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Top Seven Ways To Generate Traffic and Build Your List
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You can have the greatest most saleable product in the world but it’s all but worthless if nobody sees it. Generating online traffic (visitors) and in turn exposure for the products you’ve chosen to promote is a challenge. However, this guide will enable you to begin to generate targeted visitors and potential customers immediately.
1. Ezine Advertising
If you have your own list of opt-in newsletter (ezine) or mailing list subscribers, you can write an informative ad or personal endorsement letter for the product or service you’re promoting (whether it’s your own or an affiliate product) and blast it to your list.
Tip: You can double or even triple your results by sending out your letter several times and using a different subject line for each mailing. For example, you can send out an ad on Tuesday for a particular product and then follow up on Friday with the same ad and a subject line that simply reads: ‘[FirstName] did you get this?’ Often, the second and third mailings can outperform the original.
If you don’t have your own list of subscribers, you can pay a small fee to advertise in other people’s publications.
Some ezine publishers post limits to the number of lines your solo ad can contain but nearly ALL of them will make exceptions for longer ads when you ask. Make sure to request first name personalisation in the subject line (for example, Dear [FirstName]…).
2. Website Advertising
Obviously if you have a website related to an affiliate product you’re promoting, you can post an ad for that product in a prominent place on your website. You could write up a full page product ad or endorsement and link to it from a main page. You could post an attractive graphic accompanied by a catchy headline. Remember to customise the ad with your unique affiliate/referral link.
You could even create a multi-part training course (follow up course), throughout which you insert tasteful plugs for the affiliate product(s) you’re promoting. Rather than sending prospective customers directly to the affiliate site, you get them on your newsletter or mailing list and then introduce them to the affiliate product. In doing so, you potentially produce critical repeat product exposure, which can mean a much higher conversion rate for you.
Tip: This ‘two-step’ advertising approach is highly recommended regardless of what type of advertising method you use… whenever possible first get people onto your list and then promote to them.
3. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Search Engine Advertising
Pay-per-click search engine advertising is one of the fastest ways to begin bringing traffic through your website URLs and affiliate/referral links. The web’s premier pay-per-click search engine programme is Google AdWords. Before you list your ad, spend some time familiarising yourself with the Google AdWords programme. Take the Google AdWords tour.
There are a variety of e-books and online resources available on the topic of Google AdWords and other pay-per-click advertising services. A quick Google.com search on pay-per-click search engine advertising’ and related keyword phrases will provide a list of such resources.
Tip: To get unlimited examples of pay-per-click ads that you can refer to as you write your own, do a Google.com search on the keywords and phrases of your choice and to the right (under the search results), you’ll see a list of current AdWords ads. If you see the same ad running week after week, that’s a great indication that the ad is making money. You can’t copy the ads you see but you can certainly use them to help brainstorm and get ideas for your own ads.
4. Forums and Message Boards
An outstanding way to advertise your own website and your top affiliate/referral links is by participating in online message boards and forums, responding to posts and writing your own posts.
Most boards don’t allow blatant advertising. However, most will allow you to include a few lines to promote whatever you wish – which can generate a great deal of exposure and click-throughs for you.
There are two main keys to message board promotion:
Key 1: Participate only in message boards that are related to whatever you wish to promote.
Tip: Ask people on the message board or forum to recommend other popular boards or forums. The question could even be your first post.
Key 2: Participate only in popular boards (in terms of visits and traffic). The more popular the board, obviously the more exposure your posts will receive. For the most part, the popularity of a board is common sense. If posts are up to date and numerous, chances are you’ve found a popular board. You can further determine board popularity (or the popularity of any site for that matter) by searching it through Alexa.com.
The more time you spend participating in the forums, the more exposure you’ll receive. Certain topics and posts will generate more exposure than others. After a while you’ll get a feel for what topics attract attention.
Your signature file can consist of just about anything you wish, as long as you keep it fairly brief. Study the ‘sig files’ of other message board posters to get a feel for how you can promote your website and affiliate links. Remember your signature file is really a mini advertisement so make it as powerful and irresistible as you can to generate those all-important click-throughs.
5. Email Signature File
In the same way that you can use a signature file to promote your favourite website and affiliate products through message boards and forums, you can use similar or the same sig files in your daily outgoing messages.
Tip: Use your email provider to create your signature file.
6. Article Submission
Write and submit short (350-500 words) applicable articles to ezine publishers (with ezine that are related to the product you’re promoting) with a 6-10 line ‘resource box’ (including your website URL or referral link) attached to the bottom of the article. This is a win-win situation as the ezine editor receives informative content to send to their subscribers and you receive exposure in exchange. One article can go a long way using this technique.
Tip: There are a variety of other resources and directories you can submit to. Do a Google.com search on the phrase ‘submit your article’ for a list of options. Remember, if just a few website owners post your article (along with your resource box), it can lead to years of free traffic and click-throughs.
Important note: When offering ‘reprint rights’ to your articles, specify that your article must be reprinted exactly as it is.
7. Co-Registration (Pay Per Subscriber) Services
You’ll need your own online newsletter – ezine – for this strategy. Utilising coregistration services is truly one of the ultimate weapons in online advertising.
Capturing the contact information of your prospective customers is your initial primary objective. The money is the list – that is, your opt-in list of ezine subscribers.
Co-registration, also known as pay-per-lead or pay-per-subscriber services offer a guaranteed way to build your opt-in list for a fee.
Using these services will not only enable you to build your opt-in list for future promotions, you can also send each new sign-up your autoresponder series (training/follow-up) course through which you tastefully promote affiliate offers, your own offer(s), your affiliate programme, or any combination of these options.
With co-registration services, your advertising dollars work exponentially on your behalf. You’re building your list while potentially advertising affiliate products, your own product, your affiliate programme, etc.
You can start slowly by purchasing a small number of subscribers. As you cultivate your list by regularly sending your subscribers free articles and information to their benefit, your list will become profitable.
As well as incorporating plugs (ads) within your follow-up email series, you can place ‘top sponsor’ style ads in your regular ezine issues. Once or twice a month, you can send out special solo offers (where the ad is sent alone without an article).
Tip: To learn how to run your own profitable online newsletter, subscribe to six or more online newsletters related to your area of business then study how they present their material and run ads and apply what you learn to your ezine.
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