Do You Believe Getting Traffic Is Difficult?

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Hi Warriors,

It seems that I'm still getting emails telling me that traffic generation is the biggest problem facing most IMers.

Is that really true?

For years I've been honing my traffic generation strategies and building up resources for making sure that I can get massive traffic to any new site, and I must have made a hundred posts (or more) here over the years sharing what works so that fellow Warriors shouldn't have this problem.

Are the rumours about this still being a problem true?

Is it true for you? (do you still struggle to get traffic?)


If so, what is the problem you find?

I know it's not that there aren't enough types of method or places to advertise, and with PPC it's not that you can't get the traffic quick enough because you can have it within minutes.

Here's what I'd like:

1 - Anyone who honestly believes that it's difficult to get traffic and really can't work out how to get it to their site - to post here with what they've done and what they think needs to change to get better results.

2 - Anyone who reads such a post to respond with their honest advice about what has worked for them and that applies to the posters request for help.

So either post to say that you're struggling and want advice - or post a reply to someone who has.


This forum is full of people successful at traffic generation and I don't want to think that there really are still members here who need help and don't realise they can get it.

As long as we get a few responses and someone who posts for help actually gets some useful responses - I'll make a donation of $50 to

If you want to go ahead and make a donation instead of posting a response - go for it, and I'll make the donation anyway ( ) but I'd like to make sure there aren't any Warriors struggling for traffic in this age where it's so easy to get it.

Andy


#main internet marketing discussion forum #difficult #traffic
  • Getting targeted traffic makes the biggest difference as then the sales follow.

    I would say participating in a community in your niche is a very effective way of getting targeted traffic.

    Find where your potential customer hangs out and go there and participate.
  • Hi Andy

    I think I'm sensing some frustration or at very least bemusement at your recognition that traffic generation is a recurring issue for a lot of folk.

    I would like to offer some advice and it comes from my personal experience of being moderately successful with traffic generation and also being hopeless at it.

    When it works it's because I've used what I know to work, the examples you've given previously Andy and the methods I've picked up along the way. Recently I've had some good success from article submissions and video marketing, but my successful methods are in relation to the niches I'm in, they might not work for everyone.

    I believe there's more to learn from my lack of success.

    When it doesn't work and traffic generation is poor I've discovered that there's a common factor every single time. Me.

    For whatever reason I've not acted upon what I know works. Maybe I've tried to reinvent the wheel or allowed myself to get distracted or go onto another project without completing the first. But I've got to admit, the main reason that traffic generation doesn't work is because I get lazy and don't get off my backside to do the work it takes.

    And surprise surprise, whenever I'm lazy I don't get the traffic and I don't earn any money.

    Hey, but that's just me. Maybe if you're struggling to get traffic you feel that you're working real hard. Well, if that's the case then you're working real hard in the wrong areas or in the wrong way. Sit back and analyse what you're doing. Chances are you're over complicating something or maybe you're trying to do something that you're just not good at and you should be outsourcing or looking for another method.

    It doesn't have to be difficult unless you make it so.

    Peter
    • [2] replies
    • I've just come from a fairly relevant thread, where the OP had submitted plenty of articles to EZA and was getting a steady stream of 20 visitors a day. They asked the question - "How many articles do i need to write to get 100 visitors a day?"

      Now while i applaud the OP of that thread for taking action and submitting articles (they are also making sales from their landing page and articles), this makes me think about their mindset and the way they approach this business.

      While goals and targets are a great thing, i sometimes think when you are searching for specific figures you are going about things with the incorrect mindset. How many threads have you read:-

      - How many articles do i need to write to make $50 a day?

      - How much do i need to spend on PPC to make one sale?

      - How many times do i need to post on a forum to get 10 visitors a day to my site?

      What is going through a person's mind is that there is a set figure or a set amount of times that you have to do something in order to achieve a target. The newbie mindset (including mine not so long ago) is, i have done what i was told to do (e.g, write 30 articles linking to your site) and now i'm stopping because it just hasn't worked (e.g. i wrote 30 articles and made no sales). Whereas, i should be thinking, i want to provide as much quality information as i can to my readers and if for some reason something isn't working, i will investigate why (e.g. article doesn't do what it says in the title, poor spelling and grammar, links not working or the articles are just plain bad!)

      I still believe one of the best forms of traffic generation is word of mouth or the virtual world equivalent (viral). So if you are producing great, quality content and you apply yourself genuinely to whatever form of traffic generation you use...then traffic will come!

      Cheers
      Partha
    • I have a site right now outside of the IM niche that I feel should be doing a bit better than it is - it has a pagerank of 7, and there's really not a lot of competition in my niche. But for months I've only been pulling about 6000 - 7000 uniques a month which to me seems low.

      My top keyword gets about 40 - 50,000 searches per month according to Google (where I rank on the second page). On Yahoo and MSN I rank in the top two or three search results.

      Admittedly my content is sparse - I basically have my products and few other posts. I know that I need more content, basically what I have now is my products and a few random posts. But to date I've been so focused on product creation that it's hard to put any serious time into articles that my target market might not even have that much interest in.

      What I'm most curious about is whether or not people with a lot more experience in marketing than I do think that pumping the site full of semi-related content would improve my traffic. My strength lies in design and site development etc. and marketing seems very alien to me and I feel hesitant to put a lot of time into writing when I could be designing/creating products.

