20 Ideas to Drive Traffic to Your Online Business

The real key to success on the internet is getting traffic to your webste of business.  We all know you can buy ads on Google, Bing, etc. but you must develop a plan to get traffic from multiple sources.  The list below is some ideas to get you started in building traffic networks.  You can create your marketing plan by selecting the ideas that you think will get the best results for your business.  Then add ideas along the way to further expand your marketing reach.

1.Social Bookmarking- You can use reddit,stumpleupon, digg and others to get more traffic to your site


2. Use google trends for fast traffic

3. Submit videos based on keywords(in your niche) to popular video sites

4. Articles – on the big directories (Ezine, article base or associated content….)

5. PR campaign – a well-done PR campaign using the bigger PR directories (particularly the paid ones)

6. Comments on other people’s blogs

7. Facebook and Twitter

8. Add a Tell-a-Friend Script to your website

9. Create Niche Website Awards or Directories

10. Submit each and every post to social bookmarking sites

11. Write related articles on WikiPedia with your blog url in it

12. Use social bookmarking plug-ins to make it easy for your readers to submit your post to social bookmarking site

13. Use pingomatic to ping RSS aggregates

14. Use blogroll to link to other bloggers in your niche in exchange for a link to your blog on their blog roll.

15. Dedicate a post about a top bloggers in your niche. It will catch their attention and they may link to you

16. Provide freebies, like free ebooks, free downloads and etc, to your readers.

17. Keep your community strong by keeping in touch with your readers by sending them instant messages, thank them for their comments.

18. Providing your followers with helpful tools and blog posts you’ve read

19. Gaining quality backlinks through various means is really important.

20. Of course, Twitter and Facebook should be on every marketers list.

Keys to Online Business Success

Why do some online businesses succeed while many others fail?  I suspect it is no different than offline businesses.  In both cases, you must keep working to find what works for your business.  Success doesn't happen overnight and without your best effort to create an online business with profits.  Here are some insights into what successful online businesses do to achieve their ongoing results.

They explore different businesses. Many of the Internet’s most successful business owners didn’t strike virtual gold right away. They explored different business models, different niches, different markets, invested their time and effort in one or two niches, and then pursued the ones that became the most profitable for them.



They learn from those who have succeeded. The most successful affiliate marketers and entrepreneurs I know are on a never-ending quest to learn new, better, faster, more profitable ways of running their businesses. Rather than feeling threatened, they seek out leaders and experts who know more than they do. They learn from people who are already doing something well, and they buy products that teach them how to succeed at an even higher level.

They never, ever stop trying new things. When super successful affiliate marketers and online vendors fail—and yes, they, too, experience failure on a regular basis—they persevere. They view failure as an opportunity to learn, and no matter what happens, they keep trying and trying, over and over again, until they figure out what does work.

They continue to grow their knowledge base. The Internet moves quickly, and what works one day may—or may not—work the next. The truly successful affiliate marketers and online vendors I work with do more than work hard—they know every single detail of their business—what’s working and what’s not—and they use that information to test new strategies, tactics and niches. If a campaign isn’t working, they change it. If an offer that used to be very successful stops converting, they change it. At all times they stay flexible and adapt to their current reality.

How To Increase Your Chances for Business Success

In order to go from lazy thinking to focused thinking, you need to know the answers to three questions: 

1. What, exactly, do you want?
2. What’s the absolute minimum necessary to have it?
3. What’s the fastest and easiest way to get it?

Think about it for a moment…  If you knew exactly what you wanted, the minimum necessary to have it, and the exact steps that would get it for you in the fastest and easiest way possible… wouldn’t you ALREADY HAVE IT?

 
1. What, Exactly, Do You Want?

How do you define the business success you’re seeking?  You rarely see an entrepreneur who’s got a well-thought-out answer to this question. Sure, you  want money and freedom. Who doesn’t? But what, exactly, do you want your business to do for you, your team, and your customers?

And what does that look like? How can it be objectively measured? If you’re unclear about what you’re striving for, you pay the price for your fuzziness daily.  Why? Because unclear objectives make it impossible for you to know which actions will produce the best results. You can’t distinguish between the essential and the non-essential. You can’t distinguish between worthless and worthwhile tasks. Without clarity, your day becomes a series of haphazard attempts to deal with symptoms often mistaken for real problems. Symptoms like anemic website traffic, unfinished projects, low conversion rates, etc.

