If you’re into Internet Marketing for quite long, you already know that TRAFFIC is the “holy grail” of online success, and if you’re a newbie, you should have heard about traffic more times than about anything else.
You’re at the right place to know all you need about TRAFFIC, which is not such a simple term as it looks.
Before we start presenting Traffic’s Sources, Streams, Tactics and whereabouts, we’d like to dispell some “common myths” about what TRAFFIC really is, and because of the confusion most “gurus” create to your mind, taking you by the hand, teaching and helping you implement the meaty stuff becomes a real challenge.
So what is TRAFFIC ?
Is it number of hits ? Clicks maybe ? Volume of unique visitors ?
We tend to treat TRAFFIC as an impersonal figure, and to most Internet Marketers who want to make us buy their next brilliant Report on a Traffic Technique, we should remain as naive and dependent so we buy their sequence of techniques as ignorant as ever, and as broke as it gets.
But we couldn’t be more wrong. Web Traffic – or Foot Traffic for Offline Businesses- means PEOPLE. People with hearts and minds, and dreams and thoughts, and concerns, and plans, needs and desires. The more PERSONAL you can become when approaching the TRAFFIC issue, the more successful your efforts will be.
I’m a fan or practical and simplistic thinking, which has saved me from many life-disasters so far. My theory is very easy to understand and apply. We have a desirable “action” we want to achieve. Let’s say that we want PEOPLE (I will use the term “people” instead of “traffic” for the rest of this article) to take a certain action when landing to our site, such as putting their name and email address on our OPTIN Form. So, according to my theory, we just need to close our eyes and reverse engineer the process by getting into our Visitor’s shoes, and becoming him or her.
By reverse-engineering the process, I AM my Site’s Visitor who just opted in and I know I’m enthusiastic about the FREE Offer presented to me as an ethical bribe for giving my name and email address, on a Subject I find ABSOLUTELY COOL and I’m very interested in, and since these guys -the website owners- are giving me something of value for FREE, it wouldn’t hurt me to see what else they have to say on their Newsletter.
The truth is I got to their site while I was searching GOOGLE on some FREE info about the thing I’m interested in.
Or maybe they’re the ones I saw giving cool and helpful answers in topics discussed in my favorite FORUM.
But now that I’m thinking again, I’m not sure I found their site like this…. I guess it was an article of theirs that I saw a link to posted on my friend’s wall from one of their friends in FACEBOOK.
Or was it a RETWEET from my boyfriend’s network on TWITTER?
I’m a bit confused, cause I think I might have received an email from a Marketer that has me on their list, who were endorsing these guys’ website, and I thought I should click on that link….why not?
Maybe I stumbled upon their YOUTUBE Video when I was searching for my favorite “thing”.
Do you see my point ?
But attracting PEOPLE to your site is not enough for you to get the desirable results you’re after.
Their Curiosity is NOT enough for them to take the desirable action. There are millions of tyre-kickers on the net. Believe me, you don’t want them in your site. You want “TARGETED QUALIFYING LEADS” as we call PEOPLE with a hot interest in your offer in Internet Marketing lingo.
At the end, isn’t the whole “preference game” a set of psychologically triggered reactions? We tend to be attracted by people or objects/situations, that stroke our “ego” or hide the promise of a GREAT EXPERIENCE….an experience we can almost have a taste of BEFORE our Emotional Brain decides to click on the “ADD TO CART” Button.
So, as complicated as it might sound, driving TARGETED TRAFFIC to your Online Business, is basically the result of your ability to spot what sort of EXPERIENCE your “prospects” are craving for, and send them the indisputable message that YOU CAN DELIVER that Experience.
From that aspect, we want to help you develop the skills necessary to locate your Market, and drive FREE TARGETED TRAFFIC to your Online Business on demand. All the tools and techniques you need, along with their conceptual mechanics will be yours. FREE TRAFFIC to my opinion, is the foundation of Online Business GROWTH, because you can’t step into the PAID TRAFFIC Arena, unless you know your numbers, and your numbers show you can CONVERT FREE TRAFFIC. You can split-test and optimize your Offers, your Giveaways, your Landing Pages, your Thank You Pages, your Sales Process, your Follow Up Process as much as you like with the advantage of FREE TRAFFIC. Once you get things rolling, PAID TRAFFIC can come into play. But at that point, you’ll set the rules of the game.
The ONLY case when PAID TRAFFIC is what you should start with, is when your Online Business Model is already setup, your Offline Business is running, and you need RESULTS FAST. In this case, you start by ADWORDS TESTING. You buy GOOGLE traffic, with very tiny budget, testing your Keywords and optimizing your Conversion. Once you pass on the green zone, scale it up and put your Free Traffic Getting Engines into full mode.