      I think basically I know the answer, I just need someone to tell me to stop being an idiot and start writing content.

      I have the attitude that it's not hard to get traffic, I'm just a bit clueless about it. When I search the forum I end up feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the information and I'm not sure what sort of techniques I should focus on for my type of site.
      • [1] reply
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  • Hi Andy, I'm sure you know the answer already. Traffic is at least 90% of the problem for most people, if that wasn't the case, there would be little need for forums like this.
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  • see its a common misatke made by most people that traffic is the sticking point. Once you have a system to convert it set up traffic is the easy bit... I can pay someone to generate traffic if I know my metrics.

    Whats the cost of aquisition...

    whats the average visitor worth

    if i know I make an average of $3 per visitor
    then paying $1000 for a 1000 visitors seems like a bargain.

    gte your system and monetisation set up first

    Robert
    • [ 9 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • I stopped reading after Robert's post. I've been applying this (which I learned from him by the way) and it works.

      By just following that simple advice, it seems like I'm doing less and less every month yet making more and more money.

      When you have the proper system in place, traffic no longer becomes the issue. Then you can spend your time improving your sales process, creating new products, etc.
    • Robert is spot-on!

      BTW, it's been a while you old man.....

      I believe he is right and I'll just explain it in another way (since he's from the UK and a bit hard to understand)

      If your sales process (OTO's, up-sells and back-ends) are in place and set up well, then you can feel confident promoting your "offers"... or your sales process. You can then test your "offers" and advertise or drive traffic with confidence.

      Test your sales process and see that the TRUE money is made in the up-sells and back-end and not on the front end. The front end usually helps you break even. Or, maybe even your OTO helps you break even.

      But then... you now have a customer who earns you profits for a long time to come.

      If you test your "offers" and sales process and see that you are converting and earning profits on your first up-sell, then you'll feel VERY confident driving traffic from all over the Internet to your offers.

      You'll feel fine paying $1 per click, because you know your metrics and know that you convert and turn a profit on your first up-sell. THEN, you can advertise on PPC with confidence because you know your stuff converts... and you know you make X amount of profits on your up-sell and X amount on your back-end offers.

      Once you fully understand this concept... this insight... then traffic becomes easy.

      It is TRAFFIC & CONVERSIONS!

      That's it.

      Final word.

      No more questions your honor.

      Case closed.

      Traffic and conversions.

      If you miss that, you make no money.

      So, set up your stuff so that it converts ---- then drive the heck out of traffic to it.

      Later,

      Eric
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • I'd have to say traffic generation is a little difficult? I mean I don't have major problems with it because I have gotten really good at getting very targeted traffic with great conversion rates but I would like to get MORE traffic.

    I'm not sure if it was my article thread mentioned earlier or not but I definitely do a lot of article marketing. And then backlinking and SEO.

    I've actually wanted to try PPC but I'm a little scared about just losing the money. I know I should be well educated on the subject before using it.
  • An quick formula to get traffic could be:

    Find a searched-for keyword with low competition - create a page and optimize it for that keyword - go out and grab one way dofollow backlinks with your keyword as the anchor text.

    Watch your rankings rise, and your highly targeted search engine visitors roll in!
  • Right on the nail there!

    Right keywords make the internet go around and getting traffic with these is as easy as sipping coffee. Of course it takes some skill and time in deciphering such keywords but its well worth the effort

    Just write some keyword optimized articles and watch the traffic roll in. That is why I'm selling Keyword Based PLR to help you with this
    Bhupinder
  • I've heard some people complain about needing more traffic, when they are getting 50-100 uniques a day.

    If that's trageted traffic, that's enough to make at least 1-2 sales a day - now just build a few more sites like it.

    I think the problem is often more a matter of poor conversions, or else the person hoping to build just one 'grand' site that will make tons of sales for them.
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
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  • It shouldn't be difficult if you've done your homework on what you are offering.

    If you are selling your own product and know that it converts well than attracting affiliates that will bring in loads of traffic will not be a problem.

    If you are an affiliate marketer and you are promoting high demand products...which it important, than it comes down to keyword reseach 101 if you are relying on free methods of traffic generation.
  • Andy,

    Up until recently, my frustration was getting a statistically significant number of consistently targeted visitors so that I could then make sound decisions (i.e. visitor value) - and like many others, I wanted to reach these first visitors at no cost.

    That's a much more specific hurdle than "traffic."


    (And yes, I understand that the "no cost" choice really ties my hands and limits opportunity. Unfortunately, that's just where I am in life right now. Tight budgets lead to sacrifices, and sometimes it's opportunity that's being sacrificed.)
    • [1] reply

    • That's something that most people believe - in reality, there are probably more free ways to get traffic than you think.

      Free doesn't mean only things which can be got for nothing.

      Free just means that you need to offer value other than money.

      You can do links swaps, barter your skills/knowledge for other services which you need.

      There's a LOT that you would normally pay for that can be got 'free' if you think outside the box.

      ANdy
      • [2] replies
  • I admit , one of my biggest problem right now is getting a targeted traffic for my sites. Maybe I have close my self in a box, and believe that I can only get quality and targeted traffic from search engines.

    The problem with depending only with search engine is that it requires lot of works, and the competition is hard.

    I want to learn other ways to get quality and targeted traffic... and thanks for this thread I will watch it.
    • [1] reply
    • Hey Andy,

      Yip, driving traffic is one of my bugbears as I mostly focus on "free" methods...

