. Don't spam

Classified ads.

Free and paid classified ads. Post ads to a list of sites twice a day, every day.

Those are some of the basics and should get you started

AffiliatePPC

[lpstoops]

Originally Posted by livingdreams

Traffic, Traffic, Traffic! How do we get it? There are lots of possible ways to get traffic. All you need is to look at this list for your reference and check if you have done any of this yet.

Free methods:
Submission to SE's and directories
Article marketing
Email campaign
Forums, blogs and board postings
Social Bookmarking Etc. etc.

Premium ways: (Should require a budget)
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Targeted Link backs
Professional SEO services
Ad spaces
Offline campaigns Etc. etc.

Random and unique traffic is good to any site but getting targetted traffic is what makes the difference. This kind of traffic yields the highest conversion which would determine your site's success. Given a budget, I would always opt for PPC. PPC is a very effective way of getting targetted traffic given the proper treatment. Identify your niche and select the market you want to cater to and start from there. Research also on the keywords your desired market would most likely be looking for. IMO, one should be more focused on getting targetted traffic than just page views. Buying targetted link backs are also effective at getting targetted traffic. It really all boils down to what your site offers to your traffic.
Notes: Bottom Line - Make your offer Irresistable!

• PPC (use keywords that's generating traffic...my lil secret)
• Offer FREE giveaway (the first 100 people...to my lil secret)
• Know Your Customers...give away Free Videos showing how to generate FREE Traffic...know how's
• Offer Irresistible Valuable Training, Genuine help...No HYPE! No BS

With all this you will not only get FREE Traffic, but you may meet some friends!

This is remarkable information for any level of marketer. Know your budget, and whether or not you can afford to have one to start off. Know your customers, make them a priority to making the sale (this will take you a long long way), and don't give up if you're not seeing immediate results!

Thanks for your great words.

[lpstoops]

Originally Posted by Ken Preuss

THANK YOU!! It's amazing to me that so few people here talk about the power of joint ventures.

JV's are the THE reason I've been able to consistently do mid-five figures per month. It's not rocket science folks!!!

1) Figure out who is already buying stuff
2) Figure out what they're already buying
3) Figure out the list owners who are already selling it to them
4) Create something valuable that compliments what customers are buying
5) Work with the list owner and sell it to their customers

That's it. Traffic AND profits at the exact same time. What could be better than that?

Ken

This is also well spoken. I feel that many new marketers are afraid to approach list owners because there's a stigma cast upon them as the untouchable guru's, when if fact, there are many marketers that have a healthy list of active buyers, and their totally human, just like you...don't under estimate yourself!

[lpstoops]

Originally Posted by affiliateppc

Your own product:

1. Affiliates. Nothing can beat an army of affiliates promoting your product. If you have a solid product and a good offer that converts, your affiliates will do all the work for you. They will make use of all the methods mentioned above to generate traffic and other methods you will never think of.

2. Joint Ventures. Instant, targeted traffic.

If you are an Affiliate:

1. PPC Traffic. Yes it will cost you money and there is a learning curve involved. But if you master PPC, nothing comes close. It's instant, it's targeted and it converts.

2. Social PPC Traffic via Facebook. I am still testing this one, but early results are very positive. Facebook allows very tight targeting and the traffic converts.

Other traffic methods I also use but never do myself (I always outsource these):

Yahoo Answers.

Ask the question yourself, and with a different account, answer the question with a link to your site, log back in to the other account and rate your answer as the best. A little "grey hat", but it works for me. Don't spam.

Videos.

Distribute videos to video sites like Youtube and others. Make video
replies to other related videos on Youtube. Always link back to your site.

Ezine Ads.

Solo Ads in targeted ezines. (Still works for me)

Forum promotion.

Make posts in relevant forums with link in sig, don't spam

Blogs

Comments on related blogs. Leave a link in comment. Don't spam

Classified ads.

Free and paid classified ads. Post ads to a list of sites twice a day, every day.

Those are some of the basics and should get you started

AffiliatePPC

I really appreciated the fact that you outlined different elements of traffic generation for product owners and affiliates.

