10 Easier Ways Than SEO To Get Web Site Traffic
Copyright 2006 Joe McVoy
Everyone wants "organic" or "free" traffic, but it's a full time
job to try to keep on top of the search engines changing rules.
Instead, if you build a good content-rich site and do the things
on this list, you'll get traffic and help your ranking at the
same time.
1. Use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) - Get traffic in an hour with PPC.
Google and Overture (now Yahoo). Don't bother with others until
you make these two work. The key to this is to know your visitor
value, bid on hundreds of key words and phrases and split test
your ads and track each key word, phrase or ad separately.
2. Distribute Your Content - write articles of value to your
target market. Distribute that content for other webmasters to
use on their sites as long as they keep the link back to you in
a "resource box" at the end of each article. Distribute your
articles through article directories, ezines, and distribution
services. The key to make this work is valuable content.
3. Submit Press Releases - submit electronic press releases
frequently with news of interest to the media and your target
market. Since press releases are news, if they get picked up, it
will be quickly and you may get hundreds of links back to your
site this way. Key to make this work: write 300 - 500 word
releases, include a link back to you, and have them written and
distributed by experts who know how to optimize each release for
key words (not typical PR firms).
4. Set Up a Blog with RSS - to be effective, blogs must have
frequently updated content. Base yours on information helpful to
your customers, not sales pitches. Don't do it unless you can
commit some ongoing time to it. Seth Godin says the keys to a
successful blog are: Candor, Urgency, Timeliness, Pithiness
(short & to the point), and Controversy. The key to making this
work is to make it interesting to your visitors, submit to blog
directories, ping the search engines when you post and
distribute your content with RSS.
5. Get One-Way Incoming Links - All the previous tips will
create incoming, one-way links but you can also buy links from
other sites from text link brokers. Don't do reciprocal linking,
it's dead. Make sure you get links from pages with a Google Page
Rank higher than "0". A site Google rates as "0" may be because
they are penalizing it for some reason. If you link to it,
you'll get penalized too.
The key to making this work: Make sure links have your key words
in the anchor text and make sure they are text, not graphical
links. Make sure they are from other relevant sites, not link
farms or FFA (Free for All) sites. The ideal is links from
relevant pages without many other links.
6. Give Other Sites Your Testimonial - let them publish it on
their web site as long as they link back to you. This can get
you a one-way link from a site that would otherwise not give it
to you. The key to make this work: keep it short and to the
point.
7. Email Promotions - Advertise in Ezines, place ads in someone
else's email newsletters that reach your target market. The key
to make this work: track everything carefully
8. Joint Ventures - Get promoted to your JV partner's customer
database by your JV partner. John Reese sold over $1 Million of
his information product in 24 hours exclusively by using joint
venture promotions from his partners sending his offer to their
customer lists. He paid his partners commissions on sales. The
key to make this work: know your visitor value and have a tested
and proven sales page that converts well BEFORE you contact JV
prospects.
9. Get Affiliates - If selling a product, offer a commission to
affiliates to sell for you. Each affiliate's link to your sales
letter conversion page will bring you traffic and a better
search engine rank too. The key to making this work is to make
it financially attractive to your affiliates and give them
everything they need to promote your product or service. Make it
brain dead easy for them to do.
10. Buy Other Web Sites - Find web sites that already rank high
on your keywords and verify their traffic with the site owner
and independent tools. Make sure you get ownership of the domain
- you can let them still use their content elsewhere. Check
deleteddomains.com to see what domains you can register for a
few dollars that their owners have let expire. The key to making
this work: Check Google page rank, Alexa rank and the number of
back links for any site before you buy a web site.
One marketer I know challenged some SEO experts to see who could
get ranked highest on a given term in 24 hours. He won, the
techies did a lot of slick things, but the marketer just bought
the site that was already # 1.