Category: Website Traffic Tactics

Currently I'm in the middle of doing the live Blog Marketing Kickstart Workshop. We've only got one more day left, and today (Day 4) we're talking about how to drive traffic using your blog.

We've talked about a lot of different blog marketing tactics, but I wanted to devote an entire day just to the traffic tactics you can use when you have a blog.

As I was creating a resource for my students I was thinking I wanted to have a page where I could list what I covered, but also have a page that I could continually update. You can't update a PDF document on the fly, but you can a blog post. So I decided to give them all the below strategies in a nice little PDF document and then directed them here to get the updates I'll be doing.

And since I love all my people (even those of you who didn't join this workshop… I see you. 🙂  ) I'm even giving you access.

So here are the strategies I've taught so far. Some will make sense to you if you haven't gone through the workshop, but some to understand you'll need to have gone through the workshop. You can get access to the workshop by clicking here.

So take a look, use what you can, and I'll update this as I add more strategies.

Enjoy!

1. SEO – This is a BIG time consuming strategy that I only use on small niche sites. If it's not easy to rank in the search engines for keywords then I don't put a lot of time or effort into SEO. It's too risky for my tastes, BUT if you're not scared to lose the traffic from all of your work this is a strategy that DOES work.

2. Social Marketing – This is by far my favorite marketing strategy when it comes to your blog. Create great content, post it to your social media accounts. That's easy. The hard part is building a following on each of these networks. It can be done though and it's worth the time and effort. Plus… It's fun.

3. Share Buttons – Adding share buttons to your blog is quick and easy with a plugin and a great way to get more traffic to your content. Get people to share your content on their favorite social media network and get traffic from their efforts.

4. Guest Blogging – Writing for other blogs in your niche is a great way to get traffic from those blogs. Search for blogs in your niche, see if they accept guest bloggers, if not inquire, create great content, they publish it, you get traffic. There's a lot more that goes into this, but this strategy is worth the effort!

5. Interacting – Interacting where the people in your niche “hangout” online is a great way to get traffic to your site. Most places your people are hanging out allow you to have some kind of profile. Make sure you're linking to your blog in your profile so people can find it if they go searching for more information about you.

Forums, Facebook groups, Reddit, (other social media networks) Quora, etc are all great places to get started, but constantly be on the lookout for places where the people in your niche hangout.

6. Blog About Others – This is a great tactic that can do many different things for you including getting traffic. You simply pick a topic related to your niche, find blog posts related to that topic (5-10 posts are all you need) that are REALLY good, and create a blog post on your blog pointing to these posts.

Many people have “alerts” that tell them when their blog is mentioned on another blog and/or they have Google alerts for their name and will see when you do this.

However you should go the extra mile and contact them personally to let them know. You can do that via email or social media. When I have done this in the past I will post a link to the blog post on Facebook and tag those I've featured. That works AWESOME!

Use this tactic sparingly though. You can wear it out fast.

7. Pay To Play – There are many ways to pay for advertising for your blog posts. There are services out there like Blog Pros, banner advertising, solo ads, and even using social media paid advertising will get traffic to your blog posts QUICKLY!

I recommend taking a post that has proven to get interaction (comments, feedback, lots of views, etc.) and use paid advertising to take it even further.

8. Contests – Contests have been used to drive traffic almost since the Internet began. Now with all the technology to do these you have a lot of options. I highly recommend you do your own research on the best tools to run a contest, and then host a “share contest” with your people to get a piece of content shared everywhere. This will bring in quite a bit of traffic.

Here's an example I'm about to do…

I have a great blog post showcasing email templates people can buy to use in their email marketing. I plan to have a share contest and will randomly pick someone who shares the post as the winner. The winner will get every resource on the page for free as their prize.

That example is the most basic contest you can run and it works REALLY well! As I said you have a lot of options when it comes to using contests. Do your research, see what others are doing, investigate tools, and start using contests on your blog to drive traffic.

9. Viral Posts – Getting a post to go viral isn't the easiest thing in the world, but it can be done. The content for this tactic must be phenomenal and generally it needs to be a tutorial or a step-by-step process to get something done. Using an infographic to SHOW the process is a huge key too. People LOVE infographics and they share them A LOT.

