Free is great! There are so many wonderful opportunities to promote your business and get traffic to your web properties by using free traffic. I want you to realize, though, that there’s a cost for using „free“ methods. You pay with your time, including the fact that free methods can take a lot longer to take hold.

Sometimes, such as with Facebook, you’ll get to choose whether you want to use free traffic, paid traffic, or both. Ideally, you’ll end up using both.

But I’ve been around long enough to know that many people are mostly attracted to the free traffic methods. I understand that, as we all want to get things for free. Also, some of the free traffic methods are completely amazing and can produce even better results than some of the paid methods—you just have to know what to use and when.

With certain paid methods, you can literally set up an ad and receive traffic within minutes. This allows you to test conversions and start making money right away. Of course, you have to know what you’re doing so you don’t lose your shirt.

If you spend days, weeks, and months on free traffic methods that you hope will pay off… but it’s a bad campaign or it’s not targeted right or something else happens, there’s a huge opportunity cost there. You could have set up an ad and had your answer as to whether that squeeze page (or whatever) was going to work or not within a few hours.

Hours vs. months… no competition, right? How much is your time worth, anyway? Once you know the paid ad is working you can expand out into free ads. That’s the best way to drive traffic, in my opinion.

Please don’t just pay attention to the free traffic methods and ignore the paid traffic methods, and vice versa. It is important to invest in your business, and that means investing with both your money and your time.

If you’re short on cash, you can certainly start out with free methods and then move to paid methods once you have some cash to work with. If you do have the money, start out slowly with paid traffic and work your way up as you gain more experience. For example, spending $5-$10 a day on Facebook ads can give you some great results and isn’t overly risky at all. Then, you can work your way up to spending $500+ a day once you know what you’re doing, for some extremely big profits.

Think about it, if you could get $10 income for a $5 investment, and then scaled that up to a $10 investment and made $20, and kept going until you were investing $500 and earning $1000, wouldn’t you do that?

With free traffic, there’s a limit about how much you can get based on how your site is ranked on the search engines, and that can change overnight (up or down, but often it’s down).

If you’ve read my “5 Bucks a Day” book, you know that I talked there about the fact that I used paid traffic to send visitors to pages, and I was spending at the peak around $1,000 a day. However I didn’t unleash that budget until I was sure of my conversions, and knew exactly how much each visitor to my site was worth on average.

Once I realized that each visitor was worth 20 to 25 cents, and I knew that I could pay 10 cents per visitor, it was as easy a decision to make as it would be to buy $20 bills for $10 each, and be willing to take as many as someone was willing to sell me.

Obviously, you have to be sure of your costs, your conversions, and your visitor value before you undertake a plan like that, but it’s certainly possible.

If I had to rely on free traffic for the campaign that made me a profit of $38,000 in around 6 weeks, I would have probably made nothing, because I would have had to work and wait for the pages to rise to the first page on Google, and since it was an extremely competitive set of keywords that I was targeting, it probably wouldn’t have happened.

Free and Paid Traffic—Perfect In Combination

I urge you to take advantage of paid traffic opportunities as soon as you can. If you have the money when you first start out, go ahead and engage in paid traffic right away. You’ll be able to test and track results much more quickly. The results you get with paid traffic can then be translated to organic, free traffic methods.

The opposite is also true. If you find a free traffic method that works with a certain group in your niche, you should ramp your efforts up with paid traffic. If you’re already getting traffic one way and earning money one way, you may as well find multiple ways so you can earn even more. Also, when you pay for traffic, you’ll spend a lot less time on your marketing.

By the way, some of your paid traffic generation techniques will actually funnel into your organic traffic techniques. For instance, you might pay for Facebook ads that funnel people to your Facebook pages, and/or to your email list, and then your email broadcasts become free traffic.

It is totally free to create a Facebook page, but it can take a lot of time and effort to grow that Facebook page organically. When you pay for traffic, you’ll see instant growth. Incidentally, paying for ads to a Facebook page can also dramatically increase the number of organic likes you receive since the friends of all those paid clicks will see your page now, too.

It all works hand-in-hand. I don’t recommend you ever use just one way of driving traffic. Maybe you specialize in one traffic generation technique. That’s great! With that said, you should never put all of your eggs in one basket. Use a variety of techniques, including free and paid. Your free techniques will help your paid techniques. Your paid techniques will help your free techniques.

For example, if you’re marketing your own product, and you have affiliates, once you have established that your site is performing well as far as conversions, affiliates will be much more likely to promote for you, and that’s free traffic.

Whether you’re using paid or free techniques, you always want to drive traffic to your list. Getting that email address will cement your success forever. You never want to market to people just one time—especially if you paid for their click. You don’t want them to visit your site just one time. You want to get them into your traffic funnel for the long term.

