Direct Selling - Party Plan Moms: Grow Bookings - 21 Ways to Get More Traffic

 

21 Ways to

Generate More Traffic

 

 

Foreword

 

Hello! Thank you for your purchase of this guide, which will help give you some fun and creative ways to drive more online traffic to your site.

 

 

Traffic is more than a mass of people. It’s all about healthy flow and activity at your sites – the sort of activity that not only keeps your business and web presence alive, but really helps your sales grow… and grow.

 

And if you haven’t yet built your list, you’ll need to make sure you drive people to your sites – and keep them coming back again – with no lag or in the flow.

 

Here are 21 powerful strategies, to help you generate a steady stream of healthy traffic.

 

1. Never use an automated service for search engine site submission.

 

You’re wasting your money, and if your SEO submission company

indulges in any shady practices, you risk your site being marked and

exiled by Google for spamming!

 

The truth is, once your site makes it into the handful of top Search Engines – which happens quickly, if you know how to use keywords and optimize your blog or static site properly – the smaller search engines find out about it anyway.

 

Paying good money is not worth the “benefit” you might reap from an SEO

submission company submitting your sites to smaller search engines –

proportionately, these smaller search engines stacked against the big

guns like Google, MSN and Yahoo are roughly about the size of a flea on

a big dog.

 

2. Think of your headlines as if they were Twitter posts and your

opening paragraphs as if they were RSS feed summaries:

 

On Twitter you’ve got less than 2 seconds to make people decide if they

want to click… or pass. It’s the same with every sales page, landing

page, blog post or article you create:

 

With every headline or opening paragraph – you’ve barely got 2 seconds to grab your reader’s attention and make them curious enough to “engage” in a single line or two. To get a feel for creating this immediate interest and impact, go look at the summaries for some of your RSS feeds. See which ones feel punchy and make you want to read more – and which ones feel dull and incomplete.

 

The ones that feel dull and incomplete will be the ones with the slowest

starts. You’ll notice that these ones never get around to presenting the

hook – the summary ends before the author has meandered to the

point. So never, ever waste your first paragraph with “warm-up stuff”.

(And do put your keyword in your first line and headline, for blog posts

and articles!)

 

 

 

 

3. Use long tailed keywords as your site’s Page name or blog post Permalink.

 

Once you’ve carefully selected specific long-tailed keywords to use,

make sure you carry this through to the post permalink name or page

name. Search engines pay attention to titles.

 

4. Use Google Analytics to test your sales or landing pages.

 

It’s free – and provides complete instructions so that even beginners can

use it. And here’s a quick, easy way to calculate your conversion rate:

 

“If 5 sales result from 100 clicks = .50 in your stats, then your

conversion rate is 5%”

 

5. Only choose one component to test on any page.

 

You won’t be able to tell which change produced your new result, if you

change several components at once. Was it the new graphic? The new

header? The new headline? Adding those 2 testimonials?

 

You’ll never know, unless you test one change at a time. Focus on your headline – this is most often where the trouble lies – then when you’ve got that thoroughly tested and the best version decided upon, move on to

another page component.

 

6. Larger sites with more pages or resources command more

traffic.

 

It’s as simple as that. Search engine bots translate more pages as “more

value” – and so do people who like to visit. Minisites have their place –

but if you’re going to be using PPC on them, these Minisites need to be

beefed up for maximum search engines placement.

 

7. Check your logfiles to see what keywords are bringing in the

most visitors.

 

Do this when you access your cPanel through your file transfer protocol

(FTP) program to check your web statistics.

 

8. Be specific when bidding on PPC keywords.

 

Ways to be specific include using size, color, product names, component

names, and local area names in your keyword phrases. Using “specialty

shoe store” is virtually guaranteed to not only drown you in that bigger

general niche, but bring you no local customers. However, if you choose

a keyword like “Naturalizer AAA shoes Muskoka store”, it will hook

Muskoka residents browsing the net to find out their nearest shoe store

that sells Naturalizer brand shoes in triple A width walking through your

door in the next 15 minutes (providing you don’t actually live in

Albuquerque, New Mexico!)

 

9. Always use keywords or product names as your link names.

 

Never, ever resort to saying “Click here”. That’s so generic, it lowers the

quality of your links in Google’s eyes – and you need links coming in

from sites that are similar to yours in topic and content.