There are other types of content that can go viral too, but it's hit or miss with this tactic. If you can get something to go viral though you can get A LOT of traffic!

More tactics are coming soon…

Liz

Yes… I’m still living in Mexico and exploring this country. I LOVE it, and I LOVE my new life/work balance. There’s currently way more life than work in this balance, but with only two more months left in the year it’s time to even that balance out. But that’s why you guys are seeing so many images of Mexico in my blog images. I’m incorporating my personal life into my business, and I hope you guys are enjoying it. 😊

Anyway… For the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about traffic. I did a very thorough tutorial on the complete overview of website traffic which can be seen here. I started with that so you could get the “big picture” and the basics down. After that tutorial I told you where you should be driving ALL of your traffic. You can see that tutorial by clicking here.

Those two tutorials are going to instantly put you on the right path to driving traffic.

Now, I was all ready to start tutorials on getting into specific tactics and then I had this question come in…

“Liz, I have a few niche websites and am always getting confused as to which traffic suits. For example… dog training, self-improvement, affiliate marketing, preppers, etc. Any advice on what traffic (paid and free) suits?”

Now, this is a question I see a lot, so before I get into tactics, let me answer this…

First of all, there is no “rule of thumb” here. There is no, “this traffic works for this niche and not for this niche” rules. The only exception I can think of would be solo advertising (where you pay list owners to send your email to their list) because solo ads are generally only available for certain niches. Like the biz opp, internet marketing, and a few self-help niches.

Side Note: Can you think of any other tactics that are niche specific? If so, let me know in the comments below. You’ll help others by leaving your ideas. 😊

So, with that being said… You need to see where your niche can be reached online!

Are they searching Google? You can figure this out with keyword research. If they are then you need to use SEO.

Are they on social media? You can figure this out by searching the different social media sites. If they are, then you need to be using paid social ads. If you don’t have the money for paid social ads, you can use organic social media tactics.

Are there affiliates who promote products/services like yours? If so and you can give them a percentage of your profits, then you need to have an affiliate program.

I could go on and on with examples here, but YOU must find where you can reach your target audience and use the website traffic tactics that will get you in front of them.

Another thing to keep in mind once you’ve found how to reach your target audience is to make sure you can actually USE those tactics. If they take money, do you have money for it? If they take skills, do you have the skills to use those tactic?

So, the equation to figuring out what tactics to use for your niche is…

Reach (X) + Ability (Y) = Your Traffic Strategy

With what tactic can you reach your niche (target audience)? Do you have the ability (funds/skills) to reach them with that tactic?

Let’s look at a working example to really bring this home…

If I’m in the home gardening niche, and I’m driving traffic to a squeeze page, I would do my research and figure out how to get my squeeze page in front of people who are interested in home gardening. That’s my niche/target audience.

I could do keyword research and see if people are searching the search engines for information related to home gardening. If so, then SEO would make since to use IF I either had the funds to outsource my SEO OR the skills to do it myself. However, if I found no one searching the search engines for my topic, then I’d know NOT to use SEO.

It's a process of elimination… Have a list of website tactics, and go through them until you find a tactic that solves the equation…

Reach (X) + Ability (Y) = Your Traffic Strategy

So, I’m going to leave you with a main list of traffic strategies. There are a ton of ways to do EACH of the things in this list, but this is a great list you can get started with. If you can think of a website traffic tactic, it probably falls under one of these main strategies…

SEO
Solo ads (email ads)
Paid social media ads
Organic social media marketing
Content marketing
Paid search
Media buying
Affiliate program
Content/Ad swaps

Side Note: If you can think of a tactic that doesn’t fall under one of these main topics, please leave me a comment in the comments below. I’d love to make this list the biggest list of MAIN website traffic tactics, so if there is something you can think of that doesn’t fall under one of these main tactics let me know!

Okay, so now that I’ve gotten the basics of website traffic, where to drive your website traffic, and the how to pick the best website traffic tactics for you…. (wow that’s a lot of learning) it’s time to move on to learning the actual tactics.

The next several tutorials I will be taking some of the main topics from the list above and doing tutorials around each of them. Since part of the equation of WHICH traffic tactic to use is ABILITY, you can acquire the ability by learning how to do it. So, I’ll be putting my teacher hat on and showing you how to use some of these tactics.

I’ll see you in the next tutorial!

