Over the last few days, I have spent a lot of time at Affilorama helping out all my new friends there get started with the Affilojetpack system. One thing that is constantly coming up more and more is questions on how to increase web visitors, and get people into the traffic funnel.
This is the one thing that probably stops most people from ever getting going in IM. Website traffic is the only way you can get your site going. After all, if you don’t get visitors to your site, everything else has been a waste of time.
There are a vareity of techniques that I use to increase web visitors to my site. Although SEO is one of these, and I do recommend using it, that is not the end of the road. For one thing, you will find that although you will rank highly and quickly for some low competition keywords, I find that it usually does not stick. You can use some black hat methods to game the system, but you will eventually get caught, and you will lose it all.
That being said, you want to focus more on getting traffic early on rather than SEO rankings. The fact is that Search is looking for sites that get traffic without them. Getting good traffic from other sources will help your rankings.
here are some alternatives to Google to increase web visitors to your site without waiting on Google.
All of these are social in nature, and the basics of using all of them will be the same
Find Web Visitors on Niche Blogs
Blogs are still hugely popular, and if you can find a few niche blogs with a community, you can join that community and people will start visiting your site. It is all about engaging the people there, not just getting a backlink by posting one or two comments. I recommend using Comment Luv blog search to help you find blogs that will also help you with your SEO at the same time.
Niche Forums: The best source to Increase Web Visitors Fast
One of the fastest ways to get traffic to your site is by leveraging the forums within your niche. Join in the conversation, become a member of the community, and within a week to two weeks, you will start to build a reputation. This can help you or hurt you, depending on how you do it. Add value and show that you are there to help people, without selling anything, and you will be accepted. Start spamming product promotions, and you will get banned. Also, remember, these people are probably members of other social communities as well, and your reputation will spread like wild fire.
Do you want those people spreading good information, and linking to your site, or destroy your reputation, and being shunned as a spammer and pushy salesman? This is an easy way to increase web vistors when you use it properly, but it can lose them if you do it wrong.
Web2.o Sites for Website Visitors
When I started out online I listened to a lot of interviews about increasing web visitors. Some of the best strategies that I have found came from Jason Katzenbach. A few months ago he posted about the 10 most common mistakes in Website promotion, and he hit the nail on the head with every single one. I highly recommend checking out any interviews on social traffic with Jason that you can find. They are all worth their weight in gold. He teaches a lot about using Web2.0 social sites like Hubpages and Squidoo for massive direct traffic, as well as to increase your rankings in SEO.
My Results on Social Traffic
Before you fly off into a tizzy about how social traffic does not convert let me share a little about my own experience right her in the last few weeks. When I was promoting Affilojetpack, my review page was on Page 12 in Google. However, in the end, I wound up being on the leader board(although near the end I dropped off). Now, I didn’t get massive sales, and some will say I didn’t do well enough to make it matter. I made more in the week of launch than in 2 months at my last Job that I had.
And I did it with no search rankings, only about 40 people on my email list ( I just started building my list in the niche during the Prelaunch 3 weeks ago), and very little pushy promotions. And, this was all done with very little time actually dedicated to the promotion. I put in about 28 hours ( 2 hours/ day over 2 weeks) on my promotion. I could have done a whole lot more. I made so many mistakes (this being the very first product launch I have ever done seriously) that I left a lot of money on the table. Also, I didn’t get Masssive traffic to my sites. Looking over my analytics, I converted about 10% of the people who came to my review to sales. Considering most people say a good conversion rate is 1%, that’s a pretty big number (at least to me).
I made over 2 months salary with less than 28 hours of work put into it. Almost all of that came from the reputation that I have built up on forums, social sites, blogs and other social networks. So if you are in the boat that social traffic does not convert, the proof is in the pudding.
The Secret to Increase Web Visitors Using Social Traffic
No matter what medium you use, the basics of social traffic that converts is the same. You need to target people that really need the hep. Spend a lot of time helping people, and not promoting anything. This will increase web visitors through your signature links that you leave behind. If people can trust you to solve the little problems, then they will trust you more when you offer a product to solve a bigger problem.
Now, I don’t know where you were raised, but in my neck of the woods, we call that common sense business. I guess being a good ole country boy helps. I grew up seeing my Granpa’s little country store, and he took time to get to know every customer that walked in the door. Every where he went in town, he got to know people, and would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. He wasn’t best buddies with them or anything like that, but he got to know them, and took time to help them out.
I try to find ways to apply the principles that he tought me into my business.
Zig Zigglar, a popular business and success coach, was famous for saying “The best way to get what you want in life is to help others get what they want.”
This is exactly how social marketing works. Engage the community, and help people without asking for anything in return. Yes, you will give up a few commissions up front to do so, but you will increase web visitors to your site, and drive those visitors to higher conversions.
This post was written by...
James Pruitt – who has written 234 posts on IMRelations Media.
I Started my internet marketing journey in 2008, as I began building simple affiliate sites. Through the years I have worked as a freelance writer, publishing my own blogs and websites, written several ebooks, and now work mainly to help others build their online business through my marketing consultations, personal coaching, and relationship building.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m a big fan of Jason Katzenbach as well as Comment Kahuna as well. I also use web2mayhem. His stuff is really top notch. Nice quote by Zig Ziglar. Have you heard of Jim Rohn?
I have used comment Kahuna for over a year now. he has some great stuff going on.
Ah, Jim Rohn, the darling of the MLM industry, but despite this he really does have some great stuff to get you motivated and focused on what really matters!
Awesome job with those sales James….just imagine what the next one will be like!
yeh, I made so many mistakes that I was surprised. Honestly, I was hoping to get 4 or 5 sales, and I blew past that in the first hour. I never realized how effective product launches could be. I am having to rethink my whole position on avoiding them. I do still feel like I have to see the product first though, so that is where I have always had a problem with jumping on the launch bandwagon.
Maybe if I can build up my list, I could get those review copies easier. I could honestly do one of these launches a month and nothing else, and I would be making more than I did working 70 hours a week at my last job.
Jim, I was going to post this on Affilojet in the theme but I didn’t know if you would see it. So my question is this. I have a click bank account and my nickname is what I have to put in to get the links. But I’m confused which link I should use as a redirect because the newsletters that I set up, the links only bring me back to my homepage.Should I use the top or bottom link in click bank on the redirect page? I was using the bottom. Trying not to ramble but I hope you can answer this. Thank you. Juin
Hi Juin.
the way the affilotheme is set up, you don’t have a page not found error. if a page isn’t found it redirects to the home page.
with your redirect, open up the PLEASE READ ME Page, the clickbank hoplinks are already there. you just enter your clickbank id where it says enterid and use that link in the redirects.
Mark showed how to do that in the BootCamp pt 1, with pictures and he labeled which link goes where when he showed it in the screen shots.
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. you can also PM me at affilorama. Although I wont be there as much as I was that first week ( I do need to start working on my own sites) I will be checking in every day.
Yeah James, product launches are crazy! There are probably lots of reasons why I shouldn’t have participated in the Jetpack launch either (not having a list at all being high up there). Just goes to show that you can’t write something off till you tried it and tested it for yourself.
Thats true. I guess I got turned off by how others do it, same with email marketing in the IM niche. Now that I am seeing how effective it can be without a list, I am definitely going to be ramping up my list building efforts. I didn’t have a list either, and I still wound up with quite a few sales, not only of jetpack, but several of AB and affilorama premium too.
James, I strongly believe in establishing trust first. This is the main key to increase web visitors. If you have created a strong relationship with a large audience then surely a lot of traffic will go over to your website.