 

So instead of saying, “For more about joining my team, click here…” say “You’ll find more information on this subject by visiting my Benefits of Joining the Sally Smith Team page…”

 

(And speaking of Google, when it comes to websites, be sure to have cross-navigation throughout your site’s pages.)

 

10. Be diligent with Adwords when using them for PPC.

 

Use “phrase” and “exact match” when picking your keywords in the

Adwords Keytool. Read the new guidelines and be cautious, if you’re

new to Adwords: Bid on words that have some competition, but not too

much for actual advertisers. (Your indicator-at-a-glance is the degree to

which the little bars are filled with green on the Keytool page.) As for

number of exact Global monthly searches, between 1,000 and 9,000 is

probably going to be your best range (combined with searches on the

same word in quotes, with results under 200,000 in Google – the lower,

the better. The strongest keywords should show searches under

50,000.)

 

11. Do use social networking for traffic generation, along with

blogging and article marketing.

 

Remember to adapt your headlines and strategies for each platform – and always read the guidelines. Each platform has its own unique culture – and rules. Approach each platform by asking yourself the question: “What’s the best way to use this particular network to generate targeted, pre-qualified traffic – and get me some word-of mouth popularity points?”

 

12. Use Twitter – even if you use no other social networking platform.

 

The big reason? You can easily and instantly keep track of what brings

the most clicks – and is best for your traffic increases! By signing up

with Bit.ly (it’s free) you can use the Bit.ly service to shorten links for

your Twitter posts. Monitor the Bit.ly links you’ve created (which you

can easily do by keeping the Bit.ly page open in your browser during

your online session, and refreshing it now and then after you’ve created

and posted your link). This is possibly the fastest, simplest and most

helpful form of click-through tracking for brand new marketers, and will

give you a very good idea of what you’re doing right – and wrong!

 

 

 

 MAKE  YOUR SHOP A SUPERSTAR ON ETSY!

 

 

13. Create viral videos, mp3’s, Special Reports and eBooks.

Be sure to include content that will specifically benefit any key top

marketers you hope to approach as a JV partner. Your content needs to

appeal to their list (and yours), as well as enhance their status and

reputation. Make use of your competitors in this way – piggyback off

their success. (If your product is really perfect for their subscribers,

they’ll be surprisingly happy to cooperate.)

 

Promote your viral product offline, too (links on your business cards and flyers, and in local newspaper press releases and radio interviews you suggest to local radio show hosts.) Ensure that your viral product is exclusive, irresistible and can only add to your affiliates’ expert status. This means ensuring that your viral products are your best products – not a quickie knock-up of free PLR – which will impress no one except your mom (and she’s just pretending).

 

14. Start your own forum, focused on your best niche.

 

It’s a powerful way to generate targeted, highly converting traffic.

Forums are a lot of work to moderate and maintain, but if you keep your

focus on a specific, narrow area, you are less likely to pick up hundreds

of general-interest followers that you don’t want. You can add a forum

to your site using a free script like phpBB – or you can even just have a

private subscription area on your blog.

 

Yes, you will have to interact regularly – but if you know how to get the ball rolling, eventually members become their own little support group and will happily answer questions and provide information to each other before you have time to read the posts. You can then mostly monitor, and only jump in when a word from you or a sign of your presence is needed; or they haven’t yet provided themselves with an answer. The payoffs can be high indeed

when it comes to generating targeted traffic – not just on your forum,

but with the powerful “buzz” it will create in the internet marketing

community as a whole!

 

15. Consider using relevant Cross Promotions.

 

A “cross promotion” occurs when two marketers join up to provide

greater value to their mutual, specific niche market. It allows you to

share expertise by interviewing each other (audio, video and “paper”)

and sending emails about each other, providing each other, in the eyes

of your customers, with extra validation through endorsement.

 

You are also each creating a weighty testimonial for the other, since you are

both in the public eye. Both your lists benefit; and with the right

partner, it can be inspiring and fun for you as well as your subscribers.

It also naturally creates opportunities for a much softer sell, and those

who particularly dislike “pushing products” may find this a great

platform to adopt.

