Before I lay out 12 traffic sources to consider, let’s expand on that point, because it’s important (traffic is an important part of the equation)….
You see, before we begin to actually drive traffic, there should be a clear strategy in place that focuses on what you will do with that traffic (think conversions).
Also, just because there are numerous ways of generating traffic, it doesn’t mean we should implement all of them – at least not initially. So, as I outline some strategies to generate more and more traffic to your website, keep the following in mind:
Type of traffic – Are you going to focus on Time-Spent or Money-Spent? Time-spent strategies will not cost you money, but they will cost you time – so it’s not entirely free. Money-spent strategies can get you traffic more quickly (almost immediately), if you have a marketing budget.
Focus – on a single traffic strategy until you are getting consistent results and have mastered that strategy. You’ll want to track and analyze all your traffic to determine the best sources for you and scale your efforts once you understand your numbers.
Conversions – Understand exactly how many visitors turn into a subscriber (lead) or a customer.
On that note, here’s an overview of some traffic sources you can implement into your overall traffic strategy, in no particular order…
1. Document Sharing
Online document libraries allow you publish and share documents such as eBooks, presentations, articles, reports, etc. If you share documents with quality content in these libraries, you can develop a following and generate a steady flow of traffic to your site. On some of these sites, you can even sell your content and generate some income at the same time…
The cool thing about using this strategy is that you can simply re-purpose your own content. For example, if you have an awesome blog post that has generated some interest on your blog, you can take that content, convert it to a PDF document or presentation, and submit it to a document library. At the end of the document you share, you can include a call to action by pointing readers to another piece of content or a specific site.
Another cool thing about this strategy is that your traffic could be very targeted. For example, if you have a blog about raising goats, and you share a document related to raising goats, then those who read your document and follow through to your website are likely to request more information from you.
Getting started is simple…
There are several sites where you can share your documents, but the best one’s I’ve used are Scribd and Slideshare.
2. Photo Sharing Sites
You can get some traffic to your website by sharing pictures. This traffic could be highly targeted (is used properly), and you could see sites like Flickr and Instagram as traffic sources on in your Google Analytics (or other stats) account.
Ultimately, one of your goals is to get plenty of photo views, shares, comments, and any other engagement/social-activity available on the site. Here are some basic tips you can use to accomplish that:
- Share awesome, attention-grabbing photos.
- Include a good title, tags, and other descriptive information with your photos (many people don’t do this).
- Connect with other users and grow a following.
- Join communities and interest groups.
- Comment on other user photos.
As with other social sites, the more involve you get, the bigger following you attract when you share interesting content. This can eventually lead to an increase in visitors from these sites…
Some of those sites include: Flickr, Instagram, Panoramio, and Photobucket. There are others, but these are some of the most popular ones out there. Then of course, there is Pinterest, but that’s an entirely different animal that deserves a separate discussion…
3. Content Publishing Sites
First, let me say that I’m a fan of putting content on your own blog or website. However, there are some benefits to publishing content on sites such as Squidoo or HubPages…
Similarly to Article Marketing, content on “3rd party” sites can give you exposure as an expert in your field, increased search engine visibility (due to backlinks) and also give you an opportunity to build a following on those sites.
As a traffic strategy, publishing content can help increase traffic in a number of ways.
HubpagesFirst, as I mentioned, you can gain increased visibility on search engines. This is one reason why writing “keyword-specific” content is beneficial. When potential prospects search Google, Bing or any search engine, your content from these sites (if ranked high enough) can lead to some targeted traffic…
(although, remember I said I’m a fan of content on your own site – that’s because you can cut out these “middle-sites” and publish highly targeted content on your own blog)
Implementing the strategy
If you’re going to use this strategy, the first thing you should do is create a plan. More specifically, determine what keywords you’re going to target (perhaps do some market research) and which content publishing sites you’ll primarily work with.
Once you’re comfortable with a particular keyword phrase or market, your strategy should focus on #1 providing value to your audience by creating quality content and #2 appealing to the search engines so your audience can find you.
