Proven Fast and Easy Traffic Generation Methods
By Willie Crawford

One of the most perplexing questions faced by webmasters,
especially those with new sites, is "How do I get traffic
to my site?"  Here are a few easy, inexpensive, and
relatively fast methods I use to generate traffic.

1) Write and distribute ezine articles. This article
you're reading right now will send visitors to the site
mentioned in my resource box at the end of the article.
You can do the same thing.  Write articles on topics that
you KNOW your target market is interested in, and then
distribute them to ezine publisher and websites that
publish others’ content.  People will read your articles,
and if the articles provides value to them, they will
visit your site to learn more. It's that simple.

The key to getting your articles published is to write
something that provides genuine value to your readers.
Actually teach them something. Potential publisher will
see the value, and know that their readers will appreciate
the articles...so they’ll publish them.

The key to getting your articles READ is writing about
something people want to know more about. For example,
this article is about generating more traffic. Monitor
any online marketing discussion forum, or email discussion
list, and you'll see that EVERY webmaster is interested
in getting more traffic. So, I know that this article
will be read.

Writing articles that will be published is both an art
and a science. However, you can become proficient at it
fairly quickly. I've written over 350 articles in the
past 4 years, so it's not that hard. The best system
I've encountered recently on how to write and distribute
effective articles is called Article Announcer. You'll
find it at:  http://TheRealSecrets.com/article-announcer/

2)  Posting others’ related articles on content sites.  You can
create a website around a very focused niche topic, and
then post others’ articles on that site.  You can search
article directories such as ArticleCity.com or
IdeaMarketers.com and find thousands of articles others
have written and give permission for you to use.  Usually,
article writers do this in hopes of generating traffic
and sales from their articles.

You can search through these sites and find articles
on your topic. Then you simple copy and paste them into
your website template, to create a site that will rank
well in the search engines because the site is focused.

When I personally create these content sites, I use
software to both locate appropriate articles, and to turn
those articles into webpages.  I have templates that
are in my basic site layout.  The software that I use
can find dozens, or even hundreds, of articles and
automatically insert these articles into the correct
place on the page. It can even break up the articles,
adding comments or AdSense ads in the middle.

An example of one such site that I've created is at:
http://cheapest-merchantaccounts.com
On that site's homepage is a link to "Articles."
Following that link will take you to literally over
100 articles related to merchant accounts and ecommerce.
ALL of those pages were created in less than 5 minutes.
I used a piece of software called Content SiteBuilder,
found at a site called Content Desk. Basically I set
up a template (inserting things such as my AdSense
code, and links to affiliate products) and then I told
the software where to put the articles. In a snap it output
the article pages. Then I merely had to upload the pages
to my server and link to them from my homepage.

"But does this generate traffic?" you ask.  If you
search on the term "cheapest merchant accounts" at
Yahoo.com you'll see that this site ranks number 5 out
of over 1 million pages targeting that term. If you
continued digging, you'd discover that the number 1 site
for that term is a blog that I own, and the number 2 site also
belongs to me... it needs lots of work :-)  All of these
sites generate traffic... people looking for the lowest
priced merchant account.  So yes it does work. These
visitors earn me revenue by either applying for the
merchant account I recommend or by clicking on AdSense
ads.

A key element in the success of the sites above is that I got
them indexed quickly by linking to them from sites that
were already indexed, and that were frequently visited
by the search engines. I also didn't put a lot of time
into building any of these site because of the Content
Desk software.  You can find out more about that
software at: http://TheRealSecrets.com/content-desk/

3)  I like free traffic, but often when a site is first
erected, you need to use pay-per-clicks to get that
initial surge of traffic.  Articles and the other
methods I use are SO effective that I'll only use
pay-per-clicks if I'm in a hurry to refine the conversion
rate.  With pay-per-click traffic, since they are all
responding to the same ad(s) you get more homogenous
traffic. So it's easier to separate elements in your
testing and determine what's effective.  After refining
the conversion process, whether or not I continue with
pay-per-clicks often depends upon return-on-investment.
I don’t like to put a lot of time into managing a site!