 

Some tips for success: Pick the right partner, and make sure you both know how all customer service issues are going to be covered – and who’s going to cover them. Yoke yourself with an equal, to paraphrase the Bible – you don’t want this loosely-structured partnership to be too uneven – or else the Celebrity is going to swoop off with the Bit Part player’s fans and profits. But by teaming up together, two Bit Part players can make quite a splash onstage, and come close to giving the Celebrity a run for his money – and siphoning a heavy flow of traffic.

 

16. Have a highly relevant next offer already waiting in the wings.

 

Book authors and actors know this one: Don’t just rest on your laurels

after you’ve got your product out. When you’re a “hot” property because

you’ve just launched a successful product or Freebie that’s the very time

to have your next offering ready to go – as well as an Autoresponder

loaded up with a carefully-planned series of emails designed to keep you

in your subscribers focus.

 

17. Buy expired domains that have evidence of traffic flow.

 

Very often, these are sites that people set up, but lost interest in – or

they’ve bought a domain name but never did anything with it. How can

a domain name with nothing on it draw traffic? That domain name is

most likely a powerful keyword. If it relates to your market, and it’s one

of these phantom domains – snatch it up! (If it does that well with no

content, what’s going to happen when you pack it and optimize it?)

These expired domains often already have a directory listing in Google

or Yahoo. A good place to start your search is at:

Expired Domain Services In The Yahoo Directory

 

18. Use Google Web Alerts.

 

This system allows you to monitor Google for specific word or URL

mentions. You can have the alerts monitor either your keyword, or a

competitor’s URL. The information arrives via email summary to your

feed or gmail account. You can choose to receive it weekly, daily or as it’s happening.

 

(You can also subscribe to Google News Alerts too, if you need to keep on top of the latest events.) If you’re monitoring your own URL via Google Alerts, you can see when an affiliate adds it to an online site. The more you track and keep your ear to the wire, the more accurate calls you’ll make when deciding on your next traffic-increasing campaign.

 

19. Give a free Teleseminar.

 

If you can get up the nerve to do it, giving a free Teleseminar is a great

way to make an incredibly strong connection with your target market.

Be sure to publicize it regularly in advance. Ask people to send you their

questions in advance, too (and keep asking in your Twitter Tweets,

emails and forum posts till the very last second. People need to hear

things several times, before it sinks in). Have a couple of friends

“planted” on the call, to ask you a question or two at the end, if you can

handle un-muting for a Q & A session. It doesn’t matter if it’s not a

sold-out event: The other people on the call will never know they were

one of a comparative handful. And at the very least, you can offer the

teleseminar recording and transcript as an opt-in freebie or bonus. Even

if you are nervous, the big reason you should seriously consider it lies in

the fact that hearing your voice speaking directly into the earpiece of the

phone will make an incredibly strong personal connection. They won’t

forget you, and they’ll trust you, if you’ve delivered the goods.
 

 

Are you a subscriber? Get FREE goodies and ACHIEVE more!

 

 

20. Become an instant author, and have a hard copy book to your

credit.

 

You may think this idea is startling, but nothing lends you credibility in

the eyes of the world like being the published author of a hard-copy

book. The fact that product fulfillment companies like Lulu or Cafepress

can print these on demand and ship them (with the ISBN number

included) makes this a seriously viable option for the single or new

marketer. Consider offering it for sale through Amazon.com.

 

21. Explode the power of eZine ads.

This advertising market is often overlooked, which can be a mistake. Not

only are eZine ads usually much less expensive than any other type of

paid advertising: If you put your ad in a highly relevant, targeted eZine

and use it as a viral lead generation tool, rather than a product seller, it

can pull in powerful traffic.

 

Give something away through your ad: A Special Report, eBook, script, Graphics package – whatever would have the most impact on your market. Do your best to make it your most appealing freebie (but of course, keep it highly relevant to your niche!).

 

Allow other people to pass it around, and make sure your product is

laced with links back to you, and a further opt-in offer inside. That way,

not only will you increase traffic directly through your eZine ad, but

you’ll get even more when your Freebie goes viral!

 

Disclaimer: The information contained in this guide is for reference only. The person who gave you this guide, and/or author, and/or publisher are not liable for any losses, actions or liabilities that arise from reading or using any of the information contained in this guide.