Tweet

Understanding How to Get Traffic

Guest post by: jon leuty

Article Overview: Hopefully if you are reading this you are already familiar with the term “Traffic” in relation to the Worldwide Web, and the utmost importance of being able to learn how to get traffic, more specifically “targeted” traffic to your website or blog in order for you to get your product or service in front of the people who are looking for it.

Understanding How to Get Traffic

Hopefully if you are reading this you are already familiar with the term "Traffic" in relation to the Worldwide Web, and the utmost importance of being able to learn how to get traffic, more specifically "targeted" traffic to your website or blog in order for you to get your product or service in front of the people who are looking for it. An awful lot of new marketers, and even some time served experienced marketers are far too easily intimidated by the task of generating targeted traffic and simply don't invest enough time into it, anyway that's the point of this article, to show you that with a little discipline it can be pretty straightforward really, and once you've mastered some of the techniques mentioned here and begun to understand the basic rules governing how people find websites, you will never again struggle for traffic generating ideas. (BTW, I don't really delve deeply into Social Media in this article as that is a separate subject in itself now what with the fantastic growth in the last few years of Facebook, Twitter etc, etc). There are certain rules, which govern the way traffic is sent and attracted to websites, the first one is "every thing is connected". Now you might be wondering what I mean by that last statement, but it's quite simple really, you see the internet consists of millions of Web servers, and whilst not all of these servers are connected directly to each other, they are inevitably linked within their own "mini nets" So what do I mean by "mini nets"? Well, people find websites generally in 3 different ways:-

•By inputting keywords to Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing etc.

•By clicking on links in articles or adverts on high profile and well known websites.

•By word of mouth - online (e.g. Social Media, mentions in forums or chat rooms) or offline (via business cards, stickers, classifieds, radio/tv etc)

So, almost everybody now knows of, or at least has heard of, Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, EBay etc, these are probably the most popular search engines right now, but there are countless others. However I am mainly going to be mentioning Google in this article, although when I am teaching people how to get traffic, the principles are generally the same whatever the search engine.

Google is quite often (85% at the time of writing this article) the first place most people go to when searching for something to solve their particular problem, so with such a high percentage you can see why I and many expert Internet Marketers focus so much of our attention on it, basically if you get it right with Google, the others will just fall into line.

However, sites like MSN or AOL are set by many as their home page, meaning that when opening up their browser this loads automatically. So this means that these sites are major hubs of Internet activity where many people may start their search, but because they are so heavily linked with other sources of information, can actually go to an almost unlimited number of destinations. You can start in a familiar place and keep clicking link after link until you arrive at a website you've never seen before, which brings me nicely to the next principle.

The next principle "All About Links" is pretty self explanatory, basically you get your Website URL on as many other related websites as possible, and you can do this as follows:-

•Advertising (purchasing Text or Banner ads).

•Creating content (Articles, Press releases, reports etc)

•Linking to your site via Blog commenting, Forum posting, Classified ads, Videos, etc)

The possibilities are really almost limitless, the point is that there are hundreds of possibilities out there, and the more links you have to related content the more search engine friendly your website will be, which of course equals more traffic.

Targeted Traffic

Now in order to make sales , you need contact with real people, who firstly are already looking for what you have, and more importantly are ready to take action on your offering, so this principle is all about generating targeted traffic to your website, after all if you are selling a Dog Training Product, it would be pointless attracting people who are interested in solving their Acne problem for example.

Traffic or Lead generation is both an art and a science and is generally accomplished by utilizing paid and free methods. Probably the bulk of your paid traffic will come from pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns - you can find more on this subject in some of my previous articles posted on my blog - that you can set-up on search engines like Google, and also from text and banner advertising you can purchase on niche specific websites. Free methods are generally content based which means using methods such as:-

•Article submission

•Press release submission

•Free reports

•Participating in forum discussions

•Social Networking (Facebook, Myspace, Twitter etc) See my many articles on this subject, by visiting my Blog.

Traffic generation is not too difficult if you apply yourself and learn the different techniques. If you apply the techniques and methods I mention you will get traffic, it's just a matter of time. Remember if you do nothing, nothing will happen, if you do a little, you will get small results. In the traffic generation game massive application of the correct methods produces massive results.

