It's All About Traffic...

Every other instructor tells you: You don't need a Website. - Don't believe it! You absolutely do need one. Of course not for each single affiliateproduct. Best promotion is personal recommendation. So the best is, to have a personal homepage with your name. (You know, you must take special care then, never to promote anything wrong)

This way, you

1. can build trust easier. People on the Internet become more and more suspicious of everything and everyone. So show your face on your homepage, and the same one on Twitter, and anywhere else you socialize. This gives lots of people the feeling, they know you a bit better than that other nameless, faceless, affiliate marketer, or someone who joins communities with the name and logo of a company. (Or with dozens such accounts. When I see such, I only seldom have time to look at their community page - (I'm seldom around, so I always find several friend requests when I log on somehwhere.)



2. are much more flexible. find something new, throw a new page, or even site on your server - that's it. Specially, when your homepage has achieved Pagerank already. And don't forget to change your frontpage accordingly.



3. keep your work safe. The only place, where your content is really safe is your own domain and webspace.

From then on, you can channel all traffic to your homepage. Your complete homepage can profit from each visitor, because someone who is not interested in what you want to promote right now, can find some other interesting item, join your newsletter, or at least bring another credit, when you take part in some viral ad-exchange.

Sadly, it is wishful thinking, that anyone can indeed create so much traffic, that s/he has a 24hrs salesmachine, or grow their list that huge, that so many subscribers will buy. That takes years, but it can be achieved, when one looks for traffic to the own domain as early and as much as possible.

Example: Article submission
Article directories seldom like many links, even less affiliate links. So, when writing an article around a certain offer, there is no need to send the reader straight to the salespage. An interested reader will click twice, and one who has no interest in the offer, might click to your site, because s/he liked the article.

There are mainly two kinds of traffic - targeted and non-targeted.

Targeted Traffic is what we prefer: Visitors and Readers to our site who came on purpose and want to see it, because they are looking for offers like ours - potential customers.

Non-targeted Traffic is what we mostly get: forced clicks in Traffic Exchanges, or on credit links in safe list mails. The visitors are less interested in our sites; they only want credits, to have their sites clicked in return - and are we really interested in their sites? Do we read Their Offers?

But untargeted traffic is not completely in vain. Sites with more traffic still have a bit of recognition value - when they are unique enough. And there is always the slight chance, that we could catch an eye in a traffic exchange or an email.

We do need different eye-catching splash- or squeeze pages, preferrably NOT show the complete homepage, and never presume, a viever is actually viewing it.

Targeted traffic through text ads for instance or voluntarily clicked links inside an email should better lead directly to the destination and not force a visit to ones own website, because visitors could get annoyed when they are forced to click again or even worse, to scroll or search.

And for urgent promotions with "magnetic" affiliate sites it is better to join the competitors and hope for luck.

But in general we should collect as much traffic as possible to Our Own Sites. Any traffic improves their visibility and branding.

Non-targeted Traffic to self-replicated sites of affiliate programs or services everyone is promoting at the same place and time is really not useful. The merchant is his own brand already.

In an ideal case our own site, regardless to its contents, gets somehow familiar to the forced visitor, so that he might take a closer look at it and read our offers. This way, even Non-Targeted traffic can be good for us.

Whenever we promote a strangers, or a strange companie's product or service, we must practically make it 'our own'.

We must not just promote the product, but ourselves as the seemingly only person through whom be obtained.

Where do I direct the Traffic?

It is hard enough to create traffic - so it must go to my own Website of course. The traffic I create belongs to me.

There is really no use at all in untargeted traffic to ones self-replicated affiliate site. The current Affiliate Sites are always promoted by many others, in the same traffic exchange for instance, or with the same pre-written sales letters.

These sites are mostly well done and eye-catching, as well as the letters and target lines, so that there is a real chance to get them noticed - only, Who's Promotion will get the potential customer or referral?

There is a consent between the experienced marketers, that the seventh time an offer by email gets noticed. I don't know how often it must be seen in a traffic exchange, but chances are higher, the other promoter gets the crucial click.

Listen closely, folks...

...I'm going to tell you how I get 1.3 MILLION visitors
per year with a tiny advertising budget!

First...what do I spend in advertising?

1: Sponsored Site Listing at Yahoo... $100 per month
2: Overture Clicks. $4 per month

That's it?

Yep. And I only paid for a Yahoo Sponsored listing to
persuade them to add a description to my site listing!

So where do over a million annual visitors come from??

1: Search Engine Positioning...

You probably know my take on this by now... I believe
strongly in building the linkpopularity of your site
to boost your search engine ranking permanently.
I give examples here...
http://www.scamfreezone.com/spider/

2: My Associate Program...

Between them, my regular affiliates and Super Affiliates
send a big percentage of the traffic my site gets. In
addition, different people send traffic to different
product pages...so having several products multiplies
the traffic.
http://www.scamfreezone.com/assocs/

3: My Forum...

The Internet Success Forum is a high-quality discussion
board with no advertising. It encourages visitors to
return frequently...hence building repeat traffic.
http://www.scamfreezone.com/forum/

4: Satellite Sites

My satellite sites (incomemax.com and find-home-business-
opportunities.com drive traffic to the ScamFreeZone)
http://www.incomemax.com
http://www.find-home-business-opportunities.com/

5: Lists.

Links in this newsletter, in my emails to associates,
and in messages to my customers all go through the
ScamFreeZone.com domain. This helps me track how well
an individual article or recommendation has done, but
also boosts traffic further.

This InfoShock was written by Neil Shearing, Ph.D.
To get your free copy of his Internet Success
Newsletter, visit the www.ScamFreeZone.com