Driving traffic - Social Bookmarking Sites

Over the last couple of years, social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon have become incredibly popular. If you can get a story featured on the front page of Digg, for example, you can realistically expect in excess of 20,000 unique website visitors in a 24-hour period!

The best part about using any of the social bookmarking sites is that they are entirely free. All you have to do is write or create something that is so newsworthy that other people will add it to their ‘bookmarks’ folder on the social bookmarking site in question.

If this happens, then you can expect thousands of people to visit your site within a very short time. You must, however, understand that this is likely to be a very short term ‘buzz’, and these traffic levels are not going to be sustained.Nevertheless, if your website is interesting enough, then some of the visitors will return again.All you have to do, therefore, is create a site that justifies people taking the time and making the effort of visiting you again.

Driving traffic - Create a blog

A blog is a basic prerequisite of any well constructed website. It is like an online journal, and when associated with your business oriented site, it allows you to constantly update your site with the latest news and opinions surrounding your topic or subject matter.

Furthermore, the blog community is massive and growing by huge numbers everyday. If, therefore, you were to search using a term such as 'product type/name + blog’, you would probably find hundreds or perhaps even thousands of other people with sites like yours that have blogs attached to them.

Visit as many as you can, and leave useful and informative comments on the blog pages. Doing so will create back links to your own site,and that will drive traffic from both sides as people visit and are curious about what you say.

Driving Traffic - Traffic exchanges

Traffic exchanges are a seriously maligned but much underused and underestimated source of traffic.The concept of a traffic exchange website is that people join and they view other people’s websites. In return, they earn credits which the site then uses to drive other people to view their webpage.

The major problem with the vast majority of people who use traffic exchange programs is that they try to sell their product or service from the page to which they send other exchange users. This does not work. People do not buy anything in this situation.

If, however, you can present your site visitor with an attractive free offer, then using traffic exchanges becomes a viable method of building a long-term business.We have already covered the idea of building a page on your site where you offer a valuable or attractive free gift in return for your visitor’s name and e-mail address.

This is the page that you use for traffic exchanges, and as long as it will make an impact in the two or three seconds that you have available to ‘hit’ the visitor straight between the eyes, then using traffic exchanges can be an incredibly effective way of generating responsive traffic at no cost.It is also a traffic generation tactic that is underused, so if you promote your real world affiliate product using this method, you will probably be the only person doing so. This in itself is incredibly powerful.

Driving Traffics - Forum marketing

No matter what you website is about, there will be hundreds or perhaps even thousands of other people who are interested in the same topic or subject matter.It is likely that many of these people have got together before to create forum websites where they can ‘meet’ to discuss and debate their passion.

Find out where these forum sites are, and get involved in the discussion. Most forums will allow you to add what is known as a signature file, where you can add a link to your website, although you're not allowed to overtly promote your site.Nevertheless, if you get actively involved in a community that is focused on your particular subject or topic, then it should be relatively easy to invite people to view your site.I have, in fact, found this tactic to be particularly effective when working with non-digital affiliate products.

I believe this to be a side-effect of the fact that 99% of online affiliates are working with digital products, and when they see something that is clearly different (i.e. your non-digital affiliate product) it generates immediate interest.

In other words, by being different (by not promoting the same products as everyone else) you and your products stand out. This is something that I have found is a major plus point when working with forums and community sites.Big-boards.com is an excellent resource for finding appropriate forum and notice-board sites.

Driving Traffic - Writing Articles

The upside of using articles as a promotional tool is that it costs you absolutely no money to do so, and they are very effective over the long-term. The downside is that it does require work to create the articles in question, and that they can sometimes take a little time to have any genuine beneficial effects for your business.

However, I would definitely recommend that you write articles about your topic or subject matter, and submit them to the leading article directories like ezinearticles and goarticles. At the end of every article, you should include a resource box, which gives details of you and your business website.

The details that you include about your website should send article readers to the page that you built to capture names and e-mail addresses (usually called your landing page).

Alternatively, you may send visitors to specific pages of your site most directly related to the article subject matter (as long as they also feature the name capture form somewhere). For example, if you had a website that was related to dogs, and a page about each particular breed, then an article that you write about spaniels might point to your ‘spaniel’ page.

As long as each page on the website promotes the affiliate program you are representing, and includes a way of capturing the visitor’s name and e-mail address, then this is likely to be an extremely effective promotional tactic.This method of marketing also helps in another way.

Most people who search the net will do so by using search engines. In order to instigate a search, they will type a phrase into the search engine which will then return a page of results.

If your site can be featured in these results, then this will send visitors to your site, who will then view your ads and hopefully investigate the offer that you are making.

One of the criteria that the search engines use for including your page in these results is the links that come into your site from other sites.Having your articles published in the best known directories usually offers a major boost as to the number of incoming links you have.

Driving traffic to Your Affiliate Page

You must have visitors

You can have the best website in the world, but if no-one ever visits it, you cannot make any money. Driving quality traffic (i.e. people who are interested in whatever it is you are selling) to your site is therefore of great importance.

For oming post,I'm going to share with you the most popular and effective traffic generation techniques. Some of them need investment, while many of them are free (but not generally as quick).

For example, using Pay Per Click advertising like Google AdWords is effective and very quick, but it does nevertheless need you to spend some money. If you have money available, generating traffic using AdWords is therefore an extremely efficient and quick method.

I am, however, assuming that you are working on a tight budget, and that therefore you do not necessarily want to spend money on advertising and site promotion. Bearing this in mind, the following are the free traffic generation tactics that will bring the most accurately targeted visitors to your site:

1. Writing Articles
2. Forum Marketting
3. Traffic exchanges
4. Create a blog
5. Social Bookmarking Sites
6. Promoting Offline

Stay with me for the details.

Affiliate Marketing Tips

No matter what you may have heard about affiliate marketing, it's impossible for everyone to make 5,000 - 10,000 dollars a month, as there is simply too much competition. There is also no money that will fall into your hands without you doing anything for it.

With that in mind, you'll find some high level tips below that will help you make money with affiliate marketing programs on the internet.

1. Google and Overture - Even though the days of free traffic aren't completely over, they are surely fading away quickly. You can choose to work hard creating web pages that score well in the search engines, although it's very hard to do.By paying for clicks with Google and Overture, you'll have the top three positions on the search engines that matter the most. If you hope to generate web traffic from Yahoo, all you need to do is be at the top of Google.
2. Your own email list - Sending offers to your very own email list is the ideal way to build freedom and residual income. Instead of sending traffic away then hoping for the best, you should instead have your own email list to which you are able to send multiple offers.
3. Your own affiliate program - If you knew that each filled out form on your site generated .50 cent in revenue, would you still be willing to pay someone else .25 cents to generate that same traffic? The most overlooked ways of generating traffic is having others generate it for you. There are many advantages to this method, including the fact that others will be getting your traffic for you. When it all comes down to it, everything involves paying for traffic in one way or another. To make more income, you'll need to invest very wisely in advertising.