 My 2004 Top 10 Traffïc SourcesPublished Date: 2004-05-03 02:09:36 WorkOnInternet.com
I think you'll find this list interesting. And who knows, you may even find a new way to get targeted traffïc to your websites... 1. Affiliates My number one traffïc source again this year is my affiliates. In fact, my affiliates send thousands of visitors a day to my sites. Perhaps that's because I keep my affïliate network small by inviting only my customers to participate. This keeps competition to a minimum and rewards active affiliates more handsomely. If you have not started an affïliate program for your best products and services, I highly recommend you do so. Although there are some costs involved with starting your own affïliate program, it is well worth it. Justify the expense by telling yourself that you are hiring thousands of salës people and paying them only when they sell. A web based affïliate program is just that. 2. Repeat Visitors A perennial top performer is "repeat visitors." You know, people coming to my site who have already been there before. This is something you used to hear marketing experts talk about a lot. Nowadays, it seems that the value of repeat visitors has been overlooked. Yet repeat visitors are usually the people who end up making purchases at your site. And there are lots of ways to get these valuable repeat visitors. I get most of mine through my follow-up autoresponders ( thank you webbusinesswizard.com ) and also through my frëe ebooks and my BizWeb eGazette newsletter. I suggest you look at these "relationship building" strategies closely and try similar techniques, if you are not already doing so. 3. A Fr'ee Traffïc Network? OK, why the question mark? Well, this one even surprised me. I've nevër been a big fan of start networks or traffïc exchange programs. But I'm glad I tried one called TraffïcSwarm --- it quickly developed into a top traffïc source, and has remained near the top for some time. There are lots of traffïc networks to choose from on the web, and the few I had tried nevër impressed me. But this one delivers hundreds of highly targeted visitors a day to my sites. I currently have a Pro account and at just thirty bucks a month it has been a self-propelled traffïc (and income) generator. I do nothing. It sends traffïc. I recommend it to any webmaster on a tïght budget. 4. Google In fourth place this year, and still delivering heavy traffïc is Google. The web's top search engine really delivers a high quantity of high-quality traffïc to my sites. In fact, I've managed to help a growing number of my members grow their google traffïc as well. There are no tricks to it either. It really is as simple as taking the recommendations directly from Google's site at http://www.google.com/webmasters/ and then making sure your site is properly optimized with the right keywords for your niche. 5. Links/Content Getting lots of incoming links to your site is important. Not only will traffïc arrive via those links, but a site with lots of incoming links does better in search engines than sites with few links. Getting links, starts with content. You write articles based on your niche, post the content at your site and share the content with other webmasters. You can do this "on-the-fly" by including a short footer after your content that tells webmasters they have permission to reprint your article at their website or in their newsletter. Be sure to let them know that they need to include a live link to your site. You may even want to tell them exactly how to link to your site. (Preferably with a short description of your site and a hyper linked keyword or two. This will help search engines determine that the sites are related and give the link more relevance.) There are lots of websites in need of decent content. Supply it and you can benefit greatly - your links will grow continually with no effort on your part. And the beauty of this strategy is that only sites in your niche will use your content. This means your links will be high quality links from sites in the right 'neighborhood.' This goes a long way with the search engines. If you would like to see this content-sharing link growing strategy in action, visit my marketing articles archive. There are lots of other ways to get links into your site, and you really need to use your imagination in this area. 6. Affiliate-showcase.com Affïliate Showcase makes my top 10 list for the second year in a row. It is a web based affïliate program search engine that is brandable for anyone promoting affïliate programs. It automates the tedious process of affïliate marketing and can generate some serious traffïc to any site you want. Since it is viral, it is something you can set up, then let run on auto-pilot. And that's pretty much what I've done. Yet it continues to deliver a steady stream of traffïc to my sites. At the very least grab the no-cost version and give it a try. 7. MSN Yep, MSN.com is finally making a dent in the search engine market, and they are making a concerted effort to expand in that area. In fact, I've already seen traffïc to my sites from search.msn.com grow steadily, especially over the past few months. If you have not added your URL to their engine, you may want to submit it at: http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm. 8. Yahoo! Although this traffïc source moved down the list a bit from last year, Yahoo.com still delivers quite a bit of traffïc to my websites. But search has changed quite a bit recently at Yahoo, and with those changes comes cost to webmasters. If you have the budget, consider using their new SiteMatch service. Or at the very least, use the Frëe URL Submission Yahoo currently offers. 9. "Sister" sites Over the years I've put together a number of "sister" sites offering various Internet marketing information, products and services. These sites include my WebBusinessWizard.com, Work-at-Home-Site.com, JV-Alert.com and a few others. Naturally, these sites contain references to my main sites. So as the traffïc has grown to the sister sites, the traffïc to my main sites has grown as well. Putting up additional websites is easy, with discount website templates readily available, and web-hosting fees at all-time lows. So it you are sticking with just one site, it may be time for you to explore a bit of expansion. Just keep costs to a minimum and make sure all your sites complement each other. Before you know it you could have an entire network of sites all helping each other grow! 10. Article Submissions Although I have not submitted articles to other email newsletters as often this year, this strategy still works well when I find time to do it, and I highly recommend it to other grass-roots web marketers. In fact, I still get quite a bit of traffïc from my archived articles across the web. That just goes to prove how effective this strategy is for long-term traffïc, as well as establishing expertise on your topic of choice. If you are not using this strategy, try it! Visit an ezine directory like http://www.ezinehub.com and find some ezines in your niche. Then send your best, current article to the editor. Make sure the article is helpful and includes a small footer at the end, about the author. About The Author Article by Jim Daniels of Make-A-Living-Online.com. If you're interested in starting or growing a business on the Internet, Jim's sites will help you save time and monëy. He's been making a living online since 1996 and knows the ropes. Visit Jim and get your frëe help! http://www.make-a-living-online.com
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