This is the big million dollar question that many marketers struggle with…
Where do you get good, affordable targeted traffic that will convert into an action or purchase?
What I have learned to do over the years is to always make sure I am getting traffic from several different sources
at the same time. Because in this industry traffic sources can change as to their effectiveness..Or dry up all together from factors not under your control..
So I make sure my traffic strategies include both free and paid traffic.
You basically have two ways to get your traffic, you either earn it through your efforts or you buy it.
Buying it of course is much faster, and your only limits are your own budget…
At this stage of the game for myself I prefer to just buy it, this gives me more time to spend doing other things, like traveling, hunting, fishing, camping and spending time with my family.
Automating as much of your internet marketing is the best thing you can do, so that you are not sitting in front of your computer screen 24/7..But at the same time for many people just starting out they do not have a large enough budget to begin with to just buy all their traffic.
Listed below are some of the traffic strategies I have used over the years..I have listed next to each one, the different options available.
1. Solo ads- You can do ad swaps with other marketers like through a site called safe-swaps. This is where you trade a solo ad to their list for them being able to send a solo ad to your list. Now safe-swaps you have to be a paid member of the site, in order to do swaps with other marketers. Other wise you would be left to search the internet yourself and go find someone willing to do a swap with you ( very time consuming). The good thing about safe-swaps is it is all regulated, meaning all clicks back and forth are all kept track of through the site, and members can rate other swappers..This is much better then trying to do it on your own.
Next there is purchasing solo ads from other peoples list outright, and in this way your not swapping with anyone. Some people like to do ad swaps, me personally I do not, I would rather just purchase a solo ad from someone else. I do not like sending offers for other people to my own list..So I only buy solo ads from other people. I use a site called Udimi for this because again it is regulated just like safe-swaps.
Both of these solo ad methods are very fast and effective ways to drive targeted traffic to your opt-in pages and build your list. Its actually one of the fastest ways online to build your email list.
2. Traffic exchanges and safelist– Both groups are free to join and use, you trade your time for traffic. This traffic is very targeted as well, because the members of these types of sites, are all other marketers trying to make money online. Traffic exchanges and safelist you can also buy traffic from them as well, or upgrade in them for additional advertising benefits. I have used these for years in my marketing because of there mass appeal, and that people with no budget can also have a means to get traffic, they are referral based and you can earn residual traffic and commissions. There is a whole strategy behind using these sites.
3. PTC or paid to click sites- “Paid to Click” is an online business model that draws huge amounts of targeted online traffic from people aiming to earn from home. “Paid to click” or simply PTC websites act as middlemen between advertisers and consumers. The advertiser pays for displaying ads on the PTC website, and a part of this payment goes to the consumer when he views the advertisement. There are good ones and bad ones online, my favorite by far and the one I buy traffic from every month, is Clixsense. Clixsense has been delivering targeted traffic faithfully since 2007.
4. Banner and text ads- A person can buy banner and text ads from many types of sites and programs online, many businesses monetize their business by selling banner ads and text ad spots on their websites pages. There are also very specific banner and text ad sites, that specialize in delivering these types of ads only. These types of ads deliver very targeted traffic, because when a user clicks on one of these types of ads, they usually are very interested in that specific offer. The Warrior forum is one of my favorite places to buy banner ads from, this traffic is extremely targeted and the warrior forum, has over 800,000 members.
5. PPC or Pay Per Click- This is model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked on. Essentially, it’s a way of buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to “earn” those visits organically through seo.
Search engine advertising is one of the most popular forms of PPC. It allows advertisers to bid for ad placement in a search engine’s sponsored links when someone searches on a keyword that is related to their business offering. For example, if we bid on the keyword “make money online,” our ad might show up in the very top spot on the Google search results page. Search engines like Google and Bing allow businesses and individuals to buy listings in their search results. These listings appear along with the natural, non-paid search results.
A lot goes into building a winning PPC campaign: from researching and selecting the right keywords, to organizing those keywords into well-organized campaigns and ad groups, to setting up PPC landing pages that are optimized for conversions. PPC advertising can cost a fortune: it’s easy to get caught up in a bidding war over a particular keyword and end up spending far more than your potential return. PPC can also be a bargain: sometimes, you can find keyword ‘niches’ for which the top bid is around $.10 – in that case, PPC is a great option, because you can generate traffic to your site for a fraction of the cost of any other form of paid advertising.
So testing and more testing is needed to get your campaign profitable. Pay per click advertising, however, should be handled like any other form of paid advertising: gingerly, and with a clear, quantifiable short- or medium-term goal in mind. In other words, concentrate on conversions, not clicks. Here is four key points to always follow when setting up any PPC campaign.
Google AdWords is the single most popular PPC advertising system in the world. The AdWords platform enables businesses to create ads that appear on Google’s search engine and other Google properties. Now Google isnt the only PPC advertising network, and they certainly are not the cheapest either.
Here are some more very good ones to consider:
Just remember there are a lot of options to consider, and when PPC marketing is done right and you have figured out all of your metrics and have a winning combination, it is like trading $100 for $500.
These are all some of the best ways to drive tons of targeted website traffic to your offers. Master some of these and you will be able to write your own success story! On the right hand side of this blog is more information on many of these topics, I have also linked some of the traffic sources listed above to their specific resource or traffic source it applies to.
If you have any questions or comments would love to hear from you, please just add them to the comments.
To Your Success And Happiness
Sincerely,
Richard Weberg
YourEightSteps.com
Very good post Richard. You are right about PPC. There is the potential to make very good money but also the potential to lose money. That is why it is so important to find someone like you that has been down that road to tell you where the bumps in the road are.
It took me a while to get back into PPC, I use to use it a lot when I first started marketing, and didn’t quite understand it, this time around, I took the time to search out good information to get it right..Its a very good traffic driving option, when you make sure and follow someone else who already has done it, so you can learn how to use it cost effectively..
Always love your comments Bo!