Always consider this when you pay for traffic. You want to get the most for your money. That means getting people on your list, liking and following your social media properties, and so on. Many, many people pay for traffic, get one sale or some passing interest, and nothing else.

Any traffic you pay for or work for the organic way should be the start of something long term. In general, this means driving people to an email opt-in form. Build a relationship with them there and you can get them to visit you on social media, read all of your blog posts, buy the products you release, watch your videos, subscribe to your podcast, consider your affiliate product recommendations, and so on.

The post Paid Vs. Free Traffic appeared first on Time Toasters.

Once you know the answer to that, you can develop a strategy you can follow through with every day to grow your presence on social media. As you develop a following on social media, you can then drive traffic to your web properties.

Remember to provide a lot of value. This isn’t about spamming your link all over social media. This is about helping people and developing real relationships so people will naturally want to check out what you have to offer.

The post Be Where Your Audience Is appeared first on Time Toasters.

There are many different ways to drive traffic to your business online. The choices might be overwhelming – what should you do first? What should you focus most of your time and attention on?

There’s no easy answer to that question because every niche and business is different, but it’s a safe bet that social media should be a huge part of your overall strategy to generate traffic.

The web is social. Social media is where people learn the latest news, keep up with people, products, services, businesses, and more. It’s generally expected these days that a business should be found on social media. It’s where customers are now trained to connect with businesses they care about.

That’s good news for you, too. Social media is a wonderful way for you to get to know your customers. You can use social media for niche research, to understand your audience more fully, to develop strategies that will be a hit with your audience, and to become known in your niche.

The more well known you become on social media, the easier it will be for you to generate traffic to your web properties. Your goal should be to become an authority to people in your niche. They should see your posts and tweets and activities on social media and know that you are someone to watch, as well as someone with a personality.

It’s so important to be present and helpful on social media. That’s the sort of thing that will help you get noticed. When you get noticed on social sites, you’ll get more followers. People will come to respect your opinion. They’ll naturally want to check out your website and your business—that’s the goal.

Who Are the Current Social Media Superstars?

Consider the people who are currently social media superstars in your niche. Where do they (and the audience) hang out? They might be on Facebook or Twitter. How do they conduct themselves?

They probably spend a lot of their time interacting with members of that niche. They answer questions, retweet or share things of interest, hit on the latest news and changes within the niche, and more. They are seen as thought leaders. People flock to them because they’ve made themselves so magnetic.

Take notes on what these superstars are doing because that can give you some great clues as to what you should do on social media. They’re likely generating a lot of traffic, and success leaves clues.

Driving Traffic Using Facebook

There are three main areas to Facebook. You have your typical profile, where you typically “friend” family and friends. There are also Facebook pages and Facebook groups. We’ll focus on pages and groups.

You can create a Facebook page that will be of interest to the people in your audience. I don’t mean just creating a page for your business – I mean creating a page that represents an interest of the niche overall.

This should be something people will „like“ because they actually do like it. Right now, they don’t know much, if anything, about your business (assuming you’re just getting started). What will capture their attention?

You can get ideas by looking at some of the most popular Facebook pages within your niche. Create a page people will really go for – something they’ll like even if they don’t know who you are quite yet.

Once you start a Facebook page, you can comment as that page (generating interest from similar pages), run ads to that page, and otherwise interact to get more people to like your page. You can share helpful information, photos, helpful posts, and more. People will start to share your content, leading to more likes.

You can also join or start your own Facebook group. Facebook groups are a bit different in that they offer more of a community feel.

Do a search for existing groups in your niche. Get a feel for how these groups are run. Consider how they benefit their creator. How does the owner of the group use the group to drive traffic and represent himself or herself as an authority figure in the niche?

Once you understand how Facebook groups work, you can start your own. This group should be created with the intent of being helpful to people. In addition to being helpful to people, you can link to your web properties, squeeze pages, special offers, and more.

Driving Traffic with Twitter

Twitter is another very popular social site and it can be very useful to drive traffic, depending on the niche you’re in. To get a feel for this, take a look at what heavy twitter users in your niche are already doing.

Start to follow people in your niche – including those heavy hitters and those who are following those heavy hitters. Tweet and retweet interesting things. Make use of hashtags and popular keywords in your niche to generate more interest.

You can list your company’s web address in your profile, tweet your squeeze pages, special offers, and more. Keep in mind that twitter moves much more quickly than most social media sites, so you’ll really need to study Twitter to maximize its effectiveness.

If you get a lot of followers, and write tweets that are interesting and intriguing and generate clicks, you can drive some great traffic to your web properties.