      Using PPC etc is too expensive especially in South Africa as the monetary exchange rate is punitive....we pay the equivalent of between ZAR8 and ZAR10 for every single US$. So that's like paying $8 - $10......if you get my drift....

      Actually, I haven't finished Kevin Riley's Traffic Lab yet.....so I only have myself to blame....but that's another story....

      Regards

      Greg
  • Andy,

    sounds like a great post of yours but honestly to me it really doesn't seem so easy to get traffic to my sites.

    So what have I done so far. Honestly not too much except for the standards like sigfiles letting my list know about it etc.. but I just don't seem to find the right source for this.
    For one of my pages I started to contact all major blogs in the niche asking for a review on their blog for my product, many agreed, alle that agreed got the eBook but only one actually posted the review.

    I think I'm somehow not ready to take major action in this field, most likely because I'm not sure what will bring results and what won't

    Tino
    • [1] reply
    • Hi Tino,

      I think that's a common problem for people.

      Lack of confidence that something will get results is very likely to make you feel like it's not worth bothering, but if you don't bother then you're definitely not going to get traffic.

      You're a good guy and an excellent graphics person so I'm sure extra traffic to your sites would make you more money - your services are great.

      How about you PM me one of your sites that you'd like to focus on getting more traffic to and when I get time I'll throw a plan together that might help you out.

      Regards,

      Andy
  • My biggest frustration as a beginning web marketer is where do you start?

    Assuming you mean free traffic, yes this is a big problem.

    Honestly, there seems to be so many possible traffic sources that you end up not doing much. It often seems a little overwhelming to say the least.

    I also thing one of the biggest problems is that one doesn't seem to see quick improvements in traffic increasing.

    It seems to take ages and after not much happening, one can quickly get a bit disheartened.

    I have a few websites and only one gets decent traffic, a couple of thousand visitors a day. All the rest seem to get about 20 to 30 visitors a day and it gets disheartening.

    The site getting most of the traffic has been around for years and we can't seem to match it, no matter what we do (or think we are doing).

    Cheers.
  • Traffic on a budget is difficult.

    I think if you have money to get into some higher media areas, then no, it's not so hard.
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  • I personally feel that getting traffic is a piece of cake, it's getting conversions that is harder.
    • [2] replies

    • That sounds like BS to me but if you can tell me otherwise, I will publicly eat my words and say sorry.

      I hope you take my bait
      • [1] reply
    • It's especially easy if you can spend money for it. Getting your visitors to take the action that will make you money is a different story.
  • So far it sounds like the people who have said they struggle to get traffic are also saying that they know there's more they could be doing - so it looks like most people really DO know how to get traffic and just aren't doing what they know they should.

    Are there any warriors who have actually learned about traffic generation and are struggling after actually doing what they know they should?

    It's my experience that if you actually put together a solid plan and consistently DO it - anyone can get good traffic.

    I know it's easier said than done, but isn't that the point? The only reason you would actually struggle to get traffic is if you're not doing the things you know are needed.

    Andy
    • [4] replies
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    • So Andy,

      If I could devote say 2 solid hours a day to getting traffic, what should I concentrate on?

      Cheers,
      Sam
      • [1] reply
    • Andy the real problem is that I don't know where to start at all. Everything I tried so far showed almost no results at all so I quit doing it.

      what is it people like me could do that gets results? I'm willing to learn here, really!!

      Tino
    • Hey Andy,

      Thanks a lot for putting up such a great thread.

      I've been diving into IM lately, and it's been a blast so far. I love working at it.

      Anyways, when I look at my Google Analytics information I see that I have about 20 unique visitors from ''Live'' daily.

      Non from Yahoo, non from Google.

      The rest comes from a few forums on which I put the site in my signature, such as I have at this forum.


      So I know that I should create more backlinks, and I've been trying to for the past few days, but most of these sites don't have a ''comment, reply, guestbook'' in which you could slip your link into.

      Now what could I systematically do that would create more traffic? I'm willing to CONSISTENTLY work at it, but I don't have a solid plan.

      What should I do?

      Sincerely,
      Niels
    • I was a bit hesitant to post my experience here... but why not?

      I started my IM career part time about 2 years ago for a 2nd income, hoping it would develop into a good 1st income. Invested quite some time and effort to build a site as a valuable resource for other IMs and trying to make some money from it through some AdSense and some unobtrusive affiliate links.
      When the site was published I ran into a $1000 offer of a team promising they would do all the needed steps for 60 days to create massive and consistent traffic to my site. Article submission, blog commenting, blog posting, web 2.0 activities, video marketing, link exchange, submission to directories etc. All in all 12 different proven steps to get traffic.
      Before I signed up I asked them whether my site would qualify and whether they thought they could achieve their goal with it. They said my site would qualify without a doubt.
      So I invested the money which I had saved for a holiday with my family and thought I would make it back easily with the massive traffic if my site would only convert at 1%.

      This is not a story about being scammed. I was not. This team actually did what they promised and worked hard for these 60 days. At the end I got a 40 page summary about their concrete activities, what had been submitted where to, my link placed on what blog or site etc. I had verified a good part of it and the links were there.

      The scary part of it is, the traffic didn't come. It was mostly around 10 visitors per day, a few peaks up to 35 max.

      I know that the content this team submitted was probably not top quality but it wasn't so bad either. And the sheer quantity of links spread by these activities should have created a lot more traffic than actually occurred. Why this didn't happen is still a mystery to me.

