Brief introduction

Two million visits and more....

Hi, I'm Allan Gardyne, CEO of AssociatePrograms.com.

Why should you listen to me?

I don't claim to be an expert, but I know enough about traffic generation to regard getting a million visits a year as an achievable target.

I've done it, doubled it, and more - with FREE traffic. If you haven't reached a million visits a year, you should find this report

useful.

When it comes to traffic generating, many affiliates and other website owners tend to get stuck in a comfortable rut. We often use a small number of favorite techniques and rarely venture beyond them.

I'm hoping this report will encourage you to look beyond the techniques you're using and try a few new ones. By using a wider variety of techniques, you'll attract new visitors from new places.

The wider you cast your traffic net, the more you future-proof your business.

You probably won't use EVERY method listed here. Choose the ones which best suit your site, your skills, your interests and your temperament.

All the techniques I describe here involve work - but that's a GOOD thing. Many of your competitors will be too lazy to do the work involved, so when you do it, your traffic will leap ahead of theirs.

To do one or two of the things I describe, you may have to go to eLance or Rentacoder and hire a programmer. However, the vast majority of the techniques are free and relatively simple. Most of them require time, not money.

About 95% of this report describes strong, solid fundamentals - techniques which build a solid, long-term business. About 5% deals with gimmicks. Don't ignore the gimmicks. Sometimes they can work brilliantly.

I like to think of search engines as my unpaid slaves, working for me 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Back in 2003 when I was seriously ill and running my business from hospital, my websites carried on like magic, receiving thousands of visitors every day. I LOVE free search engine traffic.

How to get traffic to your site is a HUGE topic. Whole books have been written on just small aspects of it. This report is an introduction to the topic. For many of the techniques here, I'm just reminding you that they exist.

Please don't just nod your head and think, "I know that." Take action. Try some of the techniques you're not using.

Other websites use these techniques successfully so why don't you?

At the end of the report, there's a brief list of carefully chosen traffic- generating resources I recommend.

This report is aimed at affiliates, but you don't have to be an affiliate to find these traffic-generating tips useful.

Traffic tip #1

You MUST have high quality, unique content if you want long-term, free search engine traffic.

This is the most important tip of all. Sadly, it's one which many website owners ignore.

Provide LOTS of information-rich, keyword-rich, useful content for the search engines and humans to find.

You know that search engines are being clogged with junk at an alarming rate. The other day, I came across a marketer who was boasting that he owned more than 20,000 blogs - and he's not the only one.

Consider the scary effect of this exponential increase in low quality blogs and websites. Old, large, well established sites will inevitably become more and more important and trusted by the search engines.

Owning a large, well established, high quality site is a very solid investment in your future.

These days, even Google's webmaster guidelines advise affiliates to publish "unique and relevant" content.

If you spend time thinking of ways to provide truly USEFUL content that people will talk about, you'll automatically end up with lots of free, one-way links to your site as people recommend it without even being asked to do so.

I've been building information-rich websites ever since I created my first site in 1996. This method has worked extremely well for me and continues to work very well.

If your website helps solve people's problems, they'll love you for it.

Traffic tip #2

Keep ADDING fresh, relevant, useful content. According to Google, about half the 2.5 billion searches done a day at

Google are for unique, one-off phrases.

The more pages you build full of on-topic material, the better the chances your site will be found.

When it comes to keywords, think big. You want your site to be found via THOUSANDS of different phrases every month.

Then you can lure that traffic to your best money-generating pages or to your newsletter sign-up page.

Also, search engines prefer fresh sites which keep gradually adding new content. Don't let your site go stale.

Super affiliate James Martell says:

"My own rule of thumb is this: Add a minimum of 1 article per week, 2 preferably. Adding an article daily is euphoria and adding 1 every six hours, well, that's the best."

Traffic tip #3

Choose a memorable domain name.

If you're launching a new site, choose a name people will remember easily.

Years ago, I visited a site called "forkinthehead.com". Its logo is a man with a fork in his head. Sounds dreadful, doesn't it?

tHowever, all it took for me to remember that unusual site was ONE visit years ago.

You may not wish to go to such extreme lengths, but at least ask yourself: "Will people remember my domain name?"

At my four main sites, a large percentage of the visitors are people who have remembered the domain name and typed it directly into their browser. (I also own a site built in 1996 which has a totally impossible to remember URL, but that's another story.)

Try to choose a name which won't be confused with similar names. You don't want people typing your competitor's domain name when they’re trying to find your site.

NameBoy.com has a handy tool to help you choose domain names. Also, you can find a surprising number of good deleted (expired) domain names at Whois.net. Both those tools are free.

Traffic tip #4

Buy the wrong domain name, too.

If you think people may confuse your domain name with a similar name, try to buy that name, too.

I noticed that sometimes when newsletters mentioned AssociatePrograms.com they put the "s" in the wrong place and called it "AssociatesProgram.com".

It even happened at an Internet marketing conference I was attending. The speaker kindly mentioned my site, but got the name wrong. Whoops!

So when that wrong domain name became available, I bought it.

Now, if you muddle up the name and type "AssociatesProgram.com" you're automatically redirected to AssociatePrograms.com.

It occurred to me that people in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, who think "programs" is spelled "programmes", might also have trouble getting my domain name right.

So I bought AssociateProgrammes.com, too. It also redirects to the correct domain.

A good domain name registrar will make it very easy for you to redirect one domain name to another. 000Domains.com is one that does.

Traffic tip #5

Make your domain name easy to read - especially if it's a .NET

Which of the following is easier to read and understand?

www.associateprograms.com or www.AssociatePrograms.com See how using a capital letter at the start of each word makes the second

domain name easier to read - and easier to remember.

Whenever you mention your domain name anywhere, ALWAYS present it in its most readable form. A good place to start doing this is in your email signature file.

If you're unfortunate enough to have bought the ".net" version of a domain name because someone raced you to the ".com", help people to remember your site by writing it like this...

Example.NET Being MEMORABLE helps you get more repeat visitors.

Traffic tip #6

Use appropriate keywords in your image file names.

One of my websites gets hundreds of visits a month from people who are searching for images. I'm not sure how valuable those visitors are, but I didn't have to do anything very special to get them.

Google Images - http://images.google.com - makes it easy for people to search for graphics online.

To take advantage of this, when choosing the file name of an image on your site, use an appropriate key phrase, for example, "book-ends.jpg" if you're promoting book ends.

Here's a tip I just discovered...

When I searched in Google Images for "book ends" I discovered that the very first search result was for a page which did NOT contain a graphic of book ends!

Instead, the page contained a "book ends" LINK to a book ends graphic on a second page. It if suits the design of your site, you may want to experiment with this technique.

I'm not sure how much use traffic to images is, but if it's ADDITIONAL traffic you can get simply by choosing image file names carefully, it's worth having.

Traffic tip #7

Do REALLY SERIOUS keyword research. If you want to get LOTS of traffic from search engines, you need to find out

the exact phrases which people are typing into search engines.

