Proven, Fast & Easy Traffic Generation Methods

By Willie Crawford © 2005

One of the most perplexing questions faced by webmasters, especially those with new sites, is "How do I get traffic to my site?" Here are a few easy, inexpensive, and relatively fast methods I use to generate traffic.

1) Write and distribute ezine articles. This article you're reading right now will send visitors to the site mentioned in my resource box at the end of the article. You can do the same thing. Write articles on topics that you KNOW your target market is interested in, and then distribute them to ezine publisher and websites that publish others' content. People will read your articles, and if the articles provides value to them, they will visit your site to learn more. It's that simple.

The key to getting your articles published is to write something that provides genuine value to your readers. Actually teach them something. Potential publishers will see the value, and know that their readers will appreciate the articles...so they'll publish them.

The key to getting your articles READ is writing about something people want to know more about. For example, this article is about generating more traffic. Monitor any online marketing discussion forum, or email discussion list, and you'll see that EVERY webmaster is interested in getting more traffic. So, I know that this article will be read.

Writing articles that will be published is both an art and a science. However, you can become proficient at it fairly quickly. I've written over 350 articles in the past 4 years, so it's not that hard. The best system I've encountered recently on how to write and distribute effective articles is called Article Announcer. You'll find it at: http://TheRealSecrets.com/article-announcer/

2) Posting others' related articles on content sites. You can create a website around a very focused niche topic, and then post others' articles on that site. You can search article directories such as ArticleCity.com or IdeaMarketers.com and find thousands of articles others have written and give permission for you to use. Usually, article writers do this in hopes of generating traffic and sales from their articles.

You can search through these sites and find articles on your topic. Then you simply copy and paste them into your website template to create a site that will rank well in the search engines because the site is focused.

When I personally create these content sites, I use software to both locate appropriate articles, and to turn those articles into webpages. I have templates that are in my basic site layout. The software that I use can find dozens, or even hundreds, of articles and automatically insert these articles into the correct place on the page. It can even break up the articles, adding comments or AdSense ads in the middle.4

An example of one such site that I've created is at: http://cheapest-merchantaccounts.com On that site's homepage is a link to "Articles." Following that link will take you to literally over 100 articles related to merchant accounts and ecommerce. ALL of those pages were created in less than 5 minutes. I used a piece of software called Content SiteBuilder, found at a site called Content Desk. Basically I set up a template (inserting things such as my AdSense code, and links to affiliate products) and then I told the software where to put the articles. In a snap it output the article pages. Then I merely had to upload the pages to my server and link to them from my homepage.

"But does this generate traffic?" you ask. If you search on the term "cheapest merchant accounts" at Yahoo.com you'll see that this site ranks number 5 out of over 1 million pages targeting that term. If you continued digging, you'd discover that the number 1 site for that term is a blog that I own, and the number 2 site also belongs to me... it needs lots of work. All of these sites generate traffic... people looking for the lowest priced merchant account. So yes it does work. These visitors earn me revenue by either applying for the merchant account I recommend or by clicking on AdSense ads.

A key element in the success of the sites above is that I got them indexed quickly by linking to them from sites that were already indexed, and that were frequently visited by the search engines. I also didn't put a lot of time into building any of these site because of the Content Desk software. You can find out more about that software at: http://TheRealSecrets.com/content-desk/

3) I like free traffic, but often when a site is first erected, you need to use pay-per-clicksto get that initial surge of traffic. Articles and the other methods I use are SO effective that I'll only use pay-per-clicks if I'm in a hurry to refine the conversion rate. With pay-per-click traffic, since they are all responding to the same ad(s) you get more homogenous traffic. So it's easier to separate elements in your testing and determine what's effective. After refining the conversion process, whether or not I continue with pay-per-clicks often depends upon return-on-investment. I don't like to put a lot of time into managing a site!

4) Create viral tools. Rebrandable PDF special reports work well, especially if you have an affiliate program. If you don't have an affiliate program, you can create these same reports on hot topics, and s-e-l-l or give, the reprint rights to others. In these reports you include links to your "backend" products, or to websites you want to generate traffic to.

Key to the success of getting others to spread your viral tools is incentivizing them. Structuring your PDF document so that publishers and webmasters can profit from distributing it is the easiest way to do that. Money is a great incentive In fact, you can even structure your articles so that publishers profit from distributing them. The way to do that is simply to allow affiliates to substitute their affiliate url for yours in the articles.

If you don't run an affiliate program, you can even write articles for programs that you are an affiliate for. Then contact the affiliate program manager and offer to allow them to provide the articles to their affiliates. Since you are allowing their affiliates to change the url for that product (to their affiliate url), you need to have a link somewhere in each article that points back to your site too. Most affiliate won't have a problem with this if it's a good article. It's a win-win situation.

5) Just as you use PDF's to generate viral traffic, you can do the same thing with Camtasia videos. You can create short videos demonstrating how to do something, and then you make these available to publishers. Camtasia has a feature that allows you to automatically redirect the viewer to a specified webpage at the end of the video. You can either send them to your website, or you can create special videos for your affiliates that take the viewer to that affiliates url. The possibilities are endless.

To see an example of how I use Camtasia video to both educate and generate traffic, watch my video entitled "Secrets Of The Internet Marketing Titans." In this video I explain why top Internet marketers seem to have an "inner circle," and then explain how to break into that inner circle as a welcomed member. Because the video does educate, many ezine publishers are happy to tell their readers about it. You can view this video at: http://TheRealSecrets.com/titans/titans.html

6) Offer 5 to 20-part email courses to your website visitors. Often your website visitors who won't subscribe to an ezine will subscribe to a course. That's either because the course has a higher perceived value, or because the course covers a topic they're interested in more in-depth than an ezine would. In the course, you invite your readers back to your website for additional resources, to see how something is implemented, etc. This generates repeat visitors to your website and gives you many opportunities to convert that subscriber to a customer.

7) Publish an ezine or some type of list from your website. An ezine allows you to have repeated contact with a person who may otherwise never return to your site. As you build the relationship, you can offer them various reasons for returning to your site. As an example, I try to keep my ezine to a reasonable length. Things that I can't fit in my ezine - I post on my blog. So I invite my subscriber to return to my site to read those extra gems available only on the blog.

Publishing a list doesn't have to be hard work. For example, I publish a list from a cooking related site that is written entirely by my readers. It's a recipe exchange mailing list. Readers submit recipes or requests for recipes. These reader submissions are compiled into a twice daily digest that is edited for quality control and then sent out to the list. My editor inserts two sponsor ads in each issue. Those sponsor ads not only drive traffic to my site, they drive six-figure sales of a cookbook that I wrote.

The cooking list, written by the readers, creates such loyalty that if we ever miss a day of publishing, hundreds of readers write in to ask us to confirm that they haven't been dropped from the list. Some subscribers have been on this particular list for over 5 years. Aside from a little editing, the list is on almost total autopilot. You can check out how this list is set up by visiting my cooking site at: http://Chitterlings.com. You'll notice that the number one focus of the homepage is to build the list, so that we can generate the repeat traffic. It works beautifully!

So there you have seven ways to generate website traffic relatively fast, easy, and inexpensively. I even gave you examples that you can examine and model. Implement just a few of these ideas, and you'll get a nice steady flow of website visitors.

About the Author:

Willie Crawford has taught PROVEN Internet marketing techniques to thousands of successful Internet entrepreneurs since late-1996. Subscribe to his free, weekly ezine, which helps you cut through the clutter and time-wasting hype. Subscribe now by visiting: http://WillieCrawford.com