6 Easy Ways to Drive Paying Customers to Your Site
May 11, 2008
I’d like to share my top 6 traffic generation tips. If you’re not using any of these strategies the time to get started is today!
Traffic Tip #1: Give away free content
This is one of the best free traffic strategies out there… Simply write a series of short articles that are packed with useful information and tips, then submit them to online article directories and other free content sites.
Not only will you get some great inbound links pointing to your site, which will help you with the search engines — other people can republish your articles on their own sites, which will help spread the word about your business and build your credibility as an industry expert!
Here are some article directories you should check out:
Traffic Tip #2: Register your site with the ‘Net’s top directories
Not only will you get more visitors from these sites — you’ll also get great inbound links that will boost your ranking with the search engines.
And that’ll send even MORE visitors your way!
Here are some directories you can start with:
- The Yahoo Directory (http://directory.yahoo.com)
- The Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org)
- Best of the Web: http://botw.org
- Jayde: www.jayde.com
- Iozoo: www.iozoo.com
- The Virtual Library: www.vlib.org
Traffic Tip #3: Get links from as many relevant websites as possible
By "relevant," I mean sites that have content that appeals to your customers and relates to your business or product in some way.
… For example, if you sell vintage hot rod accessories, you’d want to get links from sites that appeal to antique car and hot rod fanatics.
Not only will these links help you with the search engine, they’ll also put your site in front of a greater number of targeted visitors.
Quality traffic — it’s the "Holy Grail" of online marketing.
After all, there’s not much point in having a website if your potential customers aren’t able to find it!
Traffic Tip #4: Issue press releases about your business
Online press releases are a great way to announce a new product or report on exciting developments in your industry. And, like the strategies listed above, they will help you get quality inbound links as well as new streams of direct traffic to your site.
Some good press release sites to check out are:
- www.prweb.com
- www.eworldwire.com
- www.sbwire.com
- www.webwire.com
- www.ereleases.com
- www.24-7pressrelease.com
- www.prleap.com
Traffic Tip #5: Advertise your services on free online classified sites
These sites are great because they’ll bring visitors who are already in the "buying mood." Plus, they’ll give you even MORE of those all-important inbound links!
Here are a few good classified ad sites to start with:
Traffic Tip #6: Get active on social sites that focus on your market
Discover the blogs, forums, and social network sites that are popular with your customers — and then get active on them!
By becoming a vocal participant on social sites, you can establish yourself as an industry expert and build your credibility as you spread the word about your business. It’s a great way to build strong relationships and turn potential customers into people who will buy from you again and again.
To find blogs that appeal to your target market, try running a search on your top keywords (one at a time) at Google Blog Search (http://blogsearch.google.com) or Technorati.com (www.technorati.com).
To find a forum that appeals to your target market, do a search for your top keywords and add the word "forum." You can also check out the following forum directories:
Just remember, driving traffic to your site is an ongoing process. You’ll need to constantly test the effectiveness of the strategies you use, in order to figure out which one works best for you.
Happy "trafficking!"
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The Tips are really awesome. Thanks for your work.
Great ideas here. Thanks for the tips. Adding quality to your website is the best way to generate traffic.
Getting repeat visitors will keep your traffic coming back. This is a good business principle.
Return business or repeat business will make your company. If you can add value and give good products or service for good prices - them people will remember you and return for more business.
Apply this to your website and this will ensure repeat business - hence more traffic.
I agree with this information. Simple formula: no traffic = no sales = no profit. Awesome!
These tips look good, I must admit.
Giving away stuff with URLs and Clickbank links, unfortunately has produced nothing at all in three years. Just 6,000 e-Books given away.
Writing articles, likewise. I get a lot of readers, but there has never been a hint of a sale.
I register with Google, that’s it. Does anyone use any other search engine?
I have no links from ‘relevant websites OR irrelevant websites’. I have no idea how you get links. I don’t visit other websites that are in my niche - spying is nasty.
The classified ads I don’t know about. I didn’t realise they existed. Except for USfreeads.
I had an ad on there for 12 months - 50,000 visits, zero sales.
Social Sites - OH NO - there is nothing there for anyone over the age of 12 with a minute modicum of intelligence.
Who wants to communicate with people online. You make ‘friends’ in the real world and you work online.
Forums are another “stay away” zone. All bad advice from people that know nothing. The blind leading the blind.
There are no “experts” on forums, just people pretending to be.
There must be a way to get traffic without advertising your presence to anyone. I hope I find it.
