Imagine your shop in an abandoned shopping complex in a deserted town. Cobwebs are growing at every corner and you’ve wasted tons of cash in goods you’ve never been able to sell. That’s what its like when your website has no traffic. We know that it is important. That’s why, it is highly crucial that we spend at least 30% of our marketing efforts to draw traffic to our online businesses. Traffic isn’t something that is formed on easy terms. It takes diligent practice of your chosen traffic generation technique to ensure a steady stream of traffic. Thankfully, these traffic generation tasks can be outsourced. But first, you must have a thorough understanding of how each method works before you can teach your subordinates to draw traffic for you. But with so many traffic generation methods available, how do you know which is the right one for you?
The best choice – Learn and apply as many techniques as you can. You can never have enough traffic, as they say. But don’t do things halfheartedly. Whatever task you embark on, make sure you see it till the end. That is the only way to create true results for your business.
There are several ways to draw free traffic to your site, such as:
-Article Submission
-Search Engine Optimization
-Link Exchanges
-Ad Swaps
-Offline Traffic Methods
Article submission basically involves submitting articles related to your niche topic to high traffic article directories so that people searching for information will find your articles, which leads them to your website through an author’s resource box. Search engine optimization is the art of getting your page to the top of Google or Yahoo’s search engine by targeting high search volume “keyword phrases”. Link exchanges is the exchanging of links between your site and other people’s websites so that visitors from the other site will visit yours and vice versa. Ad swaps basically entails mutual promotion of 2 partners websites through email marketing or blog posts. When used correctly, can hugely benefit both parties. Offline traffic methods deal with promoting one’s website through offline methods such as banners, flyers, direct response marketing and name cards.
Article Marketing
Article marketing was one of the most widely used traffic generation methods in the past, and still is widely used today. As mentioned earlier, it involves posting or submitting articles to article submission directories to draw traffic to your website.
Here are some commonly used article directories, which you can submit articles to:
-Ezine Articles (www.ezinearticles.com)
-Article City (www.articlecity.com)
-Article Alley (www.articlealley.com)
-GoArticles (www.goarticles.com)
Bear in mind, each of the directories has their own set of submission guidelines. So be sure to read and adhere to the guidelines of article writing if you don’t want your articles to be rejected.
Here’s how it works:
As a general rule of thumb, write an article ranging from 300-500 words (or more) which is unique, filled with keywords related to your topic. Then, sign up for a free account at any of those article directories. Make sure you create a solid author’s resource box which talks a little about yourself and has backlinks (one or two max) to your website. Whenever you post an article and it is approved, your article will appear on the website directory along with your author’s resource box.
People searching for relevant articles will read your article, and from there if they wish to find out more information, they will visit your website. For this matter, it is important that your article titles are highly optimized for keywords so that they can be found and also must be catchy enough to stand out from the crowd.
Example: 8 Goal Setting Mistakes You Should Avoid.
This is good because it contains keywords and also is eye-catching enough for readers to want to click on your article to read it. Remember, content is key. You must have uniquely written content as plagiarized content are often penalized and frown upon. If your content is good, it will further entice the readers to find more information through the links to your website.
Here’s your job:
Consistently post 3-5 articles per week to multi article directories and soon you’ll start seeing a steady flow of traffic come into your website.
The PORTMAN Education Group
