9 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Site and Increase Sales
My name is Randy Flaherty and I’ve been involved in Internet Marketing for several years now. Not only have I experimented with different techniques myself, but I’ve studied and taken many courses on how to build and drive traffic to websites. I believe that this market is changing all the time and it is up to Internet marketers to stay on top of those changes and adapt and tweak websites to better target customers.
I’ve seen many websites that offer a good product or service, but because the right work isn’t done to drive traffic to the site, no sales are made. Too often, companies believe that because they build a website, people will come. But with all the competition and as many websites as there are now, that is simply not the case.
That’s why I’ve put together this short report with some tips for simple and cost effective ways to drive traffic to your website. I know your time is valuable, so this is a brief overview of marketing efforts that require minimal work for a big impact on traffic and sales. You are free to pass this report along to anyone you like, I only ask that you don’t alter any of the information contained in it.
1. *Set up an Ebay Store*
You can start and maintain an Ebay store for as little as about 20 dollars per month. Depending on your product and its cost, this is a great way to make sales for 2 reasons. You only have to write the content listing once and then tweak it from then on. You can keep using the same listing over and over again to make sales.
Ebay is a great way to gain the trust of customers that may have been apprehensive about buying from you before. Think about it this way, are you completely willing to give out your credit card number to some website for a product you didn’t know existed 5 minutes ago? Probably not.
You’ve probably at some point or another purchased from Ebay. You know that if you aren’t satisfied you can usually get a refund or there’s the feedback option, which gives the buyer some peace of mind. Once a customer purchases from you, usually a low-ticket item, they will be more likely to buy from you again and a higher priced item.
Someone searching for your product may not have stumbled upon your website, but because your product is on Ebay, they have found you. You should make your user name the same as your website domain. So, for example, it your website is www.widgets.com you would make your user name on eBay widgets.com or widgetsdotcom as Ebay may not allow you to use a .com name.
2. *Use Google Adwords*
Adwords are great to drive traffic to your site. If you’ve every used google for a search these are the small ads that appear in the column to the left or the right hand side of the page. Sometimes you see these on sites with a lot of content. And it usually says “Ads by Google” on the top column. The way these ads work is that when you click on one of the ads, it takes you to a website. The owner of that website then pays google for that click. Keywords can be as little as $.05 and as much as $6 per click. This is known as Pay Per Click.
You can pay for these clicks as little as $.05 per click. The cost per click is determined by the keywords you are targeting. So, you need to know how to choose the right keywords. Naturally, the most popular keywords, are the most expensive. If you go after the most popular keywords, you could be paying much higher prices than you need to be.
For example, if you simply do a search in google for “pens” you will come up with many, many results and many, many ads. There are about 6 million searches a month for the word “pens” but only 1000 for “fashion pen”. So, if you are selling a designer pen then you could bid on that keyword at a much lower cost and have relevant traffic coming to your site.
For keyword research, you can go to the following site:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Also, did you know that adwords now work at the local level? Yep, that’s right. That means lower competition and lower cost for you. So, if your users are strictly in a local market, this is a great way to get traffic to your site.
3. *Make and Upload Videos to You Tube* :-)
Have you ever noticed that when you search for a phrase, many times the search results will include a video from You Tube? You Tube is hugely popular with search engines.
The great thing about You Tube is that is free to upload videos and keep them up there. And, You Tube videos need not be completely professional. In fact, they will look more “real” if they are not professionally done. This site is more about real people posting their own content.
Almost any product or service could benefit from having their own video on You Tube. Many consumers, after viewing a helpful or insightful video will click through to your site. You are allowed to put your website in your resource box of your profile. If you go to You Tube, you’ll see this in the top right hand corner.
4. *Article Marketing* :-)
What exactly is article marketing? Article marketing is providing useful information via (you guessed it) an article. This article is contained on an article directory site that has topics on all sorts of topics.
The idea behind article marketing is to write many (20-40) articles on a given topic. Articles should be 400 to 600 words in length. The search engines seem to like this length the best.
By posting this many articles, this enables you to become somewhat of an expert on the topic. And in your signature, or your resource box, you list your website. Users looking for more information will most likely visit your website, to see what more information on the topic you have.
Also, anyone can take this article and use it on their website or newsletter, etc, etc, if they so desire, however, they MUST give you credit. So, do you see the potential? The more useful, informative articles you write, the more exposure you website has.
For an example of what I’m referring to, visit the site ezinearticles.com.
5. *Forum Posting* :-)
Forums exist to allow assist users of the same or similar products to exchange information. Forums are well-respected by consumers and end users. This is because, for the most part, forums are independent and not “owned” by a company. So, they have a reputation for being genuine and honest in terms of the advice people can get from them.
If you are able to post meaningful and useful information for consumers than you can easily drive traffic to your site in your signature. I’ve used this method of driving traffic to my blog. Some of the days where I’ve gotten the most traffic was a direct result of forum posting. Forum posting is especially useful when you are relatively new to the web.