As a result, you’re wasting a massive amount of time.  Worse, your chances of success are slim to none.

2. What’s the Minimum Necessary to Have It?

Once you’re absolutely clear about what success in business means to you, you have to be just as clear about what you must do to achieve it.  Because guess what? If you’re not sure of what is necessary… you’re also not sure of what’s NOT necessary.

For example, how many ways do you need to have in order to get new customers? There are so many options that you can’t possibly employ them all. So you have to concentrate only on those that are absolutely necessary for you to achieve the business success you desire.

How about converting prospects into customers? Of all the strategies and tactics possible, which ones are vital for you to be victorious in your business-building quest?

How many products do you need?  One? Ten? A hundred? How much do you have to sell them for?  

If you don’t know what is absolutely essential to your success, you’re going to wind up going in a million different directions at every turn. And that’s one of the main causes of business failure.

To have the business of your dreams, you need to make many decisions. Decisions that require you to: (1) have a general knowledge of what’s required, and (2) be familiar enough with your options to choose a few amongst the many alternatives.

3. What’s the Fastest and Easiest Way to Get It?

Maybe you’ve already got a clear business goal and you know the minimum necessary to get it. If that’s the case, you’re almost certainly making progress. But you’d like it if success came faster. Who wouldn’t?
 
There is almost always a shortcut to get from where you are to where you want to be.  What it requires is thinking. Not daydreaming. But real mental  effort. The type that leaves you exhausted after doing it for an hour or so. And you can’t even engage in this level of thinking until you first have your answers to exactly what you want and the minimum necessary to have it.

Think about how different your life would be if you were 100% confident that your answers to the above three questions were spot-on.  Most of the issues you’re struggling with right now would disappear.  You’d know exactly what your #1 objective was at all times… You’d know the exact steps you needed to take to immediately move closer to achieving your business goals… And you’d never again struggle with a lack of motivation.

Instead, you’d be stoked to get the very next task done… because you’d know exactly what it would do for you.  And all because of knowing: (1) what you want, (2) the minimum necessary to have it, and (3) the fastest and easiest way to get it.

How To Increase Awareness of Your Business

To get interest in your product or service, people must be aware of who you are and what you offer.  This is called awareness of your business.  You must be thinking of how you can continuously generate awareness.  Your goal is to create enough awareness to develop buzz around your business.  Here is a llist of ways to generate business awareness:

• Google AdWords, Bing, Yahoo and other search engine ad schemes where you purchase keyword and phrase result placement.
• Banner ads which you purchase on a per impression basis or through a traffic exchange.
• Content syndication services such as online news release distribution that you buy on a one-off basis or get free at 24/7 press releases.
• Own the natural search engine result for your important phrases by creating content that people link to.
• Own a blog or YouTube channel that people talk about and share with others on social networks.
• Create an online press or media room for your newsworthy content.  Keep all press releases here.
• Have your own email newsletter or create ebooks that you can give away to prospective clients.

Why Become An Affiliate Marketer?

Many times you will have seen previously in this book we have mentioned affiliate marketing as a great way of setting up an online business. During this chapter, we will provide a more in depth look at what it is exactly.


Affiliate Marketing is a method of promoting a product in which an affiliate is then rewarded for every visitor, subscriber, customer and/or sale provided through their efforts to the actual company selling the product. The compensation or commission that an affiliate gets may be based on a certain value for each exposure, visit (pay per click), new customer (pay per lead), sale which is usually a percentage of the item sold (pay per sale or revenue share) or it may be a combination of any of these.

Many companies like to use affiliate marketing because they do not incur any marketing expenses unless the desired result is realized.

There are also some e-commerce sites around today which run their own affiliate programs, while others use third party services. These provide intermediaries who will track traffic or sales that are referred to them from their various affiliates. There are many businesses online today who owe much of their growth and success to the use of affiliate marketing. It has been especially successful for small and midsize businesses on the internet.

We have now looked at what affiliate marketing is, now let us look at some reasons as why it is a good type of online business to set up.