There are free tools available for this, but they're not nearly as useful as the more comprehensive paid tools.

For example, if you're using the Overture keyword tool for your research, be warned, its results can't be trusted.

As my Special Projects Manager, Jay Stockwell, likes to point out, the Overture tool shows you the SAME number of searches for all these searches:

bikini girls girls bikini bikini girl girl bikini bikinis girl girl bikinis

This is obviously nonsense.

The Overture tool is useful to give you a quick rough guide, but NOT for serious research.

Here's a good tip from "Charlie" on our affiliate forum:

"The harder it is to discover a certain search phrase (getting traffic), the less competition you will have in the SERPs (for that search phrase). If a keyword research tool is free and popular, how many competitors will you have for the phrases you discover there?"

Jay has spent hundreds of hours researching and analyzing keyword research tools. He's built the best site on the Internet reviewing keyword research tools - KeywordWorkshop.com.

You need to visit Jay's site whether you're using search engine optimization (organic SEO) or pay-per-click advertising.

Traffic tip #8

Try this page titles experiment.

Here's a good way increase your traffic.

Go to Google and type any phrase into the search box. Look at the titles of the websites in the top 10 rankings.

Which ones catch your eye and tempt you to click on the link? Some are dreadfully stodgy, boring. Some are merely a long list of keywords. Some are good. Some are junk.

Good titles are written for search engines AND humans. Now look at the titles on your site. Start with your most important pages.

Rewrite them to make them more eye-catching. Now go to Google and do a search of your site like this...

site:example.com

Study the page titles. If you own a large site created over many years, you may be horribly embarrassed at just how BAD some of your page titles are.

Do you want to find some examples of good titles? Simply go to Google and do some more searches. Don't stick to your industry.

Type in all sorts of different phrases and study the titles that appear in the top 10.

You'll soon be brimming with ideas on ways you can improve your page titles.

Checking how enticing the information is in your meta description tag can help, too. Some search engines display this information in their search results.

If you have a well established site, you may have written many of your page titles and meta descriptions years ago when you knew less about marketing than you do now. If so, it's time for another look at them

Traffic tip #9

Organic SEO - a few key points.

Search engines are getting cleverer all the time. You can try to outsmart them but to me it makes more sense to work WITH them.

They're gradually getting better at sifting out low quality websites and ranking them poorly. So build high quality websites containing genuinely useful material that other people want to link to.

The basics of good search engine optimization are fairly simple. Here's a very quick summary:

• You need to make it easy for a search engine to figure out the topic of your page.

• Find appropriate keywords or key phrases and use them in the title, in the page heading, in the introduction, throughout the article, in the meta description, in alt tags, at the end of the article, in links on the page, in bold or italics, and perhaps in a list on the page.

Use key phrases in your file names, for example: keyword1- keyword2.html.

• Use synonyms and word variations naturally throughout the page. • When linking to your pages, use appropriate keywords in the anchor

text (the words people click on). Do this for links throughout your site, and also on other people's sites which link to yours. Vary the anchor text.

• For internal links, it's better to use text than graphical links. • Create a logical navigation system so that humans and search

engines can easily find the content on your site. • Get links from other sites to internal pages as well as to your main

page. This is just a brief overview of a big topic.

If you want excellent, reliable advice on search engine optimization, there's one place I recommend above all others.

It's the resource the professionals use - Stephen Mahaney and his team at Planet Ocean. These guys do nothing but search engine optimization. They're experts.

I've been a subscriber for years. Planet Ocean is an often recommended resource because it publishes a search engine optimization newsletter and an excellent book which is updated every month, so you can rest assured the information you're reading is right up to date.

Traffic tip #10

Submit to the main directories.

The more high quality links you have to your site, the more impressed the search engines will be.

Start with major directories such as...

Yahoo! DMOZ.org sbd.bcentral.com

...and move on to...

Gimpsy Skaffe Joeant GoGuides Business.com SevenSeek ThisIsOurYear LookSmart (probably too expensive) BlueFind

WowDirectory Best of the Web GeniusFind

Here's a good list of directories

http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php

Be sure to read the submission rules carefully at each site. This will slow you down but it increases your chances of getting your site listed. Listings can last for years, so it's worth while taking your time to get the details correct.

You may want to outsource this task by finding someone at a site like eLance or hiring a student.

Traffic tip #11

Submit to niche directories.

Search for smaller, specialist directories in your niche. For example, if your site is on a health topic, look for health-related directories.

How to find niche directories:

• Go to Search It! (It's a very handy free research tool.) • Scroll to the Search Category, "Specialty Hubs and Directories" • Choose one of the 4 options in STEP 2 • Read the "Click Here for Information..." help before proceeding • Complete STEPS 3 and 4, and then click on Search It! • Read the tutorial. It tells you what to do with the search results • Get your search results. You should be able to find relevant, themed

hub sites and directories which will list your site. Some charge a fee, some are free.

Traffic tip #12

Distribute USEFUL articles to article directories.

Write articles and submit them to article directories. Make sure they're USEFUL, interesting articles, not fluff. Other websites will pick up these articles and use them on their site.

If you've added a link to your site in the "About the author" box at the bottom of the article, you can get hundreds or thousands of links to your site. You also boost your reputation.

When writing the article, you need an eye-catching heading. You also need to give people a strong incentive to visit your site.

Here are some ways to do that:

• Give people a link where they can get a free report. • Tell them where they can subscribe to your newsletter. • Tell them to visit your site for Part 2 of the article. • Tell them to visit your site for a more comprehensive version of the

article.

Distributing articles to directories is tedious and time-consuming. You can either do it manually or you can speed up the process - and receive a very helpful instruction manual - if you use ArticleAnnouncer. It's expensive but good value.

Another popular way of distributing articles is to use the Article Marketer service to do all the hard work for you. iSnare is another good one.

Here are some popular article distribution sites.

http://ezinearticles.com http://www.goarticles.com http://www.netterweb.com http://www.articlefinders.com http://www.articlecity.com

One annoying thing about this technique is that some unscrupulous website owners will publish your articles without linking back to your site. Oafs like that should be tarred and feathered, I reckon.

Over all, the advantages outweigh the minimal disadvantages.

You can find a long list of places to submit articles in this discussion on our affiliate forum:

http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/discus/ftopic9801.html

Some people publish an article on their site and a few days later submit it to article directories. I'm cautious. I believe the search engines will eventually get much tougher on duplicate content, so I believe a safer approach is to

distribute articles which are markedly different from the ones you publish on your site.

Traffic tip #13

Write articles directly for other sites.

Getting high quality links to your site is hugely important. Ideally, you want links from "authority" sites - sites which have a lot of links to THEM.

As well as reading what search engine optimization experts say, study what they actually DO. One common tactic they use is to write expert articles and get them published on related websites. When they do this, the links they get to their site are beautifully on target - those links come from a page which is all about search engine optimization - which perfectly matches the theme of their site.