Good to get confirmation I’m on the right tracks; though I haven’t covered all the bases.. yet. But, a big one missing: Blogs! Is it just that that falls outside the scope of this article, as slightly more effort is needed?
The part of the article that I’m least familiar with is press releases. I don’t have my own unique products, it never seems valid to do a press release on an affiliate product that is someone else’s business (in terms of ownership). I’ll dig around your archives here, but ‘how to press release for affiliate programs’ would be a welcome feature..
many thanks
Thnaks for sharing these great tips with us.
You can have a website but if you have on targeted traffic going there
plus conversions you have not income.
KInd regards
Arthur
Great Tips Derek. I think they are spot on. It takes a bit of time to produce good content and to put it out there. It also takes time to get involved in online communities and to build links back to your website, but it is well worth the effort. It is an investment in your audience.
The comments are spot on too, there’s no point in getting traffic without conversions. We know from experience that traffic from relevant sources converts better and easier.
Being number one in Google for your most relevant Keywords = More relevant traffic to your website = Easier conversions. These tips will get you well on the way to that goal.
The free online classifieds ( Gumtree anyway) are also a great way to get a new website / new product page indexed quickly.
And another free tip - that we use but are trying to improve how we do it - is to ask you existing customers to help spread the word. Ask them to talk about you / your products.
Email is Still the most direct and powerful method of marketing today. There
are potentially millions of buyers willing to purchase your product or
service.You can advertise just about anything. You
can advertise many businesses, products or opportunities.
Fantastic tips!!!!! Posting to blogs all over the internet with your website link can provide traffic to your website also. Make sure you post something interesting and relevant to the topic!
Thanks Derek,
Great work here.. And some of the best things in life are free.
These are the core to getting traffic.
I’m a web designer and I web design is not what it use to be.. the market are demanding results, not pretty graphics or even usability, it’s now all about ROI, and thinging about the web as not only a way to get new customer, but conversion, cross sell, up sell, and bonding with your prospect.
The internet is constantly changing, and evolving, and just a random thought, maybe the next evolution will be about Integrity….
Got to go now, Bye!
Comment to Clive Praed:
These tips are about producing traffic. You’ve tried them, and obviously they work - “50,000 visitors”. Making your site convert is a whole different issue. I visited your site, and wan;t sure what the topic was, other than that you sell ebooks. I guess you are taking the Barnes and Noble or Amazon approach to selling eBooks. Was the trafic you generated targeted to a specific book or topic, or was it just “eBooks”? One other thing that made me immediately leave your site… I clicked on a book title to see your sales page, which looked ok, but when I hit the back button, I was immediately assaulted by a blaring audio… I couldn’t even tell you what it was trying to promote, I hit the big red X at the top of the window too quickly. Maybe it is just me, but I abcolutely hate sites that use audio without giving me the option of pushing “play” in order to hear it. Especially thise that embed the player half way down the page, so I cannot quickly find the pause button.
awesome article derek. i would add answering relevant questions on yahoo answers aswell. i get a couple of hundred visitors using that technique
thank for your always good tips. l may have to do some blogging. truth l donot just know how to do this but l will get to learning it.
thanks
I also greatly recommend the psychic search plugin, for those who use wordpress. You get to understand what your visitors search on your site. Hence will be able to write related articles
I really enjoy your tips. Always great advice!!
Really amazing way for attrack traffic to my website. Thanks Derek
Your taffic tip#1 is the most important for two reasons:
1. It will go a long way to breaking the ice with your potential customer.
2. You’ll begin to establish trust by offering useful information.
Articles work for every type of business I can think of. A good article will get distributed far and wide and will create traffic and backlinks.
There are also many decent article writing services available, if you’re not a budding journalist.
Derek, good advice as always.
Hi Derek,
Actually I feel that you don’t give enough details on the proper way of writing articles (keywords and title). Also, what are the social sites that we can get involved in.
Thank You Derek:)
Great ideas. I have tried some of them, but not having much success yet. I average about 15 to 20 visitors a day on my main site and only 2 to 3 on my product site http://designedforsuccessseries.com.
I just need to stay the course and remember there is no magic bullet to this. I hope in a matter of time that I will see favorable results.
Yep. It is all about the traffic. I would even put SEO work above the development of the site because, these days, there is no excuse for not having an acceptable site up and running within a few days; there are so many resources to do this.