      This experience didn't scare me off. I know that I probably still could get traffic with a lot of effort. By submitting only one article I made a higher traffic peak than this team. But as it was stated by others in this thread the best traffic is of no use when the site is not converting. And mine is probably the worst converting site of all (to state it again, to make a lot of money was not the main intention in building it). In 1 year I had about 10.000 page views and less than 10 clicks on AdSense ads. I got about 400 clicks on my affiliate links whith 0 sales. That's the main reason why my willingness to invest a lot of time (or more money) in traffic generation is rather low.

      I don't say that to prove Andyhenry's above quote wrong. But the necessary work was done in this case for a long enough period, I guess. Still it didn't work out. Sh.. happens :-)

      Klaus

      PS: By the way, when I showed my traffic stats to this team and told them that because of this I would not be satisfied despite their acknowledged activities they generously gave me a full refund and my family and I could enjoy our holidays.
      • [1] reply
  • Traffic is the easy part. Content is always the hard part for me.
    • [1] reply
    • In what way?

      What's hard about getting/writing/outsourcing content?

      There must be a thousand ways to approach most subjects to address all possible variations and perspectives that your market are interested in.

      If you write down a list of all of the possible people that you can help in your niche and imagine what has brought them to be interested in that subject, you can probably list the top 10: good things, bad things, common questions, common mistakes, popular sites, forums, people/businesses etc.......

      Andy
  • until you get over the "I need more traffic" and get into the I need to optimise my system you will never get this.

    Sending traffic to a site that doesnt convert is the real problem, doesnt matter how much traffic you send to a badly converting site it will never be enough.

    Robert
    • [ 6 ] Thanks
    • [3] replies
    • I have had this same conversation with a ton of newbies, and it's gotten old
    • Rob,

      That's the problem I was hoping would come out of all this.

      Getting traffic really isn't difficult and most people do actually know how to do it, the 'real' problems are not about getting traffic but knowing what to do with it or because people literally aren't doing what they know would work - but then again, not taking any action will always get you no results
      • [2] replies
    • I couldn't agree more. I was getting between 50 - 70 uniques a day on one of my site and converting nothing into sales. I stepped back, took a long hard look at the site and it was .............****.
      Gave it a mammoth tweak and started converting 4% of traffic into sales.

      Take a look at your site, or even better get an independent view from somebody.
  • Hi,

    I'm a newbie and I find it hard to get target traffic to my websites. I've tried ppc at the beginning but it was getting too expensive so I switched to classified ads. I must say that it didn't work for me so I'm now writing articles. So far, I haven't attracted loads of traffic as I've just started but it's by far the best method for me.
    Cheers,
    Internote007
  • Andy,

    Before you can ask if people are having problems getting traffic, wouldn't it be helpful to say what you mean by traffic?

    Don't confuse traffic with conversions.
    Don't confuse traffic with sales.
    Don't confuse traffic with success.

    Were you being serious when you suggested to for someone to put on a workshop to sell a $57 ebook?

    Unless I am mistaken, your post is about people getting traffic, not business systems.

    I do know there is a difference, however that wasn't what your opening post is about.

    Its a little like telling people that its no problem to avoid bird flu, and giving the answer of "Don't get infected".

    You're now saying that people are to think in terms of visitors, or customers, but you neglected to be that focused in your opening post.

    It seems you change your point along the way.

    You seem to be getting frustrated because you asked about traffic, and then saying traffic isn't a solution.

    This is starting to look like a thread that is a fore runner to a WSO.

    Chill dude its not that big of deal

    Mark Riddle
    • [1] reply
    • That's what I like - a healthy dose of skepticism.

      I'm probably just not communicating my thoughts clearly - I started the thread from the perspective of traffic because that's the term most people associate with. Since I'm pretty sure that most people who understand traffic generation will get traffic if they're actually doing things on a consistent basis, I was sort of intending to move the topic on to a more in-depth discussion about what is good business practice as far as tracking, improving conversions, out-of-the-box thinking etc. so that people would get more value than just a discussion about traffic generation from the normal perspective.

      FYI - There is no WSO related to this coming up from me and I was a little pissed that you'd even suggest it since I thought (hoped) I had a better reputation than to have someone read something like that in to my posts.

      Thanks for keeping me on my guard.

      Andy
  • For what it's worth, here are two examples of how I started getting traffic to two of my sites (both of them new sites and with different approaches to getting traffic):

    Site #1: I started this site in May of last year. It's an affiliate site. I specifically chose a niche where I knew I would be able to get some good search engine rankings relatively quickly because the competition for the long term keywords in this niche was so low. So I launched a small site with eight pages, each page optimized for one of the long term keywords. In May, I got 20 visitors. In June, I received 1,339. All the visits were from organic search results -- mostly Google. Since then, I have added three more pages of optimized content, submitted two well written articles to various article directories, submitted two videos to YouTube, submitted the website to 500 directories (thru one of those submission services), and got 52 additional backlinks (not from the previos mentioned sources). I now average 211 visitors a day. The key for this site was that I chose an undeveloped niche where I knew people were looking for information, but there really wasn't a good site that was offering it all in one place.