If you're just starting out, or have been affiliate marketing for a little while, then keep in mind, product launches for your own stuff will be a very profitable endeavor eventually. AND, it's not that hard to make your own product with valuable content.

[lpstoops]

Originally Posted by DonaldOng

my personal opinion is:

1) JV
2) Video Marketing
3) Articles
4) Social Marketing - twitter
5) Forum Marketing

cheers,
Donald

YES, Twitter is becoming a very powerful tool.

[ArTsYwRiTeR]

Email marketing is one of the best shot.

[lpstoops]

Originally Posted by ArTsYwRiTeR

Email marketing is one of the best shot.

If you already have a list

[Jeffrey Louis]

1. Article Marketing
2. Video Marketing
3. Ebay - classifieds - The most I pay for advertising
4. Blogging
5. These 4 lead to email marketing.

[mjbmedia]

Bearing in mind this is written with the newbie reader in mind (but we cant be as detailed as we'd like to as its a forum not a website per se) so:-

If you have your own product

Get your squeeze (opt in ) page set up using autorespondergenerator.com as a means of collecting your visitors details, just get something up and you can test and improve it once its up,
Dont wait until its perfect, TAKE ACTION NOW!

1) Affiliate marketing go to clickbank (start off there as its the best one for beginners and youll have good feedback as to whether you and your product are on the right track.) then try other sites too once youre sorted.
Make sure your landing page (the page the visitors are sent to) is set up to include the majority of keyword and phrases that will be searched for.
Contact and assist your affiliates, tell them what the best keywords are for your product and page, include longer tail options too, supply them with info that you know works for your market (as experience allows)

2) Giveaway JVs produce a book or report or video, something giving excellent information (how to....... is good ) that will work alongside your main product but that you can give away to build your list.
Often at giveaway JVs its more like swapping your free reports etc and getting more people onto your lists.
Now while these may not be perfect or highly targetted, remember the people on your list dont have to become your customers, they can become your affiliates instead and end up making you much much more than if they were just a customer.

3) Design a great signature file that you can use in all the forums you frequent (especially of course the ones targetting your market) that links to your squeeze page so when you give out some quality free advice, hopefully people will be so impressed theyll visit your site.
This is a numbers game but also use the sig file in your blogs replies and articles feedbacks etc keep it positive and relevent.

4) Article marketing - Ok the easiest way for beginners is to write the articles yourself from your existing knowledge or farm it out via elance or on here etc.
Or you can use some public domain materials (search on google ) relating to your target market (also use other peoples articles etc) and formulate what you read and learn into your own words.
Remember people who write books, especially factual information books, couldnt possibly know everything that theyve written, theyve all taken a lot of info from others and worded in into their own style, so you can do the same.

5) Social marketing all the social sites mentioned previously , Twitter, just chat about what youre doing , keep it relevent and on topic , dont bore people with needless drivel.
EG no one wants to know youve just had a bath, but they will want to know youre working on your next report, and when you tell them two great bits on related info youve just discovered youll gain more followers and so on and so on.
Point here, make sure you also follow them, this is important , just ask Obama!
If you follow them you get their feedback and you see their queries and get to learn what their problems are and hey presto, you can market a solution to them.


If you are an affiliate you still want your own opt in page and drive your affiliate traffic there first, collect their contact details then link them to the site your earning commission from, that way as well as potentially earning commission youre also building your own business.
Also this enables you to get better results from any PPC you do as you can set up your own page and know what the best keywords are to gain lower click thru charges. But ok this may be gettign a bit too deep for this threads purpose.
The 1-5 still relates to you really and ideally, if after collecting enough contact details you see the market is responsive enough to give a worthwhile return on your investment of time and money, you really want to develop your own product line.

But whatever, you have to focus and take action, do something , then learn and grow, do NOT try to learn everything before doing something, you'll never get moving!