Social and shopping networks have been huge for me; every page gets submitted to 8 shopping sites and about 60 social sites. Submitting to search engines and directories, writing articles, blogs and lens are all part of it also. It can be done, but there really is no magic bullet for getting traffic. You need to commit and then work at it. You’ll get there.
Thank you I’m going to try every single one of these.
Dear Derek, thanks for your valuable tips. You have offered some great tips.
Thanks Derek,
I am using some of the tips you listed above for all my blogs and going to use the other tips you provided. They have been bringing in traffics and links to my blogs.
Thanks
fatimah
KL
Really terrific ideas Derek! Many thanks.
My favorite way to promote is www.ezinearticles.com I have had lots of signups to my site, because the subjects of my articles have been relevant to it.
I also find that because my free newsletters promote products that are also relevant, results in more conversions.
So for me, the key to more visitors and signups plus more conversions. is relevancy.
PS Can’t wait to try even more promotion tips from above!
Killer email and blog!
Even though I graduated the Internet Marketing Center’s ‘Advanced mentoring Program’, (worth EVERY PENNY) I still love your newsletter because it really does teach VERY valuable information.
For example:
1. The email you get prior to to seeing this blog creates excellent curiosity & makes you WANT to click through to this blog. I Obviously did! Even though it’s not part of the lesson, it’s still there to see for anyone that looks at what was done with it more closely. That’s a lesson in email marketing alone. Killer Work!
2. The tip in the email about using a blog to drive traffic with MANY less competitive, long keyword phrases (that one WOULD find with WordTracker™ discussed in another great newsletter) confirmed my suspicion that anyone could use a blog to capitalize on using those phrases for targeted web site traffic from a blog. You could do this with dozens of phrases. You’d get hundreds of targeted visitors to your site using the strategy and I’ll definitely use it with my http://www.guitarcomplete.com site.
Awesome!
Thank you
Thanks again Derek. Outstanding advise and articles have helped me tremendously.
wew..thanks it was nice artikel….it helped me alot
Comment to all who want to increase SALES and get Higher Conversion Rates:
The traffic tips are good - nothing wrong with them. Getting lots of traffic is great, but visitors have to BUY to make the traffic worth it - TARGETED Traffic + SALES = PROFIT.
To get sales you need to ENTHRALL your potential buyer (visitor). You have to appeal to their buying “buttons” - and importantly DO NOT IRRITATE THEM, or they will leave.
The only way I know how to do this is with GREAT SITE COPY. Try and get hold of the e-book “Power Copywriting for the Internet” by Bob Serling to get you started. Good site copy will differentiate your site from all the “amateur” sites out there. The book helped me.
Hi Derek,
Thanks for such important information on ‘trafficking’,as it’s life blood of online business.Though I know few tips of them you’ve provided,I’ll try to follow rest of tips that I don’t know.Thanks again….
A very interesting range of posts in response to your tips. These I found excellent and shall be following up those I had not heard of before.
Traffic is my great problem - only around 35 per day to my site www.save-money-guide.com and yet my Alexa rating is improving by leaps and bounds. Odd?
Saving Money is on everyone’s mind at the moment, so I am pressing on. My mind is now full of ‘things to do’. So with a little bit of luck and a following wind, plus masses of hard work, it should pay off. Thanks.
Hey all,
What is INCREDIBLY exiciting about the new age of the internet, at least for me, is the fact that it has NEVER been this easy to get top quality traffic without paying for it via AdWords et al.
What’s even more exciting is the quality traffic that is at your finger tips without giving a thought to Google. OK, it’s really exciting that I getting MASSIVE traffic from Google, but it’s more exciting that incredible earnings are at your finger tips without giving any attention to the search giant.
Oh yeah, Ros and Anik, congrats on the promo from Derek…
Derek, look me up, let’s do lunch sometime
Colin “Google” McDougall
Great post, Derek. Anyone looking to drive free targeted traffic to their new or existing site should START with this list.
I use most of these methods myself on a daily basis … THEY WORK!
Best,
Scott
These are great ideas. I think the secret is to document a strategy, otherwise you are inspired on day to send off a press release or two but never follow up. As Derek says, you really have to do this on a regular basis.
Another way to drive traffic to your site is to hire a guru to make a special calculator for your site or a tool that others can use and post on their site. If you give away a tool, you’ll get one way links back to your site if your sites name is added into the .hml code that they get when they use the tool. You can find someone to bid on the job at guru.com or other similar sites. I had a calculator built for my site for $30 and am having a tool built right now. Depending on the job, it shouldn’t break the bank!