No Production Costs

With an affiliate program, production costs are no longer an issue as the product has been developed and proven to be good. Best of all, it has all come out of the merchant’s accounts and not yours.

Do not need a lot of money to set up.

All you will need is a desk, computer, internet connection and word processing software to get started.

Low Costs Involved

Normally it is free to join an affiliate program, and all the set up costs and shipping costs will be met by the merchant whose products you are selling. Plus, as you do not need any where to store goods, this is another reason for joining an affiliate program. So even if you happen to live in a 1 bedroom apartment, you can still sell the biggest products going as an affiliate because all the goods are held by the merchant you are working as an affiliate for.

Seemingly Endless Choices

There are thousands of products and services that you can choose from. So finding the right products for either a website you have already or one that you are planning to build is immense.

No need to have a Merchants Account

This can be a time consuming and costly expense for anyone setting up a business for the first time. Certainly, it is even more so where an online business is concerned. However, as an affiliate, the merchant you are selling the product for will bear all costs, as well as handle the processing of all payments. So you never have to worry about any potential charge backs, fraudulent purchases or losing your merchant account completely as an affiliate. Plus, no longer will you be concerned with collecting and storing names and addresses of customers along with their credit card details, as this is all done by the merchant who you are affiliated to.

Plus, no longer do you have to worry about dealing with awkward or nasty customers and their complaints. This is down to the merchant to deal with.

Probably one of the best things about affiliate marketing is that you can make money while you sleep.  Another benefit to get into affiliate marketing is that if the product you chose isn’t making money, then you can just dump it. Remove any links to the product and then start promoting another instead. This is because there are no long term contracts which bind you to selling one particular product, so the risk to you is minimal.

If you work hard at affiliate marketing, then the potential to earn a good income is high. It really depends on just how much you want it and how much effort you are willing to put in to the products you are trying to sell.

How To Set Up An Online Business

How do you get started with an online money machine?  The best way of setting up an online business today is as follows:


1. Choose a niche and then specialize in it. Do not think that you are going to make big bucks by selling everything under the sun (unless you are using Ebay, but even this is getting more competitive today).

2. Choose or create a product. You can either use affiliate products or create your own.

3. Probably one of the most important things to do when setting up an online business is to find a good name. It should be short, easy to remember and reflect what your business actually does. Your domain name is the name by which your online customers will remember you by. A good domain name is one that is memorable, short and easy to spell. There are many websites around offering domain names, and prices can start for less than $1.

4. Get your own website. Do not go for a free page on some affiliate site, but get your own. It is much easier to do than you think. Get some hosting (there are plenty of companies on the web today offering their services). Then buy a template system if you can not program (again take a look around the web and you will soon find plenty of companies offering web templates). Now all you have to do is start learning how to use it. However, if you are not technically minded then you will need to hire someone to handle all the technical aspects of your online business. This could include such things as building your website for you, the handling of your website hosting and the setting up of any domain names that you may require.

5. Always look for a secure and reliable host service provider. It is important that you examine the “uptime guarantee” that each service provider offers. Also, analyze the physical infrastructure of where your online business will be stored. But probably most important of all is that you should scrutinize the hosting providers “Back Up” and “Data Security” systems. This includes calculating how much time would be required to reinstall your online business if there was a complete infrastructure failure on the part of the hosting provider. This will help you to calculate the least possible loss to your business if such a situation arises.

6. Build a list. This is important so that you are able to repeatedly talk with visitors to your site. It is important that you keep the visitors updated as to what is happening with your site. This also enables you to contact them numerous times regarding whatever offer(s) you wish to present them.

7. Look at the ways in which you will handle the payments made by your customers. If you are selling an affiliate product, then this will not be a problem as the affiliate program will handle the payments for you. However, if you are selling your own product, then you will have to set up your own payment processing system. This will be looked at more closely in another chapter of this book.

8. Look at the ways in which you will arrange for goods to be delivered to your customer if selling your own products. You must look at local courier companies, as well as the postal service and find out which will be more cost effective for sending goods to customers. Also, you will then need to decide on the pricing system for the sending of packages to your customer’s. But it is important that you choose a shipping company who you know is going to be reliable. Look especially at those companies who offer an online tracking system.