Generating online traffic
Hello, my friend!
I’m writing an online diary on this blog about a course called the Quick Start Challenge that I’m taking. And you’re about to read today’s entry.
In week one of the Quick Start Challenge Dean Holland coached us to start our own blogs in order to stake out our territory on the internet. In Quick Start Challenge Week 2, we start driving traffic to our blogs.
In his system, Holland recommends telling the honest story behind what you’ve actually done to grow an online business, and as Dr. Phil says, “how did that work out for you.” (For most of us, myself included, the results have been pretty dismal.) Next we go on to say what we’re doing differently now that we are following in the footsteps of a successful online marketer.
As we are share our personal journeys on our blogs, others identify with our struggles, as well as with our victories.
In this turnaround portion of my personal online journey, the next two factors have proven critical: First is effective time management. Second is treating this opportunity like a real business.
Attention to these two key areas has taken me to a new level of productivity and focus in a matter of mere days. (See my blog post about the Trello system for intuitive task management, if you need some assistance with your own time management.)
Dean’s also been very focused on the importance of consistent action that is applied regularly. His promise: this will see us getting more done in less time and having more time in our lives for things we want to be doing besides work.
Dean next introduced us to what he calls the success metric:
Traffic + Conversions = Sales
This equation is all about getting qualified people in front of an offer that appeals to them and then giving them an opportunity to buy it. This is another reason why we were encouraged to create our blogs. By blogging, we bring together people with an interest in our topic, at a place where we can show them offers in which they will be interested.
At this point you’re probably wondering how this “gathering” takes place. That’s where traffic generation comes in. Traffic generation happens in two major ways: The first is by purchasing visits using various forms of advertising. The second is by investing our time rather than our money.
Having provided plenty of valuable content at our site we engage our guests and give them ample reasons to return to our web site again and again. In the end, this helps them to know, like, and trust us. Once we are known, liked, and trusted, we become believable and credible.
Two ways to generate free traffic
The first “free” traffic method involves posting on forums in your niche market and adding a signature file beneath your post that directs people back to your own blog. (I’ll go into more detail about this in a future blog post.)
One reason that this approach works is that you choose well-established forums to post on and you join in on a active discussions with lots of participants. What you’re actually doing with this method is “borrowing” traffic from it already is gathered in great numbers.
If you do this in the wrong way, you can do yourself a lot of harm. So be sure to check back for the details on the right way to do use the signature traffic method..
The second way to trade time rather than money for traffic is called blog hopping. It’s similar to the signature method above, but instead of forums, you’ll get active in discussions on authority blogs in your niche. The results are the same: traffic to your blog. Again you need to post comments that add to the discussion. (I’ll have a future blog post about this method. So check back for this one as well.)
Blogs and forums are social networking platforms, and that’s why these methods work so well to drive traffic.
I’ve been able to give you an outline so far of the first two weeks of the Quick Start Challenge 2014. What I haven’t been able to do is convey the importance of the support and encouragement available in the Quick Start Challenge’s Facebook group. There you’ll have access to the knowledge and experience of 1,000 or so fellow participants in the challenge.
In our challenge group we commented on each others blog’s and helped one another establishing social validity with active discussions. You won’t need to hunt for an audience to get your blog’s discussions started–just visit some of your challenge neighbors and start a conversation.
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