To a search engine, such links look much more important than a boring link which is just one of dozens on a page in a little mini-directory tacked on to a mini-site.

Traffic tip #14

Submit articles to newsletters which are archived online.

Submitting articles to newsletters has been popular since the early days of marketing online. In the "Internet marketing" niche, publishers tend to be swamped with offers to publish articles. Other fields aren't so ridiculously competitive.

You're likely to have more success if you take the time to establish a relationship with a newsletter publisher. Also, if you're prepared to write an article exclusively for one newsletter, your offer is more likely to impress.

Subscribe to each newsletter and study it carefully. Study the online archives. The article you offer needs to be genuinely useful.

Traffic tip #15

Submit brief hints to newsletters and blogs.

A brief, useful hint published in an archived newsletter can give you a link to your site for many years - perhaps even a decade or more.

You can also submit tips to blogs.

Traffic tip #16

Include keywords in your online profiles.

Whenever you create an online profile anywhere online - on your blogs, on a forum or on sites such as LinkedIn - always use carefully chosen key phrases.

This increases the chance that people will find you, either via search engines or, for example at LinkedIn, via the site's search facility.

The other day a friend of mine, Phil Tanny, mentioned that he'd started a forum. To try to find it, I typed...

Phil Tanny forum

...into Google. The No.1 search result surprised me. It was Phil's profile on OUR affiliate forum.

(The ranking may have changed by the time you read this.)

Profile links probably aren't very valuable in Google's eyes, but they're quick and easy to set up. Try it on our forum:

http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/discus/index.php

You can often find forums in your industry by going to Google and typing in...

keyword +forum

Traffic tip #17

Get one-way links and a few reciprocal links.

Reciprocal links aren't as important as they used to be. They should not be your major traffic-generating strategy. They ARE still very useful, especially when you're getting a new site established in the search engines.

Here's an article I wrote describing in detail how to get reciprocal links. For a comprehensive look at ways to get links, I recommend you read this

article by Bill Hartzer:

Linking Campaigns Lead to Increased Online Visibility

Stephen Mahaney offers a wealth of information in this article:

12 Essential Strategies for Building & Structuring Inbound Links

(Both those articles are excellent examples of experts getting articles published on other people's sites.)

Also, here's one of the many warnings from Google:

"Keep in mind that our algorithms can distinguish natural links from unnatural links. Natural links are links to your site that develop as part of the dynamic nature of the web when other sites find your content valuable and think it would be helpful for their visitors. Unnatural links are links to your site placed there specifically to make your site look more popular to search engines." Source: http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/

Google's webmaster guidelines say plainly:

"Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank."

Traffic tip #18

Publish articles on your site and invite other sites to publish them on their sites, with a link to you.

Some websites make it very easy for other sites to reprint their articles. At the end of each article on their site, they publish a note giving people permission to reprint the article providing the source box at the end is published, too.

(Caution: Although this technique apparently works well for those who do it, I don't use this technique. My goal is to have almost all unique content on my sites. I wonder if the technique may not work quite so well some time in the future. I could be wrong, but I speculate that as search engines become more and more clogged with junk sites, search engines will get much tougher on duplicate content. Sites which don't publish duplicate content will benefit, I believe.)

Traffic tip #19

Publish a lively, useful newsletter.

Let's say you have 3,000 people a week - or month - visiting your site. Most of them are going to look at one or two pages and then disappear, perhaps never to be seen again.

You need a way to persuade them to return.

Writing your own newsletter is an excellent way of boosting repeat traffic. A newsletter reminds readers that your site exists.

To encourage repeat visitors, you can tell your readers about new articles you've added to your site. You can also remind them of articles they may have missed. You can tell them about a survey you're running on your site, a special report, or interesting new posts on your forum.

While you're writing your newsletter, keep asking yourself, "Is this item useful? How can I make it MORE useful?"

If you're not keen on writing, you can outsource the writing or simply publish brief notes which let your readers know that your site has been updated. My newsletters tend to be long, but yours doesn't have to be.

Newsletters enhance your reputation, add to your credibility and - best of all - give you repeat opportunities to make a sale.

Another advantage of publishing a newsletter is that when you want to launch a second or third website, you can give it a flying start simply by mentioning it in your newsletter.

If you haven't published a newsletter, you'll find that the technical side of it is much easier than you imagined.

A good, reliable way to publish a newsletter is to use Aweber to distribute it. Aweber takes the hassle out of newsletter publishing.

Using a professional service like Aweber and a double opt-in sign-up process gives you protection against spam complaints. Aweber has been around for years, has an excellent reputation and one of the highest - if not THE highest - successful delivery rates online.

It automatically handles subscribes and unsubscribes.

It gives you a form you simply paste into your website to start collecting email addresses, and it even provides newsletter templates. It's a wonderful service. I use it for two of my newsletters and highly recommend it. It's much better than a more expensive distribution service I also use.

It's tricky switching one from service to another. Because of inertia, you're likely to lose a large percentage of your readers if you have to switch to a new service. So make sure you start with a well established, reliable company that's here for the long haul.

Traffic tip #20

Submit your newsletter to newsletter directories.

Search in Google for...

ezine directories ezine directory newsletter directory newsletter directories

...and submit your newsletter to newsletter directories.

It's time-consuming and you probably won't get a lot of traffic from this technique. If you have more money than time, outsource this task. You could hire a student to do it.

Traffic tip #21

Publish a mini-course.

This technique encourages visitors to keep coming back to your site. Publish a short (or long) informational email mini-course. Provide genuinely

useful content.

Starting gradually, after you've won the trust of your readers, weave relevant affiliate links into the messages.

Also, give your readers reasons to visit your site, giving them links to related articles on your site. These pages can contain both affiliate links and AdSense ads. 

To retain your readers' interest, at the end of each message, give them a little teaser telling them what they'll get in the next message in the series.

The autoresponder service I use and recommend is Aweber. With only one subscription, it allows you to publish newsletters and

autoresponder courses from different domains.

Some smart marketers using this technique don't send the mini-course via email. They just send out a memo announcing when each new part is online.

Doing this helps you evade spam filters - the shorter the message, the more likely it is to get through. Also, it gives you an opportunity to get eyeballs in front of the affiliate links or AdSense ads on your site.

Traffic tip #22

Write testimonials that are worth using.

When you read an ebook or newsletter or some product which you find useful, write a quick note to the author. Sometimes, your quick note will be published as a testimonial, with a link back to your site.

Joe Vitale has taken this tactic to extraordinary lengths. For examples, trying doing a search in Google for

"joe vitale" +testimonial

Don't go crazy over this technique. Remember that every single thing you write online builds - or damages - your reputation.

Traffic tip #23

Make helpful posts in forums.

Join forums in your niche and promote your site in your signature.

Be careful. Read the forum instructions first or you're likely to annoy forum moderators and forum members who have been there for years. Lurk and learn.

Some forums allow signatures. Some don't. Some won't allow words like "See the link in my signature". Tread carefully.