Driving Traffic with Pinterest

Pinterest is an interesting social site because its focus is on sharing (or “pinning”) pictures of things. If you have more of a visually focused business (fashion, fitness, etc.), this is definitely a social media site you’ll want to pay attention to.

You can start to pin graphics and images from your blog or website. Repin things other people pin. Start to follow boards on Pinterest and do a good job of organizing your own boards so other people will follow them, click on your pins, and visit your links.

It can take some time to become familiar with Pinterest. Study those who are already effectively using this site and come up with your own strategy.

As you pin images from your blog or website, they can be re-pinned by others, bringing you some great traffic. In some cases your pin might be re-pinned thousands of times.

Make use of hashtags and keywords within your descriptions on Pinterest so those who use the search bar on Pinterest come across them.

Also, make sure you put easy-to-use buttons on your blog or website so people can pin your content themselves. The idea here is that you want others to pin things from your webpage organically and re-pin things you’ve already pinned, in the hopes that you’ll gain a wider audience of people clicking through to your website.

Getting Traffic with LinkedIn

LinkedIn is fantastic for business-to-business social media especially. Your LinkedIn profile is where people can go to learn more about your company. If you’re in the Internet marketing niche, offline marketing niche, or anything like that, this is definitely where you need to be.

LinkedIn is all about networking. You can get to know people in your niche, potential partners, and more.

LinkedIn allows you to link to your other social media accounts and interlinking is a good thing for traffic generation.

There are also groups right on LinkedIn you can start or join. This is how you can become more well known, getting people interested in what you have to say so they’ll naturally want to visit your website and see what you have to offer.

Getting Traffic with Instagram

As with Pinterest, Instagram isn’t for everyone. Instagram is a site where you can share images and graphics. It’s less flexible and quite different from Pinterest, though, other than the fact that both sites rely on images.

This is more of a site for those in visual fields, such as fashion. You’ll gain Instagram followers by using hashtags, following others, and consistently sharing high-quality images that are attractive and interesting to your audience.

The post Using Social Media for Traffic appeared first on Time Toasters.

There are so many marketers successfully getting rivers of traffic to their websites every single day. How do they do it, and what about the rest of us? Is there some secret we should all know about driving traffic?

The answer is no, not really. The secret is that you need the right strategies and dedication to make it happen. It requires you to stay on top of what’s working now. What worked several years ago often doesn’t work today, especially if those methods were a little sneaky or lazy.

The funny thing is it’s easier and faster to do it the right way than it is to try to trick people and search engines into visiting your site. If you have the right strategy, you can easily drive thousands of visitors to your website, product, service, or business.

Not only will you be able to drive as much traffic as you’d like, but you’ll also be driving the right kinds of traffic. You’ll get highly targeted people to quickly become fans of your work and come around again and again.

Plus if you get the right kind of traffic, it will convert much better into the action that you desire, and then often affiliates will be much more likely to want to send you even more of their traffic.

I’m not into boring methods that don’t work. I’m not into trying things that take forever to do with little result. What I am into are innovative, top-of-the-line traffic generation strategies that are going to have dramatic results for your business. I love finding new and exciting ideas and putting them to the test. That’s why I’ve researched and found the very best strategies there are so I can share with you what’s working right now.

I’m including some of the very best ways to drive traffic as part of this overview. This isn’t a complete list, but it does contain what you need to get started successfully driving high converting traffic.

Search Engine Optimization

You have to keep readers and searchers in mind. What do they really want and how can you give it to them? You should provide very high quality, very thorough content. You should also have a lot of activity and freshness on your website. This means interacting with your readers and keeping your site up to date. This is one reason why blogs are a phenomenal way to drive traffic.

Focus on your readers and customers first, and Google will take notice. Spread your brand everywhere, be helpful, and be present in as many places as possible.

Building links to your site can be very helpful. Here are some ways to manually build links:

You can:

• Guest post on others‘ blogs
• Comment on blogs
• Submit articles to article directories, like EzineArticles.com
• Submit your site to blog directories
• Submit your site to site directories
• Write a great, different post that many people want to link to

Guest Posting

One of the most powerful ways to build backlinks, authority, and your presence on the web overall is to submit guest blog posts. Guest posting on other people’s blogs is a fantastic method of leveraging the traffic of an already established marketer. Many website owners love guest posts because it gives them a little bit of a posting break and exposes their audience to a different viewpoint, which is very valuable.

Creating Great Content

If you’re going to dominate the search engines, then you need to create fantastic content people will want to share and link to. If people are linking to it from their own blogs and websites and sharing it on social media, you can bet Google and other search engines will take notice and rank you highly for the keywords you desire.