    Site #2: I just launched this site three weeks ago. Unlike the previous site, this site is in a more developed niche so I didn't want to rely as much on organic traffic at the start. Also, this site is a bit different because it offers my own product. My first bits of traffic actually came from affiliates on CB, shortly after it was listed there. In addition, I did the following to market the site in the month of April -- two squidoo pages (with good content) pointing back to my index pages; a blog submitted to feedage.com with 7 unique content posts; two well-written articles submitted to various directories; a video submitted to YouTube; and 8 additional backlinks on related websites. This past week I have been getting 20-25 visitors a day and have already had some sales. Virtually none of the visitors have come from direct organic search engine traffic. This month I plan on doing two more articles, some social bookmarking, a press release, another YouTube video, some more blog posts, and some more backlinks.

    P.S. For all the newbies out there, I have a full-time job and it's not IM. I do all this work in the evening and on weekends. This is just to serve as a reminder that you have to take action to see any results!

    I hope this helps!
    • [ 3 ] Thanks
  • but you need traffic to optimize your conversions...
    • [2] replies
    • I'm referring to search engine optimization, not optimizing for conversions.
    • But you dont need much traffic to optimise your conversions, once you have it optimised you can throw your credit card at the traffic generation if need be.

      Robert
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • I'm new in the internet marketing and I do like to have is a "HOW TO" in SEO, but something since the beging. How many keywords, description, keywords in the body of the web, back links and so on....
  • I haven't had an issue in generating traffic, my problem comes with getting that traffic to convert into sales. Therefore I have been tweaking my landing page here and there.
  • I don't know how to get traffic other than Articles, Videos, and PPC, yet I still make a decent amount each month.

    You don't need to have insane amounts of traffic streams I think. Just ramp up what you have now.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
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  • If you're new to the business you will likely ask yourself, "How can I get my product or affiliate products I carry in front of tons of people who are interested in such things?" And yes, the people are out there, but you don't know their names or how to contact them. This is a dilemma.

    Now, I would never recommend PPC for any newbie. Yes, it can work wickedly well once you get the hang of it, but it can also flatten your wallet in the blink of an eye--and when that happens to someone new to the business they are likely to give up and walk away. It happens every day.

    Just a couple thoughts: As I said earlier, there are likely hundreds-of-thousands, or maybe millions of people out there interested in what you have. But--you don't know their names or how to contact them. There are, however, people out there who do know many of their names and they have their email addresses as well.

    Anyone who has done even a medium-sized product launch of their own has a list of over 10k subscribers they got from their opt-in boxes. The guys who have had a few top Clickbank launches have over 100,000k names on their lists.

    Look, a great CB product launch may sell 4,000 units in a few months, and a few sell many more than that. (Rob Benwell sold over 20,000 units of his Blogging To The Bank ebooks.) Okay, let's say a guru's sales page converts at 4%. With these numbers to work with, in order to get 4,000 sales they would need 100,000 visitors to their sales page. Suppose they get a 20% opt-in rate to a newsletter, mini-course, or report. This would grow their list by 20,000 names.

    Now, these names can be gold. So what do they do with these names. Your first thought might be that they email them promos for their product. But you can only send a list so many offers for the same product before people either stop reading the emails, or they opt out of the list altogether.

    This is why the gurus send out 2-4 emails a week promoting products of other gurus. You've seen their emails. 95% of them are nothing but dribble about how you need to get in on this limited deal--and it is jam-packed with affiliate links for their buddies' products.

    The problem is that people get tired of seeing this "crap". They really do. I mean, the Frank Kerns of the world will tell you that having a list means nothing unless you build a great relationship with the people on your list. Mike Rasmussen's Get More Buyers addresses this fact at length. Jonny Andrews' Guru Assassin also has a great section on list building as well (probably one of the best I've seen anywhere).

    This is an opportunity for you. The gurus need to give their subscribers something of perceived value from time to time. Develop 2-3 most excellent 20-page reports on a topic. Get a great cover graphic made for each. Subscribe to whatever the gurus in your niche offer as an opt-in on their sales page. Then, get their physical mailing addresses from the bottom of their mailings. (Many of the top auto-responders require they have that there.)

    Now send a priority mail to the top 20-30 big dogs in your niche and offer to let them give away your report to their list as a free gift in their next mailing. Make sure at the end of your report you have an URL for your site where you offer them more free stuff--but make that link go to a squeeze page so they have to opt-in to your list to get more good stuff from you.

    Alternatively, go to eZineArticles or another big directory and find authors who have at least a thousand articles related to your niche. These guys have lists too. Make them similar offers.

    Some will say, "Wa, wa, wa--I tried this once and they didn't accept my offer. Hey dog, are you nuts? Try this a hundred times bud and then get back to me. If you can get just a handful of gurus to do this with you, you will have a list big enough to start doing some swap mailings with some big names in the business. Then your list will grow even more.

    If you've got a thin skin and can't handle rejection--you're in the wrong business to begin with. Leverage the assets of some big players to enhance your own position. Read the previous sentence once more so you get it. Now, read it one more time--and just once again.

    Some people will tell you this won't work. They have likely never tried this. This works. This works. This works. This works. This works. This works.

    And, in addition to building your list, and generating cash for you--you will also build important relationships with some of the super-affiliates in your niche. Then, when you develop your own product to launch--bang, you dial them up, and, since you already have a working relationship with them, you tell them to get off their ass and do a mailing for you. That's how it works. Make it work for you.