You also need to remember that many affiliate agreements specifically say that posting an affiliate link on a forum is regarded as spamming. Ignoring this rule can get you dumped from an affiliate program. You could lose any commissions you've earned.

Build your reputation by posting genuinely, helpful, useful comments.

If you think carefully of ways to provide truly USEFUL content that people will talk about, you'll automatically end up with lots of free, one-way links to your site as people recommend it without even being asked to do so.

Do a search in Google for

yourkeyword + forum yourkeyword +"message board"

A good place to start is our friendly, helpful affiliate forum:

http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/discus/index.php

Traffic tip #24

Post free ads on forums which allow it.

I doubt if posting free ads will produce much benefit, but if you have lots of time you could try it. Our affiliate forum has a Free Ads section.

As I write this, we're discussing scrapping the Free Ads section because it has been abused so often.

Selfish oafs pollute the world in which we live.

Traffic tip #25

Make useful posts to email discussion lists.

You can subscribe to free email discussion lists and participate.

For Internet marketers, LED Digest is a good one. It has more than 40,000 subscribers. The moderator, Adam Audette, won't accept blatant advertising, so be cautious. Lurk and learn before you post.

Traffic tip #26

Write keyword-rich press releases.

Write keyword-rich press releases and submit them to such places as PRWeb, URLwire, BusinessWire, PR Newswire and Market Wire, publicizing your new site, or a new section of your site.

Press releases can give you a burst of immediate traffic AND provide long- term links to your site.

They may even result in journalists phoning you for an interview.

A few years ago, the main aim of a news release was to catch the attention of an editor or journalist. These days, you're often aiming directly at Internet users.

When writing the news release, keep the reader in mind all the time. You must catch the reader's attention very quickly, using phrases that entice the person to read the article AND click on a link to visit your site - either to the main page or to a special landing page.

Write the press release as though you're writing an article for a newspaper. This means you must have a short, snappy introduction.

Write concisely.

Write the most important point in the FIRST sentence. Then write your second most important point, and so on.

Here's useful article by Larry Chase:

How to Attract Traffic to Your Site Using Press Releases. A useful tool to speed up news release distribution is PressEqualizer.

Traffic tip #27

Create a lively blog or blogs.

You can create a blog easily and free, without knowing any HTML.

When you add a new page to your website, mention the new page in your blog.

Make friends with other blog publishers and get links from them.

Here are some good tips on how to increase the chance that someone will link to your blog post:

http://www.howlinkable.com

When you post a message in your blog, your blog software should automatically send a ping to the main blog search engines, such as Technorati, and other sites. Learn how to do this.

Here's a nifty tip. You can get your lastest blog post listed in Google quickly by using Google Sitemaps. The Blogging For Dollars ebook has a bonus report which describes how.

Services such as Feedburner.com allow your blog's feed to be distributed easily to your site's users. They also allow email subscription of your feeds.

Here's a post on our forum with useful tips:

31 useful ways to promote and improve your blog. Here's a sometimes contradictory post by Seth Godin: 54 ways to get traffic to your blog.

Traffic tip #28

RSS: Make it easy for people to read your blog.

Some people will visit your blog to read it. Others will use an RSS reader on their computer or a web-based service such as MyYahoo!

You can make it easy for such people to subscribe to your blog by adding a special little RSS, XML or MyYahoo! graphic to your blog.

Some websites add a dozen or more such special graphics to their blogs. For an extreme example, scroll down to the bottom of this page:

http://www.theinternetone.net

(Some of those graphics are for social bookmarking sites.)

Traffic tip #29

RSS to email.

Some people don't like using RSS readers. They would prefer to get your blog posts via email. You can help them do so by using RSS to email services such as FeedBlitz, Bloglet or Rmail.

Traffic tip #30

Remove broken links.

Remove all broken links from your site. Search engines don't like them.

You can get free link checking software - Xenu's Link Sleuth - which you download and install.

A web-based link checker I've used for years and recommend is LinkAlarm.com. It's very easy to use.

If you're fortunate enough to have built your site using Site Build It! you'll have discovered that it has a free link checker which automatically advises you of broken links. That's a wonderful bonus.

There's another good - free - way to check for broken links. If you create a sitemap using Google SiteMaps, one of the benefits is that Google will tell you about pages it can't crawl and links it can't follow.

You can see where problems are occurring and fix them.

Using Google SiteMaps is also a reliable way of making sure that Google knows about every page on your site.

Site Build It! also automatically creates your Google SiteMap for you. You don't have to lift a finger.

Traffic tip #31

Attract new audiences with your own podcasts.

A podcast is a sort of audio blog, distributed via RSS. The audio files can be downloaded to iPods or any computer or MP3 player.

People can subscribe to your broadcasts via RSS feeds and automatically receive them.

If you create your own informative, useful podcasts, you can reach a whole new audience.

You'll need to get your podcasts listed in podcast directories such as Podcast.net. Make sure you use an eye-catching title for people scanning the directories.

Large, popular directories of podcasts can be found at Feedburner.com and Apple's iTunes Music Store.

If you get Blogging For Dollars with it you'll receive a booklet titled "WOW Your Audience with Hottest New Technology: Podcasting". It explains podcasting and describes how simple it is to create your own podcasts.

Traffic tip #32

Use reliable web hosting.

Use a good reliable web host. If your site is down when Google's robot comes visiting, your site is likely to disappear from the index. Many really "cheap" web hosts can end up being very expensive.

When Jay was preparing to launch KeywordWorkshop.com, he thoroughly researched web hosts. He was looking for a solidly reliable web host, with good features at a reasonable price.

We've been delighted with the service provided. Here's the web host Jay chose.

If you have a bunch of sites, use several different web hosts. It's a form of insurance in case of disaster. Web hosts sometimes go out of business without warning.

Use backups.

Traffic tip #33

Analyze and tweak your internal linking.

Consider how your pages are linked. Changing your linking structure can increase or decrease a page's PageRank, which can give you a little boost in search engine rankings on your most important pages.

There's a logical, sensible reason for doing this. You WANT more links to your important, income-generating pages and fewer links to obscure pages. 

Some webmasters use rel="nofollow" tags on links to certain pages, reducing PageRank flow to those pages. To me, this seems risky - surely Google would regard it as behavior aimed directly at search engines, not humans.

You could play around for hours testing various linking structures with Mark Horrell's free PageRank Calculator.

Traffic tip #34

Chase new fads and hot topics.

Some affiliates monitor popular TV programs and news items. When a hot topic catches their eye, as fast as they can, they create a new web page, a new blog or new website discussing the new product or new fad.

These fast-moving affiliates are the ones who get to capture the early rush of traffic.

Traffic tip #35

Chase new affiliate programs.

Monitor new affiliate programs and quickly create a new page, new blog or new website to cover the new topic.

A good place to keep an eye on is our AssociatePrograms.com affiliate directory, where several new programs are added almost every day.

Traffic tip #36

Find new topics in your logs - and where your traffic is coming from.