For example, if you find that a popular keyword search phrase is “How to raise goats” then you know you can create various content (including articles, audio or video) to address this search phrase.
You’ll want to place your keywords strategically throughout your content. However, concentrate mostly on providing value and good quality to your reader. If your passion shows in your content, they will likely click-through to your call to action.
4. Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is an excellent way to build your exposure and share your expertise… Which can result in some good targeted traffic. The key is to do your guest blogging for a popular blog that is related to your niche. (note that guest blogging is not an effective strategy for SEO, as mentioned by Matt Cutts from Google)
The reason you should focus on a popular blog is because you’ll be capitalizing on their authority and their already-established trust with their readers – many of which could turn into your own followers.
Where to Guest Blog
A simple way to finding where you can submit a guest blog is by doing a quick Google search. Just search for the market you’re in plus the phrase “guest blog”. For example, if you’re building a business in the weight loss niche, you might search for “weight loss guest blog”. Another good phrase to search for would be “submit blog post”.
Most blogs that accept blog posts will have some general rules on how to do so. However, rather than submitting a blog post right away, I’d recommend that you first get involved on the blog by commenting and interacting (meaningfully) on several blog posts. Also, get a good feel for the kinds of posts that generate a lot of buzz on the blog and the various topics you can submit.
Once you’ve become an active user on the blog, then reach out to the owner with your idea for a guest post.
By posting your most awesome content as a blog post in a popular blog, you could definitely generate some good quality visitors to your website.
5. Article Marketing
Article marketing is still an effective and simple traffic generation strategy. I probably sound like a broken record, but I’ll say it again… the key is consistency and measuring results.
As the strategy suggests, the idea is to write and publish articles on article directories. You already know I’m a fan of putting content on your own site… but at the same time, re-purposing your content and publishing articles on other sites increases your exposure as an expert in your market, builds backlinks and, when done consistently, can generate traffic for you.
Of course, the articles you write will be relevant to the business or site you’re promoting. For example, if you have an Internet business focused on raising goats, then the articles you publish will all have something to do raising goats – not chickens.
As simple as it sounds, this is important because those who read your article are potential subscribers or customers who are going to visit your website after they read our article. If you write an article about chickens, and your site is about raising goats, they will immediately leave your site without any thought.
A Quick Article Traffic Primer. EzineArticles
When you write and publish articles on article directories you’re actually accomplishing several things at once. First, you are driving traffic to your website. This happens as a result of your article being available on the directory (if it’s a high traffic site) and also because the article should be indexed by search engines, making it easy for people to find and read.
If your article does get published by website owners, your reach will be expanded to a whole new target audience likely to click through to your site.
Note that the clicks would come from your author’s bio box at the end of your article. This is where you include a little bit about yourself, a strong call to action and a link to your website. Some article directories also allow you to include embedded links within the body of your article…
So article marketing enables you to build traffic in two very important ways. It creates links to your website, which could in turn improves your Search Engine Rank. And, it also improves your traffic because more people are coming across your content and clicking through to your website.
As I mentioned before, article marketing also helps boost your credibility as an expert in your market. When you provide valuable information to people looking for a solution or answers, you become a trusted resource.
How To Get The Job Done
The key to making the most of article marketing is to write great articles. Your articles should be easy to read, offer a benefit, and entice the reader to visit your site for more information. Here’s a few tips on how to do that:
Give your article an attention grabbing headline.
Use headings and subheadings to make your article easy to read. (Headings and subheadings are also the ideal place to position your keywords).
Focus on offering quality information. If you have trouble finding topics to write about, spend some time focusing on your prospect’s problems. What would they want/need to know to solve those problems?.
Make sure to include a link to your website.
Make sure to include a strong call to action.
Focus on article directories that meet your needs. There are many large scale article directories and these are great to use. However, you may want to also look for article directories that cater to your market/industry.
While this is a “free” strategy, it does take time to write articles and publish them on directories. So this is a “Time-Spent” cost. However, you can typically outsource the writing and even the task of publishing the articles.