    The first weekend you get 2,000 opt-ins you are going to wet yourself. Get yourself a box of pampers because you can make this work time and time again. Lecture over. I return you to Andy's caring hands. Learn from him!
    • [ 12 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
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    • Hey Mike,

      Some of the best advice I have seen in a long time.....

      It reminds me of my earlier days in selling. I was selling timeshare and the only way I could generate leads was to do "cold calling".....And do you know that the biggest fear I had was picking up the phone to make the call.....

      But, guess what, once I got started on the first call, the rest just flowed. And once I got a foot in the door at a company, it was easy to get referrals and other appointments.

      It's the grunt work that nobody else wants to do that will set you apart.....

      Thanks for your inspiring post Mike....

      Regards

      Greg
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • Amazing post, thank you for contributing!

      I couldn't agree more, especially coming from someone who just got into the IM business ...
  • Being a newbie I find traffic to be a bit of a challenge...but that was because I wasn't sure who to target, where to target and how to target....

    the who depends on the product....the where and how varies with budget and experience

    I did find a new site that am trying and will see if it works....

    if you want to check it out it is www.makecashtonite.com <--- not an affiliate link
    • [1] reply
    • Excellent thread, Andy.

      Let's see if I can justify you sending that young lady some money.

      For almost 5 years, until a couple of months ago, I was all but invisible anywhere but here and to my subscribers. I aggressively avoided almost any kind of promotion of my list. I was coasting on word of mouth and some stuff I'd set up years before.

      For various reasons, I decided it was time to poke my head up and start rattling some people's cages again. Doing that effectively was going to take more reach. So, time to get busy.

      I sat down and did a brainstorm at my kitchen table on what I had to work with. The goal was to do it in a way I could teach to others, and that they could duplicate without having my contacts or resources. That meant going a lot slower than I could have, at least at first, but it has other payoffs down the road.

      I took a book that I'd written as a Christmas gift for my subscribers, and wrote a sign-up page offering it to anyone who subscribed. I gave people a reason to promote the thing. (A percentage of whatever the new subscribers buy through the newsletter. Simple offer, eh?)

      (No, it's not open to the public, so this is not a "plug.")

      Got some feedback before going live, and did some tests on the first few bursts of traffic. Used the best converting version for the rest.

      The quality of the product (the free book) and the potential income made it easy to get people to promote it. Very low pressure pitch (it's free, after all), extremely low potential for "back burn," and high conversions made it almost a gimme. ("Back burn" is the abuse and nastiness you get when you promote something and your readers are offended by it for some reason.)

      Here's the point: The combination of offer and process converted more than 50% of the people who hit the page to confirmed subscribers.

      If you have a good offer, and a process that converts, traffic is easy.

      As far as I can recall, I did not actively ask anyone - not one person - to promote the thing. I mentioned it to my long-term subscribers in an email. Very few of them did anything but sign up to see what I was up to. The majority of people who promoted it were people who asked, in normal conversation, what I was doing lately. I told them, and they offered to promote it.

      That's the power of a good offer.

      Here's another point you want to keep in mind: The single most productive "affiliate" promoted the book to a list that had exactly nothing to do with online marketing. At all.

      Another one who was pretty high up the list was talking to people who signed up for information on healthy living.

      The people from that first group are a publisher's wet dream, by the way. They send me unbelievably intelligent feedback and criticism, they buy stuff and - this is important to me, believe it or not - they get the jokes. They read, they think, and they respond.

      Lesson: Do not judge a traffic source until you see how it works. Especially a free traffic source.

      This was a test, plain and simple. I had no idea how it would work, and I told people so. Despite keeping it throttled back for the reasons I mentioned, it pulled in over 10,000 new subscribers, at a total cost of $0.00, in the first month.

      Do the math. At over 50% conversion, that didn't take an undogly amount of traffic to accomplish.

      Sure, I could have done other things and brought in a lot more in that time. I'm pretty good at this stuff when I want to be bothered with it, which isn't often. The thing you need to look at is how it fits with what Andy is saying: If you want to do things without spending money, there are other ways you can get what you want. You don't have to write a zillion articles, or wait years while you build a "system" to bring in the traffic.

      Think, people. Think. Get creative!

      Figure out who has the traffic you want. Figure out what they want for that traffic. Give it to them, and make it easy.

      That formula -> Traffic x Conversion = Results <- has the key in it. If the conversions are high enough, the traffic is easy.

      Make the right offer, to the right people, and you're golden.


      Paul
      • [ 13 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • Yes, I do.

    It takes persistence and a little
    SEO knowledge.

    Igor
  • Banned
    Great thread,

    Thanks to everyone for sharing. I have learnt quite abit about
    getting traffic from just reading vthis and similare threads.