4) Create viral tools.   Rebrandable PDF special
reports work well, especially if you have an affiliate
program.  If you don't have an affiliate program, you
can create these same reports on hot topics, and SEL,L
or give,  the reprint rights to others. In these reports you
include links to your "backend" products, or to websites
you want to generate traffic to.

Key to the success of getting others to spread your
viral tools is incentivizing them. Structuring your
PDF document so that publishers and webmasters can
profit from distributing it is the easiest way to
do that. Money is a great incentive :-)  In fact, you
can even structure your articles so that publisher
profit from distributing them. The way to do that is
simply to allow affiliates to substitute their affiliate url
for yours in the articles.

If you don't run an affiliate program, you can even write
articles for programs that you are an affiliate for. Then
contact the affiliate program manager and offer to
allow them to provide the articles to their affiliates.
Since you are allowing their affiliates to change the
url for that product (to their affiliate url), you need
to have a link somewhere in each article that points
back to your site too.  Most affiliate won't have a
problem with this if it's a good article. It's a win-win
situation.

5)  Just as you use PDF’s to generate viral traffic,
you can do the same thing with Camtasia videos.  You
can create short videos demonstrating how to do
something, and then you make these available to
publishers.  Camtasia has a feature that allows you to
automatically redirect the viewer to a specified webpage
at the end of the video.  You can either send them to your
website, or you can create special videos for your
affiliates that take the viewer to that affiliates
url. The possibilities are endless.

To see an example of how I use Camtasia video to
both educate and generate traffic, watch my video
entitled "Secrets Of The Internet Marketing Titans."
In this video I explain why top Internet marketers
seem to have an "inner circle," and then explain how
to break into that inner circle as a welcomed member.
Because the video does educate, many ezine publishers
are happy to tell their readers about it. You can view
this video at: http://TheRealSecrets.com/titans/titans.html

6) Offer 5 to 20-part email courses to your website visitors. 
Often your website visitors who won't subscribe to an ezine
will subscribe to a course. That's either because the course
has a higher perceived value, or because the course covers
a topic they're interest in more in-depth that an ezine
would.  In the course, you invite your readers back to
your website for additional resources, to see how
something is implemented, etc.  This generates repeat
visitors to your website and gives you many opportunities
to convert that subscriber to a customer.

7)  Publish an ezine or some type of list from your
website. An ezine allows you to have repeated contact with
a person who may otherwise never return to your site. As
you build the relationship, you can offer them various
reasons for returning to your site. As an example, I
try to keep my ezine to a reasonable length. Things that
I can't fit in my ezine - I post on my blog. So I invite
my subscriber to return to my site to read those extra
gems available only on the blog.

Publishing a list doesn't have to be hard work. For
example, I publish a list from a cooking related site
that is written entirely by my readers. It's a recipe
exchange mailing list. Readers submit recipes or
requests for recipes. These reader submissions are
compiled into a twice daily digest that is edited for
quality control and then sent out to the list. My
editor inserts two sponsor ads in each issue. Those
sponsor ads not only drive traffic to my site, they
drive six-figure sales of a cookbook that I wrote.

The cooking list, written by the readers, creates such
loyalty that if we ever miss a day of publishing, hundreds
of readers write in to ask us to confirm that they haven't
been dropped from the list.  Some subscribers have been
on this particular list for over 5 years. Aside from a little
editing, the list is on almost total autopilot. You can check
out how this list is set up by visiting my cooking site at:
http://Chitterlings.com  You'll notice that the number one
focus of the homepage is to build the list, so that we can
generate the repeat traffic. It works beautifully!

So there you have seven ways to generate website traffic
relatively fast, easy, and inexpensively. I even gave you
example that you can examine and model.  Implement just
a few of these ideas, and you'll get a nice steady flow
of website visitors.



Willie Crawford has taught PROVEN Internet marketing
techniques to thousands of successful Internet entrepreneurs
since late-1996.  Subscribe to his free, weekly ezine, which
helps you cut through the clutter and time-wasting hype.
Subscribe now by visiting:  http://WillieCrawford.com