The way NOT to approach forums is to simply post your website in the forum without providing some sort of useful information. Not only do forum readers pick up that you are only trying to drive traffic to your site, but it infuriates them. It is also a great way to get banned from future postings in forums. I have my blog set up so that I must approve all comments. If I see that someone doesn’t write anything but just posts a link to their site, I immediately delete it.
6. *Web 2.0 Marketing – Facebook, Twitter* :-)
Facebook and other social media platforms are a great way to drive traffic to your site. Why? You can start a group or fan club for your site and more and more people will have exposure to your site.
Once your group is started, you can invite others to join. The way Facebook seems to work is that users search their friends’ profiles for other friends and which networks or groups they are a part of. They tend to join these groups as well, not wanting to be “out of the loop” so to speak.
Facebook has become a way of life for many of us. Yes, I include myself in that group. I’m on Facebook several times a day. And while it’s true, it can be an enormous time waster, it can also be a useful marketing tool, the user just has to be disciplined enough to use it that way.
7. *Email List* :-)
It is really important to have an email list. Here’s why: You want to communicate regularly with the people who visit your site. The more communication you have with your visitors, the more likely they are to get to like you and trust you. If they like you and trust you, they are more likely to buy from you. If you have their email you can keep in touch with them and give them special sales offers.
You are losing sales if you don’t have an email list. If you have a product to sell, than somehow someone stumbled on to your website. Once they leave, they may have the intention of coming back, but forget about your site or the web address. How often having you been surfing the net, and found a great useful site, but navigated away from it and forgotten all about it? If you collect visitor’s email address, you can keep in touch with them on a regular basis.
The other good thing about having an email list is that they are more likely to see your message. You aren’t relying on them to take action and come back to your site. You are sending them a message delivered right to their inbox, which gives you better exposure.
The tricky thing about having an email list is getting people to sign up. You’ll get some subscribers by asking them to sign up to receive special offers, but many consumers are very hesitant to give out their email address as they are concerned with getting spammed.
What I do, is to offer a free book in return for them signing up for my newsletter. This is in a pdf format so there is no printing or mailing involved. It is set up on an autoresponder through my email marketing service to be emailed to each new subscriber.
It is recommended communicating weekly with your list. I do that. If you don’t communicate regularly with your list, they will forget about you, and quite possibly unsubscribe from future emails.
Cost for maintaining an email list is less than $20 (less than 500 subscribers). You absolutely want to use an email marketing service and not try to manage this yourself. The last thing you want is a consumer saying you sent them spam. Also, if you try to manage the list yourself, the internet providers, like AOL, Yahoo, and Google may put your email in the spam box automatically when they see that it was part of a mass email. Using email marketing services avoids this as most are respected by Internet providers.
While there are many email marketing companies around, the one I use and recommend is Aweber. They have been around the longest and I have found them to be the most reliable and have great delivery rates. I can track how many emails were opened, and how many links were clicked on, etc. To find out more information about Aweber visit their website.
8. *Join Affiliate Programs*
There are people who make their entirely living by selling other people’s products. Yes, you read that right. They don’t have any product of their own, but sell other people’s stuff and make a good living doing so. Sales people that work on commissions are the most common form of affiliate sellers.
If you have a product to sell, you can join and affiliate program and have affiliates selling your products and only pay out about 10% commissions. That is a small price to pay to increase your sales. One of the most popular sites is commission junction. Check it out and you’ll see they sell just about everything under the sun. Sign up and you’ll have lots of affiliates selling your product on your behalf.
Is it better to go with an affiliate program rather than trying to manage an affiliate program yourself? Absolutely. If you try to run your affiliate program yourself, you have the burden of attracting new sales people, but by joining a program like Commission Junction, you have affiliates ready and waiting to promote your products.
Also, how will you track which affiliate sells what? How will these sales people know they can trust you to pay them their deserved commissions? A reputable organization like Commission Junction automates all of this.
9. *Addition of Shopping Cart (E-commerce) Program*
Consumers want to buy products without having to send you an email or have any interaction with you. That is one of the things that consumers love about websites. With only a couple clicks, they can have a product being shipping to them. Sites that make this process very simple do well. Just think about Amazon.com.
That is why you need a shopping cart program and a way to collect money from them if you are selling physical products. There are many resources available for this. If you’ve ever sold a product on Ebay, you know that paypal has made this process much easier.
The company I recommend for your shopping cart is called 1 Shopping Cart.
• You don’t have to have a merchant account to accept sales.
• It is fairly easy to integrate with an existing website.
• The cost is less than $30 per month
You can find out more about them by visiting their website by clicking here.
I hope you have found the information in this report useful. If you are new to internet marketing, it can be a bit overwhelming. If your intention is to handle this yourself, I recommend familiarizing yourself with one technique and then moving on to the next, otherwise, it came seem too much to handle all at once.
I would love to assist you in bringing your Internet Marketing efforts more in line with your goals. I have 10 years Marketing experience in Consumer and Business to Business marketing. My website, Atlanta Restaurant Blog, is one of the top Atlanta Dining blogs, attracting about 9,000 visitors a month. Please check it out for examples of my website development, writing, and affiliate marketing work.
Good luck!
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