Liz

P.S. Remember I have LearningIM.com which teaches TONS of different website traffic and marketing tactics via topic specific workshops. If you want to learn more from me QUICKLY then I highly recommend you get a LearningIM.com all access pass (you get ALL current and future workshops for one price) at http://www.LearningIM.com

The other day I was reading a blog post from someone and they were talking about the basics of building a website. They were talking about how no one pays attention to the basics because they think they KNOW the basics. However, most people who say they KNOW the basics of website building aren’t even USING the basics and don’t even have a website.

So, when I tell you I’m about to cover the basics of website traffic and you immediately think, “Well, Liz, I already know the basics.” ask yourself if you’re getting all the website traffic that you need. If that answer to that is NO!, then you need to come with me and let me teach you the basics.

Are you ready to begin or are you already getting all the traffic you need?

Okay so first things first… I’m assuming that you actually have something to send traffic to. Maybe it’s a squeeze page that you’re using to build your list (this is the optimal thing you should have and be driving traffic to) or maybe it’s to your store or your sales page or your affiliate link or… cheezus… I could go on and on here, but you get the idea.

Some of you will scratch your head and be like, “Liz, why do you have to even say that?”. Well, you’d be shocked at the amount of people who come to me and want to know how to drive traffic and when I ask them what they want to drive traffic to they have no clue. My face when this happens…

Now that we have that out of the way… 

Website Traffic Basic #1: Is IT Ready?

Is what you are wanting to drive traffic to actually READY for traffic?

Does it look good? Is it easy to navigate? Does it have a strong call to action? There is a huge laundry list of things you need to ensure are in order for whatever it is that you’re sending traffic to (be it a squeeze page, a sales page, a blog post, etc.). It needs to have ONE job and that job needs to be clear to the traffic coming to that destination.

Example time: If you’re sending traffic to a squeeze page. You need to make sure you’ve got a good offer there that people will actually WANT and copy that makes them want to get it right NOW, and an easy way for them to get it.Why would you want to go through the effort of driving a bunch of traffic if what you’re driving traffic to isn’t going to get you the results you need!

Website Traffic Basic #2: How Are You Going To Get Traffic?

Now the next step is deciding what route you want to go with getting the traffic.

This is where most people melt down and try EVERYTHING.

DO NOT do that!

I repeat… DO NOT DO THAT!

Is what you need to do is understand there are basically three ways to get traffic.

1. You can buy it.

You can pay for ads on social networks, you can buy advertising space on sites that offer it in your niche, and the list goes on and on.

If you KNOW that what you have gets results (meaning people buy from you, or optin to your list, or whatever result you want) then this is a great option because you will be able to recoup your investment and then some.

However, if you don’t KNOW that what you have gets results then you’re going to spend A LOT of money getting it all figured out.

My rule of thumb with paid advertising is that I won’t use it unless I KNOW I have something that will get results. Meaning someone subscribes or buys or signs up, etc.

2. You can borrow it.

When I say borrow, I mean use the traffic that others can send you. This is where you’ll get affiliates to send you traffic and you pay them a percentage of your profits or pay them for actions their people take. There’s a lot of ways to do this, but you need a product and an affiliate program.

Note: I cover all of this in my Affiliate Program Kickstart Workshop at https://learningim.com/affiliate-program-kickstart-workshop

3. You can mine it.

This is where most other traffic tactics live. This is where you are doing things to get the traffic. You’re “mining” it. You’re digging for it. Tactics like blogging, social marketing, guest blogging, SEO, YouTube marketing, and the list goes on and on and on and on.

And mining it is where 85% of you will be at.

If you don’t have money to invest in paid advertising and you don’t want to have an affiliate program (or can’t) then this is your only other option. That doesn't mean you'll have to do this forever, but this is where you will start.

Note: I cover all aspects of social media marketing on the biggest social media sites out there in various workshops I have. I also cover other “traffic mining” tactics in various workshops I have. You can get them ALL (and future ones too) for one price at https://www.LearningIM.com

So, that’s a “blanket” explanation of ways to get traffic. Each of the three I listed above have a several strategies within each. There’s literally thousands of ways to get traffic, but at least you know your main options and where you need to start.

Are you buying, borrowing, or mining traffic?