So how do you get targeted traffic? Well, lets first talk about keywords, since for you to attract the right kind of traffic you must understand your keyword selection and why it matters.

OK then, lets discuss what it means for a keyword, or set of keywords to be targeted. Take the keyword phrase "Buy an Iphone online" do you think you know what the person is looking for in this example? Of course you do, it couldn't be clearer could it?. So if you are selling Iphones from your website or blog, any advertising you did around this phrase should draw in some highly targeted traffic. However imagine if you advertised using the key phrase "Iphone repairs" but you did not offer Iphone repairs, then any traffic generated would be untargeted, because what your offering is not what their looking for.

So how do you know which keywords to use? Keyword selection is done during the initial market research, when you are homing in on a niche. At this stage you should begin to build a list of relevant keywords and phrases, which you will be able, to refer to later and use them as input in further keyword research to find even more targeted phrases.

The most important thing to remember with traffic generation is that it comes down to either time or money. Generally if you want fast results you will have to accept that you will pay for it monetarily, with either PPC or banner advertising, Free methods usually require more time and effort but can result in long term traffic. The best strategy is to utilize both, as you can generate a quick traffic boost with paid advertsing, whilst building your long-term traffic with the free methods.

Well that's it for this article, but please make sure you head on over to my blog and view all of my articles about specific traffic generation methods.

Related Articles
  Learn How To Generate Your Own Traffic Without Google Or Any Other Site
  Free Website Traffic Is Still The Best
  Should I Advertise On The Internet?
  Does Buying Website Traffic Actually Work?
  Can You Really Buy Traffic?
  Calculating ROI for SEO
  Things You Need to Know Before Buying Targeted Traffic for Your Website
  Should You Pay To Increase Traffic to Your Website?
  Increase Website Traffic
  Get Web Traffic With Creative Internet Marketing
  Setting Realistic Optimization Expectations
  How Do I Drive Traffic To My Website?
  Website Usability – what does it mean for your revenue?
  Search Engine Optimization Versus SMO (Social Media Optimization)
  The Best Keywords Ever for Your SEO Campaign
  Internet Marketing Tips To Increase Traffic To Any Business
  25 Ways To Drive Free Targeted Traffic To Your Website
  Four Ways To Take Advantage Of Website Traffic Spikes
  10 Free to Low Cost Traffic Techniques
  Article Marketing: An Article A Day Drives Web Traffic Your Way

Article Tags: facebook, how to get traffic, keywords, myspace, social media, traffic, twitter
Referred by: http://carboncopypro.com/



Related Forum Posts
Re: What are your May Goals? - Thanks Evan! I just changed one of my business goals from setting up a video site on Traffic-Geyser to: "Set up a newsletter email series (let's say 10 messages) on Get Response..." I reviewed Traffic Geyser in the latest episode of "David's Den" on my blog (see sig file), included an excellent video review of Traffic Geyser by John Detlif and decided against taking that particular project any further. Still lots to get done!
Re: Alexa Ranking Goals - LOL, I spoke too soon. Within a few hours of my post, Alexa updated the Traffic Rank on the toolbar. Note however that the 3 month Traffic Rank on Alexa.com has still not been updated...
Re: I'm A Winner!! - Thanks Tami and Ideasuniversity! Traffic is up. Forums are good places to get your message out. I also do quite a lot of article marketing and blogging etc. Still a long way to go, though, on every front!
Re: Who Said Twitter Doesn't Work...? - Hi Trent, I'd have to agree. I never intended to get deep into Twitter and rarely ever get on. Traffic is very minimal as you said, and I doubt that I'll ever make money with it unless I start getting paid to Tweet, and even then I'm not sure if that's worth it. Haven't looked into that yet, but it's definitely not even close to my main method of marketing for my business.
Re: What Do You Want To Be Taught? - Hi Jeff, Congratulations. Basically I think there is a need to discuss all kind of internet marketing methods, all leading to the big problem - Generating Traffic. My biggest challenge is time management, and tracking. I recently noticed that my tracking is lacking something, and i don't know what.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Top 5 Tips for Better Online Ads

Five Ways to Show Honest Appreciation

Emotional Intelligence in Business

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.