Study your referral logs to see what phrases people are typing into search engines.

SEO specialist Brett Tabke says: "If your site is about 'oranges', but your referrals are all about 'orange citrus fruit', then you can get busy building articles around 'citrus' and 'fruit' instead of the generic 'oranges'".

Here's another reason you MUST have a decent tool to show you your traffic stats. You need to know where your traffic is coming from.

You need to know which of your many traffic generating experiments are most effective. Then you'll know where to allocate your time and energy - on the winners.

If your web host doesn't provide you with good stats, one option is to use AWStats. It's free.

If you're comfortable with letting Google know just about everything about your site, you can also use Google Analytics, which is also free.

Traffic tip #37

Join business associations which list members' sites online.

There may be business associations in your niche which publish members' websites online. It's worth checking.

Try a Google search for "business associations".

Traffic tip #38

Add a forum to your site. A forum has big advantages and big disadvantages.

A popular forum can attract a large number of repeat visitors to your site. It can enhance your credibility as an expert.

A forum can also involve a great deal of work. Before you decide to launch one, carefully consider who will moderate it, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Who will remove the spam? Will you have three moderators working in different time zones around the planet?

If you are going to moderate the forum yourself, who will take over when you want a few days off?

The most effective way to launch a forum is to add one to a popular site. It takes a lot of time and energy - and usually money - to launch one from scratch.

Also, if you do launch a forum, make sure you have a way of enticing forum members from your forum to your newsletter or to the rest of your site. If you don't, they'll just take part in discussions and leave, burning up bandwidth without generating any revenue for you.

Traffic tip #39

Write free reports or white papers.

Write a free ebook or free report (you can use free Open Office software to create one in PDF format), and ask website owners and newsletter publishers to give it away.

Traffic tip #40

Write brandable reports. Write a report and allow other affiliates to put THEIR affiliate links in it and

give it way. What you need is a nice win-win arrangement. Here's an article describing how to do it: http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/articles/213/1/Brandable-ebooks

Traffic tip #41

Submit your free ebooks to ebook directories.

Search in Google for "ebook directory" and "ebook directories" and list your free ebook everywhere you can.

Traffic tip #42

Offer to be a columnist.

Locate a popular site in your niche which would appreciate having you as a regular columnist. Write tips, lively commentary, product reviews, or whatever topics suit your niche.

Traffic tip #43

Offer to moderate a section of a forum.

A forum which is growing fast may appreciate an offer from you to moderate a section of the forum, in return for free publicity for your site.

Traffic tip #44

Do something funny.

Put zany, funny stuff on your site and ask a friend to submit a link to it to BoingBoing.net to get the publicity ball rolling.

If possible, try to make sure the topic of the article is related to the topic of your niche. Remember that you want TARGETED traffic to your site.

Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing.net blog says the blog gets 1.7 million visitors a day.

(Source: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/05/01/1146335641312.html). Reporting a link to BoingBoing is very simple.

Traffic tip #45

Be outrageous or controversial.

Here's a traffic tip from Russell Beattie of RussellBeattie.com:

"Take on Apple. Writing something bad about Steve Jobs or a new Apple product is the sure-fire way to get the zealots in a state of fury. Two days later and I've got 2000+ individual people visiting that post about the iPod photo, over 52 comments and lots of emails. This is to be expected of course, but of the two or three times that I've done it and gotten such a response, it still surprises me."

Mark Daoust says: The Surprising Truth About Ugly Websites, an article recently published on Site-Reference.com, single-handedly brought in over 200,000 unique visitors in less than 24 hours. Initially it was featured on Slashdot, and subsequently it was featured in hundreds of blogs and forums, and thousands of new websites added a link to the article.

Traffic tip #46

Make it easy for people to make you famous - tag your blog.

Sometimes at the bottom of an article in a blog you'll see a link that says something like this:

"Did You Like This Article? Bookmark it at Del.icio.us"

OR

"Digg this article"

OR

"Bookmark this at..."

Providing such links makes it very easy for readers to spread the work about your article.

Some blog owners provide a choice of social networking and social bookmarking links or graphics at the end of their articles.

Here's an example where the author has made it easy for visitors to "Share and Enjoy" (tag) the article:

9 Tips in Life that Lead to Happiness

To find more examples, try a search in Google for "Digg this article".

Social bookmarking sites include:

http://del.icio.us http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com http://www.furl.net

You can see a long list of social bookmarking sites here and free code you can add to your blog template to make tagging easier.

Here's another LONG list of social bookmarking sites. Using a tagging service like Technorati attracts people to your blog.

You label your blog with a tag, such as "pet food". Any Technorati user who has subscribed to that tag will be notified each time you make a post on your blog about pet food.

Social bookmarking sites allow you to share your bookmarks publicly, tagging them to enable others to find them.

If people who visit these sites decide your pages are worth sharing, they'll bookmark and tag them so that other people can find them.

You can also share an RSS feed of your bookmarks. When you add a bookmark, they learn about it automatically.

If you take the time to create genuinely USEFUL collections of bookmarks, people will be more inclined to use them.

The Internet community is just starting to catch on to the enormous potential of using social bookmarking tagging to get high quality links to your site from authority sites. Sean Wu explains exactly how to do it in his ebook Tag and Ping.

As Sean explains, there are basically two types of tags – the ones you place on your blog and the ones you place on social bookmarking sites.

You can create what he calls your "authority site network". For maximum effectiveness, he recommends you do both.

Here's my advice: If you're going to set up "authority" pages on social bookmarking sites, tread carefully. It's a bit like entering a new forum where you don't know the rules. DON'T spam these places. Create pages which contain, useful, relevant content. Then get links to those pages. Sean tells you how to do that.

You'll save yourself a lot of time figuring all this out if you get Sean's book.

Traffic tip #47

Get mentioned on 440 newspaper websites.

Sounds like a dream, doesn't it? You make a post on your website and 440 newspapers quickly link to your blog.

Here's how it works...

Technorati has teamed up with Associated Press (AP). First, you post a blog commenting on an AP news item. When readers visit an AP member website that uses AP Hosted Custom News, they will see a module featuring the "Top Five Most Blogged About" AP articles right next to the article text, dynamically powered by Technorati.

"Additionally, when readers click on an AP article, Technorati will deliver 'Who’s Blogging About' that article. Now, if you have commentary about an AP story, you can get mentioned in that module simply by linking to that AP news URL," Technorati says.

Here are the details: http://technorati.com/weblog/2006/05/107.html

Please note: The "Top Five Most Blogged About" box displays VERY LITTLE. The most emphasis is on your blog's name (NOT the title of your latest post). So to take full advantage of this, you need a really eye-catching name for your blog.

Traffic tip #48

Upload your photos. Tag your photos.

As technorati says, if you'd like your photos to appear on Technorati's tag pages, join Flickr or join Buzznet, two online photo sharing communities,

and post your photos there. "Just tag them and set them to be public and they'll appear on Technorati Tag pages."