This post is getting a little long, so let me tell you about the last basic thing you need to know when it comes to website traffic.

Listen closely to me because this is KEY!

No matter HOW you decide you’re going to get it you need to make sure that you’re doing SOMETHING to get traffic every single day.

Every…

Single…

Day…

If you’re using paid advertising you need to make sure that your ads are working (stat checking), you need to be testing other ads against your ads to get them working better, you need to be looking for more places to advertise, etc.

If you’re running an affiliate program you want to be working on reaching out to affiliates, creating new promotional tools, etc.

If you’re mining it well that’s hard to say because there’s about a million different ways to mine it, but you need to be “mining” each and every day!

But you get the idea here… You need to be doing something each and every day no matter how you’re driving traffic.

Okay so let’s wrap up our talk on website traffic…

When it comes to the basics of website traffic you need to…

1. Make sure you have something that is ready for it.

2. Know how you’re going to get it

3. Never stop getting it. When you stop driving traffic you stop getting results. PLAIN AND SIMPLE!

Okay so now that I’ve covered the basics, what do you need to know now? What questions do you have?

If you’d like for me to continue on with talking and teaching about website traffic, then I’m going to need you to tell me what you MORE you need. If I don’t hear anything I’ll assume you’re good to go and we will change topics, so if you want to learn MORE about website traffic then leave your comments below or come over to the help desk and let me know what your questions are when it comes to website traffic…

Talk soon!

Liz

January 1, 1983, is considered the official birthday of the Internet, but it didn't become popular until the mid to late 90s. At the time of this writing, it's 2022, so we can safely say for over 25 years now people have been using the Internet mostly as it's seen today. I bet your mind instantly started making that old “dial up” internet connection noise and you cringed. If you don't know what I'm talking about be thankful for your youth.

As soon as the Internet became mainstream advertising tactics on it began, and since then we have come a very long way. It's said that banner ads were the first form of Internet ads, but I remember the days of classified ad sites and message boards that predate banner ads, so I'm going to say these were the first forms of advertising. And while a lot of things have changed with technology there are still some “old ways” of advertising that still work to this day, and I highly recommend that you incorporate them into your business. I mean if it's not broke, don't fix it, right?

1. Banner Ads – The first banner ad started in 1994 when AT&T paid HotWire a whopping $30,000 to place banner ads on their site for 3 months. They got a clickthrough rate of 44%. To put that into perspective the industry standard clickthrough rate is now .06% Now banner ads are called display ads and can be bought in a variety of ways but using media buying techniques are the best way to go about getting your banners on popular websites.

2. PPC Advertising – In 1996 pay-per-click (PPC) advertising hit the Internet from Planet Oasis. Today PPC advertising has totally changed and there are various ways to do it. All the way from search ads to social ads you can jump into PPC advertising in many different ways. Some studies even show it's the best kind of advertising because the visitor is already coming to your website out of direct interest. They are seeing your ad, they are interested, and they are coming to your website with interest. Either way after being around for 26 years it's definitely not a tactic to ignore.

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – And then came 1997 when SEO was first used as a term, and SEO has probably changed more than any other tactic I have listed here. We went from “stuffing” a bunch of popular keyword phrases (even if they weren't relevant) and enjoying a ton of traffic to now the most complex system for grabbing (and trying to keep) the coveted top spots in the search engines.

Today SEO works by creating a strategy for your business and consistently implementing that strategy. Things like keyword research to find the correct keywords that will allow you to meet the business goals you have setup. Creating content that your audience and the search engines love. Along with many other components thrown in there. SEO is here to stay and it's a tactic I recommend if you're not in a super competitive niche or if you're in a position to outsource your SEO tactics. With the way search engine are constantly changing SEO can be a full-time job!

4. Affiliate Program Marketing – A lot of people get affiliate marketing confused with affiliate program marketing. While it takes affiliate marketers to make your affiliate program work, affiliate program marketing is where you setup an affiliate program for your business, recruit affiliates, and have them market your products/services for you in exchange for a commission.

William J. Tobin is credited with starting the very first affiliate program in 1989 where he setup an affiliate program for his PC Flowers and Gifts store. It had 2500 affiliates by 1996 and was generating millions in sales every year.

