And now, wrapping up where Part One left off, we’ve got 7 more traffic strategies to go over this this morning! You guys ready? Awesome! Let’s get rolling :).
- Press Releases – There’s nothing like getting attention from the media ;). Press releases are one way of baiting the hook. They can generate traffic on their own, bringing in the little fish, and every now and then, they’ll hook a big fish, a news reporter will contact you, a big site will send you some one-way link love, and you can sit back and watch the traffic roll in. As with anything that powerful, there are challenges. Not all press releases are equal, some are free, some aren’t. There’s also a good bit to know about writing an effective ‘news worthy’ press release. More on press releases later on ;). Meanwhile, some great press release sites, courtesy of Naked Business: (Awesome blog on press releases!)www.openPR.com
- Email Signatures – This one’s been around since email began! ; ) How many emails do you send out a day without having a web address of yours tagged below it? Email traffic is highly targetted. If someone is reading an email from you and corresponding with you, odds are they’re going to be interested in learning more about what you have to offer. Want to take it up a notch? Encourage others to put links to your website in their signature. That’s right :). Remember hotmail? That’s one of the ways they hit it big. They tagged ‘their’ signature to the bottom of all their customer’s emails and hotmail grew like wildfire! As a niche marketer, remember that people do things when they feel that something’s in it for them. Create something viral, something personable, and encourage people (make it VERY easy!) to add a link to their email signature!
- Directory Listings – Ahh, directories. People love ’em and hate ’em at the same time. One of the most prominent (and also one of the hardest to get into!) directories out there is good old DMOZ. Add links to your website on in, wait 6 months, and you may get included! ;) – In addition to DMOZ, there are entire directories of directories out there. On caution to keep in mind is that adding your link to just any old directory could actually hurt you. Look for directories of high quality and be hesitant to add to a directory that ‘makes you pay’ unless it’s got a name like Yahoo attached to it ;).Have a blog? Adding your blog and its feed to a blog directory can be a REALLY hot way to get traffic. My good friend Bo Bang has a list of blog directories on over at his site. Check it out!
- Image Awards – Awards? What’s this? I decided this was unique enough to get a category all to it’s own ;). Want a powerful strategy for getting one way links? Well here’s one! Pick a niche, whatever niche you’re in, and create an ‘award’ for ‘site of the week’, ‘site of the month’, ‘most creative’, whatever you come up with. Build a site around it and start handing out awards to the places you’d like to get links from! Send them off an email letting them know that they’ve won an award and encourage them to share the award by posting up a graphic and a link back to your site, verifying that they are indeed the winner. Give them the HTML, make it really easy and make it look really good. Be professional about it. Be friendly and helpful. This is hot ; ).
- Offline Advertising – Without spending a lot of time breaking this one down, let me just say that this is something that most niche marketers seriously overlook. They get so caught up the internet this, and the internet that, they wind up forgetting that there was a time when there was no internet and marketing was still a big thing ;). Running classifieds in the right newspapers or magazines can be a powerful way to get targetted, buying traffic to a niche site of yours. Spend some time thinking about it, perhaps we’ll go over it more in the future ;).
- Publicity – We talked a bit about this already in ‘press releases’. The idea is to get people talking about you. Remember our good friend Alex at milliondollarhomepage.com? He harnessed the power of publicity ;). How do you get publicity? Well, you can do something new, something wild and creative or you could ‘ride the wave’. Figure out what’s hot right now. What’s everyone talking about? What are people looking for a ‘scoop’ on? News reporters are a great example of this. They decide something’s ‘hot’ and they start looking all over for their exclusive. Give it to them! Look over the news stories, see what’s big. Figure out a way to ride that wave and then start contacting the media. This can be really really big : ).
- Content Distribution – Give stuff away! Whether paid or free, content distribution as a traffic strategy is all about getting your stuff out there to as many people as possible, encouraging them all to pass it around, and making sure that the stuff being passed around has your links on it. How about some examples?
- Screensavers/Wallpaper – People are always looking for ways to ‘soup up’ their computer. Give them cool stuff to customize their desktops and print your links on it! Make it small, they’ll notice. Tag something as simple as your web address or a small message “Want more? Go to: “.
- Games – Whether online games or downloadable, people always love to play. Distribute games and make sure you have links back to your website embedded within. Be creative with it! ;).. Maybe even make it a part of the game. This is a great place to use the old “Want more?” tag line. How about sharing secret codes on your site? The possibilities are endless. Simple and fun work wonders. How about some new spins on the classics? A new pong, or a pacman, set to a current hot trend in the news. Go for it!
- Music/Sounds – This can be a tad trickier since it’s a bit hard to show a web address within a song ; ). How about distributing some funny viral stuff with a tiny audio tag at the beginning announcing your site. An announcer reading really fast “Get more at “.
- Software/Scripts – WordPress is an awesome example of content distribution in action. Every copy of wordpress that goes out comes with built in links back to wordpress and to the personal sites of the developers. That’s hot ; ). Hundreds of thousands of links pouring in automatically. Offer free software with your links embedded or, better yet, offer a script your visitors can use on their website with a built in link back to your site.
- Physical Products – Tshirts, mousepads, pens, blenders, playing cards, boxes, you name it! Put your links on everyday items and start passing them out. Picking items that people use all the time is an easy way of making sure that they actually get used and your link noticed ; ). It helps to make things attractive, give people a reason to want to use your items.
And that, my friends, is a wrap! There you’ve got 7 more powerful traffic strategies to keep you busy for awhile. Get rolling on it! Get more? Feel free to add them on in and share with the world! Be sure to include a link back to your site if you’ve got something good to share ; ).
Off to another hard day’s work! You guys are awesome! Talk to ya soon! : )
-Jonathan Wold