    Thanks
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  • Andy. You've just crystalised something that hadn't occured to me until I read your post... that people actually BELIEVE that generating traffic is hard. So it's that whole perception thing, that if a person views a task as difficult then it will be difficult. See if you had asked me what I thought other peoples opinions were on the subject, I'd have told you straight up that it's either :

    - people dont know how to generate traffic
    - people dont want to do what is necessary to generate traffic

    In my opinion, generating traffic isn't hard at all (Sometimes it easier than others, sometimes it's quicker than others)

    But all in all, traffic should be viewed the same way as buying goods from the grocery store! Generally, a person doesnt realise they need bread and milk then go 'uurrrrgh, it's going to be SOOO hard getting those into my grasp. I think I'll just give up instead of trying!'. Because if you need bread and milk, you know that it is a simple process of walking or driving from your location to a store, walking to the fridge to get the milk, grabbing the loaf of bread off the shelf, paying at the register as you make small talk with the checkout chick and then going home with the goods. (for anyone wishing to object at this point with a comment like 'what if you have no money?' then go to plan B of walking to the bakery to ask for some old bread and borrow a pint of milk from your neighbour. The point is, if you put your mind to it you can obtain these things)

    In my opinion, obtaining traffic is easy! (If you know what the process is)

    I couldnt list all of the many rituals here, it would simply take me days and days. But my contribution to the thread isnt going to be a 'how to guide'... I'd simply like to impress on people that getting traffic is easy and it should be perceived as being easy. Like a wise man once said (I think it was a dirtbike mechanic on a crusty demons video)... if what you're doing is hard, then you're not doing it the right way!

    I personally view traffic like breathing air (it's just something that is always there and is in endless supply)

    So for everyone that thinks it is hard, time to reframe your perceptions and realise that if it's easy for some people then with the right education it can also be easy for you.

    To quote another wise man... if you think you can do it, then you're right. If you think you can't do it, then you're also right.

    • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • Ok, I've send the donation to Macy - Don't let that stop you from posting your thoughts in this thread, or for that matter from going and making a donation yourself - Even if you made one before, we're now in to a new month and I'm sure she'd appreciate whatever you can do.

    Andy
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    • I don't do anything "cutting edge", no ninja tactics Just ppc and seo to review sites or squeeze pages. Some of my squeeze pages forward to rebranded plr OTO's. I also have some adsense and cpa offers on content sites as well, but they don't generate nearly as much income.

      then vs than <- this has been haunting me my entire life
      • [1] reply
  • I think generating traffic is a big problem for most newbies in the internet marketing game. They are really enthusiastic in the beginning but when the hits only trickle in, they lose momentum and give up. I believe getting organic traffic is the key to repeat customers.
    • [1] reply
    • I'm not going to quote Mike M's long post (excellent) but I did this once (I
      really should do it more often) and got 500 subscribers in a couple of days.

      And trust me, that's nothing. You can get thousands of subscribers using
      Mike's tips.

      And yes, if you can't handle the word "no" you're in the wrong business.

      My 2% conversion products are being said "no" to 98 out of every 100
      visitors.

      Think about it. We live in a world of rejection.

      Those who know how to deal with it and learn from it are the ones who are
      successful.

      Mike, thanks for just a super post...yes, one of the best ones I've read
      here.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Hi Andy,

    The post is very nice and it seems like its been created just for me.

    I started a blog in Jan 09. Its in the health niche. I have some really good original content and have used keywords that have very high advertiser competition. Some of my keywords are in top 10 Google searches.

    In spite of all these, I get a maximum of 20-25 uniques per day. I am just not able to understand why!!

    I do blog commenting, digg and use stumbleupon on a regular basis. But still, am not able to drive good amount of traffic. Any suggestions?
    • [1] reply
    • Hi Flavours

      Just to share an experience that might help.

      When I started I used to have a site about a health/food related niche with an ebook for sale and I managed to get a couple of thousand visitors a month to the site (it still runs actually)

      20 - 25 show some level of interest you could expand the site and add more content targetting other keywords in the niche to push up traffic ... that what I had to do, moving a 5 page site to a 40 page one.

      However whilst traffic grew significantly I still do not make a huge amount from this old sucker

      The problem I observed was twofold ...

      No Buying Intention - I was offering information and the buying proposition was not there i.e. people visiting my site where looking for free information. To remedy this I now focus on product niches. People looking up Hover Mower parts normally want to source them and are more likley to click adsense or buy through your amazon link.

      Adsense - I put adsense on the site and now get a few hundred dollars a year from it. But compared to some of my mini niche PRODUCT based sites the CTR is still very low. I can get 25% CTR on a mini site at 20 cents a pop compared to 5 cent clicks occasionally on this one. This is because the adsense ads relate to products and people are there for information.

      PM me if you want me to take a quick look.

      All the best

      John
  • I don't think any of it is really that easy is it? A big part of it is the kind of site or the product also. As an example: we have a video based system that we develop at heroapps.com (please ignore the lame sales page, I have another going up soon). I've put up sites with this, posted to a few social based sites and am looking at 6,000 visitors a day within the first month. Now to me that's nuts! But here is the major difference, I can put one up for diet info and it converts like crazy, then one up for the swine-flu and it converts like crap . . . both getting the same amount of traffic. So yes, niche is huge.

    But . . . I try the same traffic tactics with a diet review site (non video) and nothing, no sales, no traffic, nothing. The review site is diet based and the diet video site does crazy, and was indexed like crazy, so the issue isn't niche here.
    So to me, technology used should also be a major part of the tactics used for getting traffic.

    Garret
  • yes..traffic is actually still a problem. A few hundred uniques/day still wont make you an adsense millionaire.

    IMHO, traffic is highly related to quality of content...so the question might perhaps not be "where/how to get traffic?" - but RATHER "how to make an interesting, unique site which will yield that traffic"

    (Of course, there are other things like SEO to do in addition)
  • addendum:

    Asking about "traffic" without worrying about content...guys, it is about the same as if someone has a store.

    The person asks how to get customers and sales.
    HOWEVER - he has the worst selection of goods and prices.