Today affiliate programs are everywhere and it's an amazing tactic to implement into your business to get loads of traffic and sales from the millions of affiliate marketers that are out there. If you have your own products/services that you can pay others a commission on, then this is definitely a tactic not to skip!

5. Email Advertising – There's a story that says a man named Gary Thuerk sent an email to 400 people in 1978 for his company's computers and it resulted in 13 million dollars in sales. So, 1978 had email? I don't know, but it's a great story, right?

The facts are though that advertising via email (either to your own list or by buying email advertising) has worked for a very long time and it's something you should definitely be using in your business in a variety of ways.

Over time things like buying email lists, actual SPAMMING people, and a ton of other tactics have popped up, but the best thing to do now is create a list building strategy to build your own list and use email marketing to meet your business goals which vary in many different ways depending on your business. The bottom line though is email advertising using today's standards and strategies works!

6. Communities – “Back in the day” we had message boards and chat groups that we would use to communicate with others. I can't tell you how many friends and relationships I built in those communities. Supposedly the first message board was created in 1978. 1978 again? I thought the birth of the Internet was in 1983? Anyway, then came forums and they allowed for even bigger communities to develop. In the early 2000s forums were gaining popularity and business owners/marketers were using them to get a lot of targeted traffic into their businesses.

Fast forward to now and the communities we access are different (think social media and communities that you can create), but it's still a tactic that works great to drive traffic if done correctly.

Okay, so now you have 6 different tactics, their back history, and how you can use them today. I hope you've enjoyed this trip down memory lane, but I especially hope this has opened your eyes to tried and tested website traffic tactics that have worked for decades and still do. When you're deciding on traffic tactics that you want to implement in your business we can sometimes get lost in the latest and greatest tactics that often only work short term. Have at least 1-2 “old tactics” in your marketing arsenal to ensure you're putting your efforts into tactics that actually work!

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I've been building and marketing online businesses for a long time. Since 2004 and in Internet years that's like 300 years. 🙂

I'm kidding, but I have been around for quite a while and I have seen so many things come and go when it comes to marketing and traffic tactics.

Something that has been around for years that I get asked about all the time is SEO (search engine optimization).

My broad view on it is that it's a waste of your BUSINESS time, and it's basically something that a lot of people make money with in not so ethical ways.

Meaning…

1. Spending a bunch of time working on SEO'ing your entire site and having that as your main focus for traffic (to me) is a complete waste of time. Especially when you're in an ultra competitive niche.

With so many changes in the search engines you never know when you're site is going to get dropped in the results or totally removed. It's VERY time consuming to stay on top of things, and do things the right way.

2. People create crappy software that you THINK you need so THEY make the money. Often times the software doesn't work, or quits working.

3. People offer crappy SEO services that either don't work or they don't follow through on, and YOU don't get any results.

In niches outside of Internet marketing I have a very simple strategy.

I setup a content site that is related to a broad niche that my niche is in.

Example: I have a health (broad niche) content site, but I'm in little niches in the health niche and the site only has content on these niches.

I then focus on long tail keywords and create a piece of content for the site just on these long tail keywords. I have anywhere from 5-10 content pieces (blog posts) created for the content site PER long tail keyword.

I focus PER piece of content in getting it ranked.

My content site is also on a totally different server with a totally different hosting company than the money sites that this content points people to.

I also need to state that this is REALLY good content that keeps people reading. It's not trash created for $5 for 500 words.

AND… I don't spend much time at all on these content sites. I hire people to do it for me. Because the amount I pay people each month to do this stuff for me, I make more money back (MOST of the time) each month. It doesn't make sense for me to do the SEO myself.

This keeps me from having to stay on top of what is and isn't working for SEO, and keeps me from buying crappy stuff related to SEO.

You wont see me teach SEO.

I'd rather spend my time optimizing videos for YouTube search or optimizing my Pins for Pinterest search because I get way more traffic from that stuff anyway.

Side Note: If you want to learn Pinterest marketing from me click here. If you want to learn YouTube marketing from me click here.

So… That's my two cents on SEO.

I've created this post for two reasons…

1. I get asked my thoughts on SEO so much that I needed a place to post a full answer so I can send people here when they ask.

2. As a discussion piece and based on comments here I will expand on what I've covered here, so… Use the comments below and let me know of any questions or comments that you have and I will update this post as needed.