Blogging For Traffic

If you aren’t yet blogging, it’s time to get started. It doesn’t matter what your business is or what you’re marketing, it’s beneficial to everyone. You can use something like WordPress on your hosting account, which is easy to use and free. Or, you can use a hosted Blogger.com blog. Make a plan to stay consistent with your blogging and write content people will want to share so you can become a well-branded leader in your niche.

Press Release Traffic

Press releases have long been a great strategy to get attention to a business. Online press releases can work extremely well. Unfortunately, releasing press releases online has been abused by many marketers, so you definitely want to make sure you only focus on the highest quality press release distribution websites. For example, PRNewsWire.com is an excellent press release site to pay attention to.

Using Images to Drive Traffic

Getting traffic isn’t just about written content. Images can have a big impact on who shares your content, who finds you, and how popular your brand becomes. People can find your images via image searches. They can find your images on social media. They can find your images just about everywhere especially if you take steps to make sure your images are branded well and lead a clear path back to your website.

Using Social Media to Drive Traffic

Social media is an essential part of any traffic plan. It’s so important that even search engines like Google pay attention to social signals when determining popularity and rankings. If you’re not already using social media, you should start right away. If you’re already using social media, it’s time to make sure you’re using it in the best possible way.

It doesn’t matter which niche you’re in, people in your niche are very active on social media. They’re looking for stories, tips, how-to articles, entertainment, products, services, and friendships based on the topic they’re interested in. They join groups, follow people of authority, and digest, share, and comment on social media posts of interest. This makes social media a fantastic way to grow your audience and get more traffic to your website and business in general.

Using social media, you can share content you’ve written. You can share images and infographics. You can get to know the leaders in your niche and network in a way that will help you become one of them. There’s no shortage to the ways using social media can help you grow your business and get more traffic.

Your goal is to get people interested in what you have to say. You want them to like, retweet, and share your content. You want them to become so invested that they then join your list, buy your product, and learn from you away from the social media platform as well.

Your ideal customer or reader is someone who doesn’t just follow you on Twitter or like you on Facebook. Your ideal reader isn’t someone who just visits your blog sometimes. Your goal is to get people interested enough that they see your content on your blog, in the search engines, on all relevant social media sites, and in their email inbox. You’re going to have a much bigger impact on your audience if your content and presence is inescapable. That’s a big part of the reason why social media is so important.

Some Social Networks to Use:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Google+
• Pinterest
• Instagram
• Tumblr

Using YouTube and Other Videos to Drive Traffic

Video is a wonderful way to get traffic. Some marketers prefer using video and find themselves naturally drawn to it. Other marketers are very wary– probably because they think it will be too difficult to get started with. The great news is that you don’t have to be all that tech savvy to really do well with video. If you haven’t started using video yet, you’re really missing out.

Think of the companies out there that do a great job with video. There are so many wonderful video ads, viral videos, vlogs, Hangouts, and more. The fact is that some people in your audience will respond best to video. You’ll do well to cater to them, using the awesome (mainly free) tools that are out there.

Using Podcasting and Audio to Drive Traffic

Podcasting is an amazing way to get additional traffic. There are a lot of people out there who don’t prefer to watch videos or read articles. It’s not an all or nothing thing, though. There are plenty of people who just don’t have enough hours in the day to consume your content. What they may have are hours spent in a car or a train where the only thing they can do is listen to content, rather than read it or watch it.

Audio is easy to create and release. iTunes and other platforms, make it really easy for you to distribute your podcasts. You may want to start with podcasting if you’re nervous about creating video– it’s not as intimidating because you don’t have to be on camera. It’s also less intimidating than hosting your own webinars or seminars and can be a good segue to that.

You don’t need fancy equipment at all. In fact, you can use free programs (like Audacity) that you can download right to your computer. You can even just use free or paid apps on your Smartphone or tablet. There’s really no excuse for not giving it a try because there’s no barrier to entry at all.

There’s a lot to be said for written content, but there’s also a lot to be said for audio content. People can connect with you on a deeper level when they can hear your voice. Listening to someone (you) speak allows for deeper learning and engagement. That’s a great gift you can give your audience. It’s also a great gift you can give yourself since you’ll be able to get a lot more traffic as a result.

Drive Great Traffic

Driving traffic is one of the most important things you can focus on in your marketing. It isn’t hard to drive traffic, but it does require you to be consistent. It does require you to use methods that will keep you in the race for the long haul.

Focus on the people, where the people are, what they want, and how you can give it to them. That’s a formula for success. Remember, what you focus on grows.

The post Traffic Overview appeared first on Time Toasters.