    So..to get customers he first needs to look at his store and fix things, at the BASE.
  • It's difficult when you don't know anything about it. Once you know it, it changes from difficult to hard work. And hard work always costs money and time, no mater how you look at it. Just because there are dozens of ways to get traffic doesn't mean it is easy.

    Gunter
  • Banned
    I think getting free traffic is as easy as you want to be. The amount of traffic you can generate depends on the amout of work you put into it.
  • I think that its about taking a long term view and then doing the WORK .... yes it does require work and patience.

    Without a doubt my most successful strategy for traffic has been to identify strong keywords and then create webpages, content and articles around them.

    I do social bookmarking and some blogging ... the link wheel approach but this I consider to be additional and secondary ... I will change my view if after a number of months the traffic from this out strips keyword and article marketing.

    John
  • I've shown in videos how to get a blog immediately indexed and 100 visitors a day from day one.

    Getting traffic is as easy as having new pages indexed with content that people are searching for.

    Many people reuse other peoples content and use PLR etc which is why they struggle to get traffic.

    You may look at a niche and think you can't compete but the search engines love 'fresh' 'unique' content - so if that's what you're creating, you can get results quickly even in a competitive niche. But you need to keep doing it and build up authority as you go so that the effect is more pronounced each time you do.

    Andy
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    • Hey Andy

      Where can I get your videos?

      I'm more a service oriented person, writing autoresponders,
      copywriting, building twitter accounts and link building.

      I really haven't worked on my own websites and the more
      you know and apply what you learn, the better off you
      are.

      Awesome thread!
      • [1] reply
  • Hello

    This is a very good question, however, I think we have to separate "general traffic" from "targeted traffic".

    From my point of view, getting traffic per se is not difficult... there are tones of ways to do it if we put our effort on it!

    On the other hand, getting good, quality and targeted traffic is a little bit complicated! However, I believe that the secret relies on the amount of work we put on this or the amount of money we have to spend!

    Meanwhile, if you have any good tips to increase the levels of targeted traffic, I would be very grateful to you!
  • Getting the traffic isn't nearly as difficult as converting the traffic that you get.
  • Getting traffic is hard as hell. It's the hardest thing I've ever tried to do. I spend hours of time a day and hundreds of dollars I don't have, researching and linking and advertising. Pissing away my unemployment checks as the bills and debts pile up, because I know that if I have to go back to a 9 to 5 job again, I will kill myself anyway.

    I was an art prodigy at 5 years old. By 8 I was drawing at an adult level. I won awards for my work, and then by the time I was in high school the talent had faded. I was left with nothing but a hard realisation that I was never going to be what I had always believed I would be. Since then I have struggled through job after low paying job, having a hard time hanging onto any of them usually due to poor performance. This is my last effort at life, period.
  • the whole traffic generation revolution is to rely on the basics of internet marketing. Write articles, visit forums and make the necessary comments to get back links. internet marketing is a numbers game. The more time writing articles and publishing them on the various article sites in my opinion will eventually drive the traffic to your websites. We just need to figure it out and wait for the results.
  • [DELETED]
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    • Perhaps that's the problem - you're doing what other people say you should do - rather than treating it like you're responsible for the results and doing what makes sense and what works - for you.

      If you spend a year producing a product - Surely that was because you'd already found a group of people that wanted it and would buy it ?

      I mean, if it took that long to create - you must have had lots of input into all the detail of exactly what it needed to do, how it needed to do it, why it needed to do those things, and how to found out whether you got it right when it was ready?

      That's basic business. You only start using resources once your research has had the market tell you what they need - Otherwise you have no way of knowing if the product is right and no-one ready to buy it when you're done.

      Correct?

      I don't write a 30 page ebook without already knowing who it's for and how to reach them.

      So, the way to sell the product is to go to where the people you based it's creation on are and tell them about it.

      This is why PPC is so great - you do some research, work out what people are looking for, ask them what they want, then if enough of them want something you can deliver - you make it. Then when you're done you run the same campaign but this time delivering it to them. That's basic PPC. (Obviously you can step that up and collect emails etc during your research and even get early buyers onboard too).


      Are you using Google Analytics to see where your traffic comes from and what they do while they're on your site?

      All the 'Traffic Tactics' in the world are only as good as the research that went into selecting them.

      There's no point focusing on bookmarking and links if you're selling a video and a few Youtube videos would get you straight to your target audience.

      Getting traffic is not about SEO and Link building - it's about finding the people you designed your product to help and going where they are.

      You can get traffic to a site by putting graphics on your car or sponsoring a local event.

      If your starting point is creating a product just because you think it's a good idea and then doing what other people tell you to do in order to sell it - you can't blame anyone but yourself if things don't work out.

      The Internet is a competitive place and you need to stand out.

      That means being creative and being focused on your results - not just throwing up links and using link spamming tools in the hope that if you build it they will come.

      If you use a shotgun you'll get messy results - use a laser and you'll hit exactly where you aim. But you need to know where to aim - which you should do before you ever make your product.


      Getting traffic is only difficult if you've got your business model upside down and didn't workout how to access your market before you created your product/service.

      Everyone has something to sell - having a product is the easy bit.

      Andy
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • I hope so...I'm not getting any younger and I don't think anyone else here is either
  • Thank you for posting inspirational replies in this thread. But I say no thank you for those persons who only wishes to get on the other side of the fence just to earn some attraction. Thank you for to the author of this thread for posting such matter.
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