Recommended article directories: EzineArticles, ArticlesBase, GoArticles
6. Forum Traffic
The idea of generating more traffic via forums is simple: Have a lead-sucking signature that builds curiosity and leads to your powerful content, and then become an active user on the forum.
Here are the 3 keys to making this strategy work for you:
Join a forum relevant to your industry.
Complete your profile and include a strong call-to-action signature.
Become active in the forum by providing valuable feedback and contributions on forum posts.
By regularly contributing to forum posts, you will increase your visibility and be seen as a valuable resource. More and more, users will click through the link in your signature to discover what other information, products and/or services you have to offer.
Because of the nature of how forums work (discussions by topic), this traffic could turn out to be very targeted for you. As such, you’ll want to direct traffic to a lead capture page, or (at a minimum) powerful content on a page that includes a subscription form – giving visitors the opportunity to subscribe to your content.
7. Press Releases
A press release is an effective way to generate buzz about an upcoming product launch, talk about an offer or simply share exciting company news. And, as you release more and more press releases with a link back to your website, you are not only creating backlinks, but you are also opening the opportunity to steadily increase traffic to your site.
Press releases are simply to generate and easy to distribute. However, you can also outsource the process of writing the press release, doing the distribution, or both.
Press Release
Generally, press releases can be distributed via free or paid channels. Either way, they can provide massive link exposure for you if they are distributed to numerous media outlets and press release directories.
When using this traffic strategy, consider the following important aspects of your press releases:
Headline: Arguably the most critical element of your PR, it provides a summary of your news/storyline in just a few words. As with any copywriting headline, the objective here is to immediately grab the reader by the neck and suck all of their undivided attention.
Sub-headline: Provides some more information about the news the reader is about read. Once you’ve grab their attention and curiosity with your headline, ensure that your sub-headline builds on that curiosity and excitement.
Introduction: You’ll want to cover the who, what, when, where, why and how. What’s the news? Provide clear and concise information that will flow into the rest of the press release.
Body: This is where you’ll go into your story and provide the full details. Depending on the type of press releases and the news you’re sharing, some of the components to include are quotes from company leaders or from customers, trends and statistics, and other assertions to backup the information on the press release.
Bio/About “Your Company”: Lastly, you’ll include information and background about you and/or your company. This is where you’ll gain visitors to your website, so you may want to provide some idea of the services provided by your company along with specific benefits.
As with any traffic strategy, the key is to be consistent in your use and measure the results over time. You will not see an immediate traffic jump when you begin to implement this strategy, but over time you’ll want to analyze your traffic and gauge the effectiveness of the PR’s you distributed.
8. Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking websites are used to store, organize, and also share bookmarks online. I do use StumbleUpon on occasion, but otherwise I personally don’t concentrate my efforts on social bookmarking. Nevertheless, it is a traffic strategy…
Some of the popular sites that fall into this category include: StumbleUpon, Delicious, Digg, Buzzfeed and Reddit. Of course, there’s a bunch of others that I could include here, but these are just a few of the more popular ones.
Most of the traffic you receive from these sites will be temporary and not targeted. As a result, visitors will likely bounce off quickly and subscribers may be far in between.
In general, the strategy is to join these sites and begin adding your bookmarks – making them part of your profile. In doing so, you can also add bookmarks to your own content, which could then be visited by other users. If you are going to employ this strategy, I recommend just focusing on a single social bookmarking site rather than trying to get involved with all of them.
An alternate strategy you can employ is to not join these sites at all. Instead, outsource the process and have someone add your content to social bookmarking sites on a regular basis. For some, this is may be a much more efficient strategy that can be implement quickly while being able to measure results using Google Analytics (or any other analyzer).Website Traffic
9. Video Marketing
Video marketing is super hot right now. Video has been shown to convert over and above the rate of conversion for standard websites, so leveraging video as a means to generate traffic to your website can definitely give you a boost.
At its most basic, the strategy is simple – create videos and publish them on video library sites such as YouTube or Vimeo. Although, if you’re looking to video as big part of your efforts, you’ll want to concentrate on the king of all video sites – YouTube.
