This being the first blog post here I thought I’d start out with a short look at the Traffic Pillar.
The Traffic Pillar is one of the 3 Pillars of Success and,to me,this is simply getting targeted prospects to a place where you turn them into customers.
Simplistically,this Pillar is about getting people “into the door” of your online business.
There are many ways to get these people to you and we’ll look at many of those ways over the coming months but basically the important thing about traffic is that…
…without it you have no business;you are just a lonely “shopkeeper”,sort of like that Maytag repairmen guy in the old commercials.
Stated simply:
A strong Traffic Pillar requires you to have enough of the right people coming to your online properties,on a consistent basis,that you are able to build relationships and have the opportunity to convert them into customers.
The key points are:
- Enough People:what enough is depends upon your conversions and the average value of each customer
- The Right People:what right means is people interested in what you have and are willing and able to spend money to get it
- Consistently:what consistently means is frequently enough to achieve your goals,whether that is weekly,daily,or every second
- Building Relationships:the pre-cursor to conversions and the thing that is both satisfying and makes converting easier
- Opportunity to Convert:notice I don’t say convert,that is the Conversion Pillar’s job,but it is the job of the Traffic Pillar to get people there and to have built the relationships so that the Conversion Pillar can properly,well,convert.
Traffic Sources
As I said,you can get traffic from many different places,some examples are:
- Affiliates
- Article directories
- Blogs
- Forums
- Organic search results
- Pay-Per-Click and other paid advertising
- Social bookmarking sites
- Social networking sites
- And more
Each of them work well on their own and the combination of many (or all) of them will make a truly strong Traffic Pillar.
As an example,here is a simple but very effective flow of traffic combining:
Briefly,use the social networking sites (Squidoo,Hub Pages,Twitter,Facebook,YouTube,etc.),the social bookmarking sites (Digg,Propeller,Technorati,Yahoo! Buzz,etc.),article directories (eZine Articles,etc.) and various forums to push traffic to your blogs.
The search engines will also pick these up in their organic search results and drive traffic to your blogs also.
Your blogs then go to your money sites,that is,to you sales and squeeze pages.
Build up to doing that on a consistent basis and you’ll be getting a good amount of traffic everyday and it is basically free traffic – it will cost time and maybe some money for the content.
There are lots of ways to get much more traffic and we’ll be looking at them and I certainly want you input in what is working for you.
The 3 Criteria of a Strong Traffic Pillar
There are 3 success criteria to keep in mind though if you expect to get a strong Product Pillar,your Products must:
1. Give Good,no GREAT,Content
First,and most importantly,you MUST be giving people things that will be useful to them so they want to know more about you and what you do and know.
Do not just sell and sell,remember nobody likes to be sold to.
Provide interesting information and commentary. Provide stuff people can actually use to improve themselves and their lives.
2. Use the World,No Man is an Island
Don’t try to do everything yourself.
Use the social sites.
Use affiliates.
Use paid traffic.
It is virtually impossible nowadays to get traffic and certainly enough traffic to have a truly successful online business doing it all by yourself.
Just doing “traditional” SEO on your Web site,blog and other pages is so hard and changes so frequently that you can assume you will fail.
Take advantage of all the available options,there have never been more,and you will give yourself a good chance to really thrive online.
3. Be Consistent
Don’t just do things now and then.
Post new content on a regular basis,every day would be the best,but be consistent even if it is just two or three times a week.
Without that consistency you will not be building the relationships with your prospects that you need to and your will be losing traffic unnecessarily.
The relationships are important because people are more likely to buy from people they know and like.
Think about it,if one of your friends sold electronics wouldn’t you be more likely to buy from them than just go to some anonymous person.
Consistency helps build relationships so be consistent.
What About List Building?
You’ll notice I don’t mention list building in the Traffic Pillar nor is it one of the 3 Pillars of Success.
You may wonder about this and you may doubt everything I am saying because,after all,so many people so “the money is in the list.”
Well,I agree and disagree.
Building a list is NOT a requirement of success.
You can build a successful business without having any list and many people have built 6-figure businesses just using affiliate marketing where they send prospects directly to the sales pages of the product owners,by the way,you should tap into that for getting you traffic.
Building a list will make it MUCH EASIER to be a success and it will give you another means of getting traffic and I STRONGLY urge you to start list building immediately if you aren’t already doing it.
But,the only 3 things that you must have for a long-tem successful business is strong traffic,good conversions and good products;the 3 Pillars.
Everything else is “the icing on the cake.”
Conclusion
To sum up,success in the Traffic Pillar requires a never ending stream of targeted prospects coming to your Web properties on a consistent basis.
To have a strong Traffic Pillar you must do ALL of these 3 things:provide GREAT content,use everyone and everything to send you traffic,and you must be consistent in your efforts.
Do those and you should build your self a very strong Traffic Pillar and be 1/3 of the way to your dreams.
Add any comments,questions,feedback,disagreements and anything else below.
Talk soon,
The “Shameless” (but “Ethical”) Marketer
http://www.8-8-8Sale.com
http://www.MusicForInternetMarketers.com
http://www.SecretsOfGoogleAdWords.com
O.Y. To help you strengthen your Traffic Pillar,download your free PLR product on some ways to get free and lost cost traffic from here:
http://www.StreetGuideToWebTraffic.com/FreeStuff/Free-LowCostWaysToWebTraffic-UPLR.zip
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