[Leanne King]

Okay here's my five:

Make a free report and submit to the ebook directories
make a conduit toolbar and submit to the software directories
bookmark your articles, posts, and anything else and theme your bookmarking accounts
tweet regularly
submit your blog to blog carnival and blog design directories (if they look hot)

Leanne

[mjbmedia]

Originally Posted by radiohead

why didn't you menatiuon organic S.E and PPC?

Persoanlly I haven't seen much good traffic from social sites. No offence but 99~% of peopel hanging around them are not in for business. I don't waste my time there.

S.E. J.V. Ezine,articles. P.P.C.

yeh thats right focus on the negative rather than all the good stuff in there

The original post was asking for free and quick/easy for newbie neither of which id rate PPC (free?) or SEO (easy for a newbie?) in.
Re the social sites, if know where to look and what to do, you may get better results, but at least a newbie can get started in there and learn as they progress. no offence taken.

[mjbmedia]

Sorry, did you not notice the wink ? meaning the comment was tongue in cheek.

Suggest you read what the original post was requesting and respond to that, then youd see why SE isnt in there,= its not easy for newbies. So thats why it wasnt in there.

please notice the big cheesy grin.

[lakelover]

I have a question on article marketing. I found a great product, high gravity, hungry market. I wrote 18 articles and submitted them to several directories, and everyone says that I need to write about 10 more. The ebook I am promoting is 67 pgs long, and I have written about everything in the book, and I am have a mind block on what else to write. It seems like everyone else just says the same thing over and over, changes the title and mixes up the words a bit. Is this what I need to be doing in order to generate the number of articles that everyone says I need to write.? To me, I do not feel right inside doing this, I want my articles to be of value and interesting to read, and if I am just repeating myself over and over again I don't feel like I am doing this. Am I over analyzing the situation?

I am an overly honest person, and I have found this does not always work in my favor.

Any suggestions?

[mrtest]

I think the good content will bring the best result in long term.
Choose your favorite article and do it.

[jbsmith]

Ok - now for the REALLY important question...why is almost nobody doing this effectively?

The top 5 traffic generation methods have been known for more than 5-years (with the exception of some Web2.0 stuff which has come along just recently) - it's far from a secret and yet the question comes up again and again, like there should be some MAGIC answer.

So, why ask when most people already know the answer?

Is the issue knowing HOW to do these things effectively or is it the kick-in-the-butt to actually DO them consistently?

Suppose the answer is both, but ACTION is the really big issue here, not which technique to use.

Jeff

[Rod Cortez]

In no certain order:

1. Obtaining organic results by building an authority site by providing original, high-quality, useful content (most people ignore this route because of the work involved but if you choose the right niche and right set of keywords you can flip the website for a high six figure profit). Once you've got a system down that works you can outsource everything.

2. Paid Adversting - PPC is only one form out of many. One of our very own Warriors buys billions of banner impressions and is laughing all the way to the bank. He started out small and then ramped it up.

3. Becoming a radio guest - Check out radiopublicity.com and see how this young man sold a pretty simple ebook and made over 1.5 million in sales. The Chicken Soup guys used radio as a way to market their books. I've only begun doing this and the amount of traffic this generates is simply staggering.

4. Joint Ventures - Enough has been written about this one and a huge component of JVs is building relationships. I got my first big JV by simply joining one of the guru's lists and emailing him with feedback, articles, and proving to him that I was a serious marketer.

5. Adding Viral Components to Everything You Do - I could write a long book on just this one thing. Here's one example: a few years ago I took one of my niches's newsletters and made one simple change. I converted each newsletter into a PDF document and offered it as a free download along with text broadcast and encouraged my readers in the PDF document to share it with their friends. It took about 5-7 issues of this bi-weekly newsletter, but my opt-ins increased by 40% by doing this one simple thing.

Since then I've added a few more twists such adding an RSS feed and submitting it to RSS directories and what not. I'm still amazined at how many websites I go to and they virutally have no viral components in their marketing.

Somtimes success is just a matter of doing that one extra thing that the competition couldn't be bothered with.

RoD "Time-For-My-Quintiple-Ice-Capiccino-Shot!" Cortez