Sometimes if you're doing a search in Google, links to photos uploaded to Flickr will be displayed in the search results, because of the keywords in the captions. There's all sorts of potential here for subtle promotion of your site.

If you explore tagging, bookmarketing and social networks, you'll find that one links leads to another, to another, to another...

The challenge is to make the most of this opportunity without wasting an awful lot of time.

Traffic tip #49

Use gimmicks.

If people see something odd on a website, they'll often tell other people about it. You can also alert newsletter publishers and blog owners and suggest they mention your gimmick in their newsletter. For example, Jim Crawford tells us how to make a sound play with a mouseover.

http://crawforddirect.com/laugh.htm Some tips on using gimmicks.

Traffic tip #50

Create deliberate "link bait".

Link bait is website content that other people voluntarily link to. Here's an example.

Do a Google search for "link bait" for more examples.

Traffic tip #51

Syndicate your material.

Syndicate your material to other sites. Create a content syndication feed (RSS feed) and include a link to your site. Use PHP rather than Javascript to ensure search engines parse your headings and links.

You can also syndicate your articles or tips by using a script available from a popular programmer, Will Bontrager.

You don't have to have a blog to publish your material via RSS.

Traffic tip #52

Position yourself as a personality or expert.

Positioning yourself as a personality or expert in a particular field has all sorts of advantages, one of the most important being that it can help you get links to your site without having to ask for them. It also builds trust, helping encourage people to buy from your site.

Positioning yourself as a personality or expert - or both – is much more challenging than building an anonymous mini-site, but the rewards can make it worth while.

It's also a way of future-proofing your business because it makes your site stand out from all the hundreds or thousands of other sites in your niche.

Once you start receiving a bit of publicity, people who are writing articles or books will want to interview you. The resulting publicity leads to more interviews... It has a nice snowballing effect.

Here's an article containing some tips by Matt Bacak:

Become a Recognized Authority in Your Field - in 60 Days or Less!

Traffic tip #53

Create a high profile on Amazon.com.

This tip is for authors.

Authors can join Amazon Connect and tap into Amazon's millions of visitors. If you do it right, you can create mentions in dozens of different places which lead to a page which links to your website.

Create a blog. Create a Profile. Review books. Create a "Listmania" list. "Tag" dozens of keywords, creating lots of breadcrumbs to your Profile, which has links to your websites.

Authors with at least one book for sale on Amazon.com are eligible to participate in AmazonConnect.

Explore the huge possibilities. It's free. To learn more about the program and to sign up, visit www.amazon.com/connect Here's an example - author Bob Baker's profile.

Traffic tip #54

Combine joint ventures AND email captures.

Ebook authors do joint ventures with website owners and newsletter publishers not just to sell products, but also to get a huge rush of website visitors and to collect email addresses.

Consider how most ebook authors do joint ventures. They write a book or create a product, contact a few dozen newsletter publishers giving them a review copy and ask them to promote the book for a generous share of the revenue.

Depending on the quality of the preselling and the quality of the sites salesletter, about 90 to 99% of the people who arrive at the site leave without buying anything.

What a dreadful waste of hard-earned traffic!

More cunning marketers create an email capture or NameSqueeze page. They give away a useful free report or mini-course. If visitors want it, the only way to get it is to hand over an email address.

Their free report or mini-course then promotes the ebook.

It's extra work, but this technique captures many more email addresses (for more repeat visits) and increases the number of sales.

John Reese uses this technique brilliantly to promote his newsletter and CDs. You can see it in action here.

I'm a keen subscriber because I like to keep a close eye on whatever John does.

Traffic tip #55

Try offline advertising.

Try experimenting with offline advertising, in newspapers and in magazines in your niche. Tempt people to reply by offering a free report or free mini- course.

You're likely to have a better return on investment if you concentrate on collecting email addresses, rather than trying to sell directly on the first page of your site.

Traffic tip #56

Place a link in Yahoo! Answers "sources".

At Yahoo! Answers, the people who answer provide free answers. Answer some questions there. In your answers, you can list "sources"

(links) for more details.

The "asker" can vote a particular answer the "Best Answer" and that answer is given special prominence. Other users can vote, too.

If you click on the "Report Abuse" link and check the available categories, you'll see that "advertisements" are banned. However, I've spotted some affiliate links posted as sources.

Rather than posting an affiliate link, I think it would be more useful - and natural - to link to your own website, perhaps to a newsletter sign-up page or to a page offering a free report.

Traffic tip #57

Get links from eBay.

Set up an account at eBay and on your "About Me" page, link to your website.

Read eBay's links policy before you create your page:

http://pages.ebay.in/help/policies/listing-links-aboutme.html

Some affiliates also create special reports containing genuinely useful information - and affiliate links - and sell those reports on eBay, usually for a very low price, just a dollar or so. I've no experience with this. You'll need to do your own research.

Traffic tip #58

Get links from AdSense.

Did you know that AdSense has an AdSense Help discussion group? You can go there, answer someone's question helpfully and provide a link

to your site at the bottom of your post.

Some people offer genuinely helpful answers. Some offer a few words as an excuse to flash their site's URL.

You don't have to be Einstein to figure out which method is more effective.

Traffic tip #59

Add thoughtful comments to blogs.

Dave Taylor of AskDaveTaylor.com says:

"Add thoughtful comments to their discussions. Sometimes, when appropriate, link back to your own articles, but other times add your own comments just to participate in the ongoing discussion and, yes, gain some visibility in your marketspace."

Selfish oafs distort this tip and add off-topic spammy junk to blogs, polluting the global village. Where are the tar and feathers when we need them?

Traffic tip #60

Add sticky content.

Sticky content, says Wikipedia, is website content:

"..which has the purpose of getting a user to return to that particular website. Webmasters use this method to build up a community of returning visitors to a website".

Examples of sticky content include chat rooms, forums, web mail, Internet games, weather, news, horoscopes, and recipes.

This is a HUGE topic. Try a Search in Google for "sticky content". This technique works brilliantly for many websites.

Look for opportunities where you can encourage other people to add free content to your site.

Also, remember that sticky content isn't just words. It can be photos, audio, and video.

Traffic tip #61

Add a classified ads section to your site.

It won't make you rich, but you can generate a little extra revenue as well as attract new visitors by adding a classified advertising section to your site.

Brad Waller's EPage.com makes the whole thing painless.

Traffic tip #62

Social networking.

Some social networking sites, such as MySpace, have many millions of users and are growing fast. MySpace gets truly massive traffic - 38.4 million unique visitors in April, 2006, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

Because these sites have millions of users, you can guarantee that innovative affiliates are cashing in on this traffic.

Good luck!

Here's an article which will give you some ideas:

Making friends - and money - on MySpace

You can find a list of social networking sites here.

If you figure out how to make the most of this opportunity, I'd love to hear from you.

Traffic tip #63

Create your own fan club.

Here's something which may work for sites in some industries.