Fully agree Derek. This is why i am starting to spend time up on articles writing and to search for related site to link to.
If any website (related to miniskirt, clothing/fashion, beauty) interested to exchange link to my fairly new (but started to make money) online mini skirt store, do contact me through my site http://www.sexyminiskirtstore.com.
I am currently preparing some articles to put under the side menu “More Info” and just added a link for partners - “Useful Links” 5 minutes ago. Welcome to be my new partners, and make money together.
Derek,
Thank you for always providing such great content. I really appreciate that you not only offer techniques and ideas, but that you actually offer the exact sites that can get people going. I try to do this with the Network Marketers that I train to help them as much as possible, and they seem to really appreciate it.
Also, I have good results with using the article site: http://www.talkinmince.com for ranking with Google- just a suggestion.
Solid content is king, and you are one of the best for this!
Keep up the good work!
Thanks.
Thats great advice Derek, I have followed your teachings for a long time. You not only tell people how to market on the internet but you show them. As always I am a fan, since the first internet marketing course I bought from you guys. Thanks so much.
Tony
Great tips Derek. Love your blog and all the info you share. The things you teach really work, and it was Corey’s Warp Speed Wealth course that got me started on the net just a couple of years ago, which I’m so glad I did.
Best,
Vitaly
All to often we concentrate on exhotic methods of generating readership and seo. Nonetheless, concentration on the fundamentals always yeilds the best results.
As we have helped churches, pastors, and ministers develop internet ministry, church websites, and develop technologies for the gospel, we continue to stress the importance of
1. Knowing who you want to reach
2. Build trust by giving
3. Telling them where you are - Dont hide your light
4. Offer to solve their problem.
5. Communicate with your base often.
These things work and your tips are the practical expression of these principals
the tips are just great . keep it up
Great tips, all ones that I have used on various sites in the past to good effect.
As many people have commented above, the next stage is then to get the visitors to turn into paying customers…
Thanks for the tips… hopefully we will make some money from this stuff soon!
Great post as usual Derek. You revealed a couple of gems I forgot about and didn’t know.
They’ll be great tools for me to use for our business.
I appreciate the knowledge and look forward to reading more.
Timothy Carter
Awesome tips Derek as always…
I already do some of the things that you mentioned, but I need to do everything
Speed of implementation is something I started to focus on…
Thanks again,
Narek Gabrielyan
Derek,
Thank you for your advice. What are your top 10 article directories?
Sincerely,
Lavern Gingerich
Derek Gehl and IMC are definitely the best at what they do and that is marketing with results! I am using the tips and definitely see increase in traffic to my websites and articles.
Thanks and God bless,
Walter Taylor
This is awesome. I’ve been in insurance for 30 years and DESPERATELY looking for something else. Thanks for the push in the right direction.
hello my dear mr.gehl ji, with help of u i can earn huge money but plz advise me as i m living in india newdelhi this is only one greatway for internet marketing ur help make great achievement for me with worm regards
Great tips on how to generate traffic. Most importantly you have to give the concumer what they are looking for. Also it is important to remember to make web sites easy to navigate, comsumers will get turned off to sites that are not of easy use.
Great tips, Derek - thanks for making an easy-to-use reference list of the places marketers should consider contributing to; you’ve got some terrific resources there. Also I agree 110% with your points; by delivering free content as previews and to establish credibility, it makes it much easier to successfully sell online, because people have had a sample of your knowledge, and it builds trust, while delivering value.
To stunningly profitable business,
Ken C.
Great tips Derek. I just got started on the internet but with your tips I believe I can get more traffic by applying the tips you have given me.
Thank you again.
great links you shared Derek….
tks
Although Dereks tips are really great a lot of these comments are too. And add a lot of value to them. Though I´m from Germany and have to translate everything to use it on my website I wonder it there are more german speaking marketers making use of Dereks tips. If so I´d appreciate if you contact me to share ideas and addresses for the german speaking markets. Because a lot of links, good for the UK and US are not working to address german speakers or to achieve a higher pagerank at Google for german sites. Hopefully I´m not the only one and if anyone else has ideas or links from press release sites etc. in german please let me know.
Thanks
Thanks for the great article. I checked some of the sites and they cost money - in my humble opinion most individuals that are marketing a website are marketing on a zero budget.
Truly thanks for the great tips.
its useful!!!!!
will definitely apply the tips on my corner cabinet furniture store!