There’s a number of approaches you can take to implement video as a traffic strategy. You could…
Create short & simple 2-5 minute how-to videos (keyword optimized).
Create compelling video presentations using Powerpoint slideshows.
Share viral videos on your own website, on a keyword optimized post.
Review and provide opinion on videos.
Whatever the approach, the keys are to provide value and to incorporate relevant keywords into the video’s title and description. Doing so will maximize exposure and provide almost immediate search engine authority.
Video MarketingTo choose the best keywords for your video, you’ll want to conduct some quick keyword research and find a keyword phrase with fewer than 40,000 results, so your competition isn’t so high that it would be impossible to rank.
Include your MAIN keyword in the title and also add it into the first line of your videos description. Also, make use of “tags” and include any additional keywords that relate to your market.
If you’re authoring videos, you’ll want to include a strong call to action in the video itself (in every single video you create) telling the viewer the URL of your website or what their next step should be.
While this section is not an extensive guide in creating videos or how to rank videos (I’m not expert at it), it should give you an idea of what to consider when implementing video as a traffic strategy. If you’re not experienced or comfortable with video marketing but would like to use it more, I’d recommend purchasing a video marketing course that will teach you how to do it properly. Just like with any other marketing technique, you can find video marketing training inside MLSP.
10. Pay Per Click
At its simplest form, PPC is a type of advertising where you pay an online advertising firm (such as Google Adwords or Facebook Ads) for every click on your ad (hence the “pay-per-click” designation). Generally, you place a PPC bid for a particular keyword or phrase that will cause your ad to be displayed. If you have a marketing budget, using PPC as a traffic strategy is one of the fastest ways to get targeted traffic to your website.
However, instead of jumping right into PPC, you’ll want to make sure you have a well thought-out strategy that includes a good selection of researched keywords and a sales funnel in place. Additionally, tracking and optimizing your campaigns is a critical aspect of maximizing your PPC results and effectively managing your budget.
In general, you’ll want to consider the following:
Continuously split test your ads so that you’re always running the ones that are most effective.
Find training material on how to write effective ads. You’ll want to make sure your ad copy is compelling enough to attract visitors.
Consider creating squeeze pages specific to your PPC campaigns (and split test your pages).
Track your conversions and understand how much of your spend turns into profit.
If PPC becomes your primary traffic source, consider various PPC providers so that your eggs are not all in one basket, so to speak.
Because you can bid on specific keywords or phrases, your advertising can be very targeted. On Facebook, particularly, you can target your campaign based on several attributes, such as what people like, their professions and their associations.
As your online marketing efforts grow, you absolutely should develop a budget to implement paid strategies such as PPC to generate and attract leads to your website.
11. Content Curation
Content curation is basically gathering content from various sources and presenting it in an organized fashion. As a traffic strategy, there are two main ways you can leverage content curation…
First, you can build a presence and submit your content on curation sites like Storify, Paper.li or Scoop.It. Doing so will help build your authority and – as you trickle in your content – it can become a good traffic source for your website.
A second strategy you can employ is to actually do content curation on your own site. If you’re using WordPress, then you can use a content curation theme and plugin such as Curation Traffic to publish content from around the web. This is a way to generate even more content for your blog, which can result in added SEO benefits and ultimately more traffic.
12. Pinging Services
Not exactly a traffic source… Rather, pinging services are a way to notify search engines, blog directories, RSS feed services, and others that you have new content on your blog.
By “pinging” a URL, you can increase the chances of your content getting crawled and indexed quicker, and ultimately achieve the goal of more traffic to your site.
Some of the popular pinging services include…
Keep in mind that overusing these services and constantly pinging a single URL can be considered SPAM and may actually have a negative impact on your listing. Hence, ping the services once and let them do their thing…
Bonus Traffic Strategy
Facebook Pages can be a hot source of traffic to your website. When you build a Facebook Page and generate a significant following, you can share your website content on the page, and create offers you can promote to send fans directly to your offering.
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