I was visiting a site the other day and saw a link which said "Join My Fan Club". Curious, I clicked the link and was taken to Frappr where you can invite people to join your "Group Map" or "Friend Map" to see where they all live.

Getting on your Friend Map will help your website visitors feel they're part of a community and help them remember your site.

Try a "See Where We Live" link to spark people's curiosity.

Traffic tip #64

Effective PPC advertising.

Create special landing pages for your paid traffic.

If you're using tips No.1 and No.2 - providing lots of fresh, high quality content - there's a strong risk that your paid advertising visitors will be distracted by your free content. Too many of them are likely to click around, read a lot of stuff and disappear without buying anything.

When you're paying for traffic, you can't afford to let that happen. It's essential that you have a high conversion rate.

So, for paid traffic, either create simple, uncluttered landing pages with no distractions, or special mini-sites with no distractions.

You need to focus your visitors' attention on the link to the affiliate product or on the sign-up form for your newsletter or mini-course.

If your conversion rate is high enough, you can buy advertising on Google's AdWords, at Yahoo! Search Marketing, at MSN AdCenter and in pay-per- click search engines.

Among all the options, Google's AdWords is a big favorite.

However, there are pitfalls aplenty.

If you get things right, AdWords works brilliantly. If you get things wrong, you can lose lots of money fast.

AdWords specialist Perry Marshall has written a quick free email course. Reading it should stop you from making costly errors.

You can find out more about the free course here:

5 days to success with Google AdWords

Buying pay-per-click advertising is also an excellent way to test your site's conversion rate. You can buy a little traffic and experiment, changing the heading on the page, the introduction, the graphic, the preselling, etc, to see which version gives you the highest visitor-to-sales ratio.

You can find out more about pay-per-click search engines at:

You can find out more about pay-per-click search engines at:

PayPerClickSearchengines.com.

Traffic tip #65

Buy ads in newsletters.

People reading online newsletters are often skimming, not reading carefully, so you'll need a bold, eye-catching ad.

Instead of merely advertising your website or an affiliate product, send people to a page where you offer a free report or mini-course in return for their email address.

You'll get more bang for your buck by doing this. Instead of just building the affiliate vendor's business, you're building YOUR business.

An expert on this NameSqueeze technique is marketing veteran Jonathan Mizel, who was marketing on the Internet long before most of us even knew it existed.

When you subscribe to his newsletter you get access to a vast database of incredibly useful information and marketing ideas.

Traffic tip #66

Buy text links - carefully!

Consider buying text link ads on other sites, for example from Linkadage or Text Link Ads. However, be aware that Google engineer Matt Cutts has made it clear in his blog that Google looks unfavorably on sites that buy text links.

Matt argues that anyone who is selling text links ought to place rel="nofollow" attributes in the links.

One option is to arrange link purchases directly with other sites and avoid making them look like bought links.

Even better, think of innovative ways of getting an article containing a link to your site published on another site.

Traffic tip #67

Advertise in less obvious places.

Look for other, less obvious places to advertise online. Experiment and see what happens.

For example, here's an article which describes how CommonTimes.org experimented with advertising on BlogAds, using eye-catching ads. The article shows you the ads and reports on the different click-through rates achieved:

Using BlogAds to Promote Your Web Site

For people in a hurry, here's the main lesson learned:

"Basically, we found that customizing the ad content to the site we were advertising on wasn't enough. We needed something catchy, unique and at times - in your face."

In his Online Marketing Letter #88 Jonathan Mizel published a report "Paid Advertising Resources for 2006" which describes resources his company and his clients have used successfully.

The document is for paid subscribers only.

Traffic tip #68

Create free web-based software.

Create simple web-based free software, such as a mortgage calculator or a return on investment (ROI) calculator. Tell other sites, newsletters and forums about it and ask for a link to it.

This tactic is fairly commonly used by search engine optimization experts.

It may be easier than you think. Your job is merely to produce the IDEA. You can hire someone from Rentacoder to create the software.

Traffic tip #69

Create downloadable software.

Create free downloadable software which contains links to your site, links to your newsletter, or affiliate links - or all three.

Traffic tip #70

Get publicity for your downloadable software.

Submit your downloadable software to software directories, such as Download.com.

Traffic tip #71

Create a funny video - and a keyword-rich transcript.

Create your own video and upload it to Google Video.

This may be a lot easier they you think. One easy way is to use the video function on your digital camera, edit it using Windows Movie Maker and save the file in wmv format, which is one of the formats accepted by Google.

You can submit videos electronically to Google Video, as long as you own the necessary rights (including copyrights, trademarks, rights of publicity, and any other relevant rights for your content).

Incorporate your domain name in the video.

Get a few friends to link to your funny video from their blogs. If it's funny enough, other people will tell their friends, and so on...

Also, you can submit a transcript of your video to Google. Google says:

"Users will be able to find your video more easily if you add a transcript to each video file you've uploaded via your Video Status page. We prefer it if the format of the transcript is time-coded and saved as a .txt file."

You want to include appropriate keywords in your transcript – so make sure the keywords are spoken in your video.

• • •

Google Video FAQ Policy guidelines Video transcripts

At YouTube you can upload a video from your cellphone or PDA. You can "tag" the video with appropriate keywords.

You can use almost any video format.

Here's how author and musician Bob Baker sees the opportunities:

2006, The Year of Internet Video: Get Ready

The article includes a long list of websites which will host your streaming video content free.

Traffic tip #72

A signature file IS important - honest! This tip is VERY basic, yet I'm continually surprised how many apparently

experienced marketers don't use it ALL the time.

Add a signature file to the bottom of EVERY email you send – to anyone.

Here's why:

I receive a lot of email, and I get so frustrated when I receive cryptic emails from people I half-know saying things like...

"Did you find time to have a look at the ebook?"

John.

I have to stop and think, "Who's John? What was his book about?"

Where did I file his ebook when I downloaded it? Into a file based on his SURNAME, not "John".

Adding a signature file to every email...

1. Remindspeopleofthenameofyourwebsite.Ithelpsmakeyoursite memorable.

2. Givespeoplealinktheycanclickon,makesiteasyforthem,and increases your chances of getting visitors.

3. Cantemptextravisitors,especiallyifyougivethemareasonfor visiting, such as a new article or a free report.

I use Eudora and Gmail. In both, you can set up multiple signatures and choose the one you want with just two clicks. Most of the time, I just use the default signatures - no extra clicks needed.

Make things easy for the people who receive your messages – and help make yourself memorable.

Traffic tip #73

Think viral. Where's your backend product?

If you write an ebook or report, add a viral marketing aspect to it.

For example, make your ebook "Volume One". Send readers to a page, forum or blog discussing Volume Two. Perhaps on that page you could place a simple survey, asking them what they would like to see in Volume Two. You could offer them a discount or a bonus special report if they tell a friend about Volume One.

You can find notable viral marketing examples here.

Traffic tip #74

Email This Page to a Friend.

Add an "Email This Page to a Friend" link on your pages. A good programmer should be able to do this for you easily.

Traffic tip #75

Add to Favorites.

Place an "Add to Favorites" link on your pages. It may not get you much extra traffic, but every little bit helps.

Traffic tip #76

Start an affiliate program.

Start your own affiliate program and get hundreds or thousands of affiliates to spread the word about your product and your site.

The simplest, cheapest way is to use ClickBank.

One disadvantage of using ClickBank is that many vendors who use it don't know who their affiliates are and have no way of getting in touch with them. Also, ClickBank doesn't offer sophisticated stats. You can solve these problems by combining ClickBank with Adrian Ling's software, EasyClickMate, Lite or Pro.

If you've advanced beyond the ClickBank stage, here are two options for affiliate managers:

A) Shawn Collins has experience both as an affiliate and an affiliate manager. His book Pay for Performance is a good, solid introduction to running your own affiliate program. It was published a few years ago. You can pick up a second-hand copy from Amazon for a few bucks.

B) In late June, 2006, Anik Singal of Affiliate Classroom launched The Affiliate Manager - 1st Edition, a comprehensive course for affiliate managers.

This course contains:

1. Over4hoursofDVDs 2. Over200+pagesofinteractiveworkbooks 3. Over15hoursofexpertinterviews 4. 8checklists 5. 6templates 6. andmanymorebonuses

Its contributors include Yanik Silver, Mike Filsaime, Jeff Mulligan, Shawn Collins, super affiliate Rosalind Gardner, spyware authority Ben Edelman, Deborah Carney (CafePress.com), Linda Woods (PartnerCentric), Chris Sanderson (AMWSO), Clark Douglas Walton, Brian Littleton (ShareASale), Rachel Honoway (Kowabunga) and Lisa Riolo (Commission Junction).

Learning from highly successful affiliate managers and super affiliates like these will enable you to avoid the dreadful, costly mistakes so many affiliate managers make.

You don't just learn how to build an online sales force, you learn how to attract, train and retain a team of super affiliates.

Traffic tip #77

Make it easy for reporters to write about you.

Check your "About Us" page. Does it provide all the information a reporter needs to write about you - and up-to-date contact info so the reporter can contact you with questions?

Is your "About Us" page bland and boring? If so, dump it and create a new, lively, fascinating one.

Provide a complete media kit containing some fascinating snippets of info about your business.

Bonus tip #1

Get free publicity offline.

Many affiliates totally ignore offline publicity. Perhaps you can persuade your local newsletter to write an article about you. I have.

Here's a tip from Bill Hartzer:

"Get free publicity for your website and your business. Jeff Crilley, an Emmy Award Winning television reporter, will tell you how to write a 'killer' press release, how to come up with ideas that are guaranteed to get media coverage, how to hold a news conference the media will love, and how to keep reporters coming back for more. I've used many of his methods to get a lot of media attention for some of my websites and client websites, and using the media to get free publicity is a great

way to get noticed, get links, and get articles in major online publications written about your site."

Another very useful site for tips on getting free publicity is PublicityHound.com. For publicity seekers, the site's free newsletter is well worth getting.

Put your URL on your business cards, on stationery, t-shirts, caps, bumper stickers. Make your message REALLY memorable.

Crazy offline stunts can work wonders. Here's an example of one - a canine concert where the music is pitched at a level only dogs can hear. It was organized to promote a Joe Vitale book:

The Stunt that Made the Dogs Dance

If you're scoffing at this stunt and think it's ridiculous, don't be so stodgy. You're a marketer, remember? The person responsible for this stunt, Joe Vitale, probably earns your income multiplied many times. Stunts can generate traffic and revenue.

Bonus tip #2

Remember your OTHER websites.

If you're launching a new website, one of the fastest ways to get the search engines to find it and index it is to get a link from a high PageRank page on a large, busy, well established site.

Does that sound like a site you already own? If so, link to your new site in a relevant way.

Don't provide a link from every page. Search engines regard that as excessive crosslinking. To them, it looks unnatural.

Moving forward...

What will you actually DO with the traffic.

Once you get more visitors, what will do with them? There's no sense in putting a lot of time and effort into attracting more visitors if they quickly leave without buying anything.

If you can increase your conversion rate just a tiny little bit, say from 1% to 2%, you'll DOUBLE your income. So think carefully about the impression your site creates and look for ways to improve it.

Also, consider the paths your visitors will take through your site. Picture them landing on ANY page. What will they see? Where are they likely to click next? Is that what you really want them to do?

Analyze each page. Which is the important link on the page? Can you make it look more enticing? Can you make it more prominent?

No matter which page they land on, you need to steer visitors in the direction of income-generating pages.

MarketingExperiments.com has a powerful example of how a few small changes on a landing page can mean a 40% or more increase in conversions. The report, Optimizing Landing Pages 2006, is free.

Set some goals

Now you've read this report, here's what I suggest you do... Set yourself a goal of DOUBLING your website traffic. How long you're

going to take is up to you. Here's one way.

For the next 50 weeks, each Monday choose one of the techniques listed above, research it thoroughly, and put it into action. Keep this up for 50 weeks and I'll be absolutely amazed if all you do is double your website traffic.

Important resources

SEO

For up-to-date, expert information on getting more traffic by using search engine optimization, I strongly recommend Planet Ocean's Unfair Advantage Book On Winning The Search Engine Wars and monthly newsletter. This is the resource the professionals use. I've been a subscriber for years.

PRESELLING

Preselling is one of the most underestimated skills online. For an affiliate, it’s absolutely, vitally important. Forget what you learned at school. Forget what you've read in stodgy books that try to teach you how to write. Ken Evoy's much acclaimed Make Your Content PREsell! is the only book of its kind. It's the book every affiliate needs. For many affiliates, this is a life- changing book. 

PPC ADVERTISING

For a comprehensive understanding of how to do pay-per-click advertising effectively, my top tip is to read Perry Marshall's The Definitive Guide to Google AdWords.

KEYWORD RESEARCH

Jay Stockwell has spent hundreds of hours researching and analyzing keyword research tools. He's an acknowledged expert. Before you invest in any keyword research tool, check Jay's reviews at KeywordWorkshop.com.

BLOGS

For a good introduction to generating traffic and revenue from blogs, I recommend Blogging for Dollars.

TAGGING

The Internet community as a whole has not yet caught on to the enormous potential of using social bookmarking tagging to get high quality links to your site from authority sites. Sean Wu explains exactly how to do it in his ebook Tag and Ping.

YOUR OWN AFFILIATE PROGRAM

If you're launching your own affiliate program, learn from people who are doing it VERY successfully. Anik Singal's The Affiliate Manager - 1st Edition is the course to get.

TRAFFIC GENERATION

The most comprehensive resource available on traffic generation is John Reese's Traffic Secrets. It's expensive, but excellent value. Read some of the glowing testimonials on the site.

OUR AFFILIATE FORUM

Would you like to discuss any of the tips in this report? A good place to do so is on our affiliate forum.

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