27 Mar 11 4:08 pm
The fact is that traffic requires you to invest either time into doing a lot of manual work, or money in paying for ads. even if you invest in PPC, it takes time to tweak a campaign and get targeted traffic that converts. a lot of the people I have talked to say they spend 500-1000 or more on PPC before they start seeing profitable results, so you really need to make sure you have some expendable income.
For free traffic, there are ways to get some really great traffic, but most of them take time to work. Rather than waiting for google, I prefer going to the source. finding out where people hang out, and going there myself, branding myself as an authority, and getting to know potential customers personally.
It can take time to do that, especially if you are very new, but it still works faster than waiting 6 months for SEO rankings.
Some ways that you can get some links and direct traffic while waiting for search rankings are
social bookmarking sites
Blog commenting,
guest posting on popular blogs within your niche
forums (one of my favorites)
Facebook groups and fan pages related to your niche (not just your own)
Check out the website traffic guide in my signature file, or the post I shared earlier. they are both filled with my own experiences in generating free traffic, and will give you some realistic ideas of how fast you can expect to see them working for you.
also, although SEO can take months of work, there are some things you can do to get ranking faster, it just takes time and consistent work, and focus.
Look at keywords you are targeting, and find less competitive keywords. I often build new sites targeting keywords that get really low search volumes. they wont bring a lot of traffic, but you can rank for them much quicker and spend more time focusing on your content and less time link building.
also, think about getting pages on your site ranking rather than getting a site ranking. google rankings focus on each page on an individual basis, so the more pages you have ranking, the more traffic you can get.
you can put up a small site with just a few pages of content targeting highly searched, competitive keywords and take 6-8 months before you see any rankings, or you can go for less competitive terms, and get them ranking within 2 months, or less.
Create content that others want to share with others. This is really where most people fail. they write articles that are not really great, just to have pages on their site.
spend time on your content, and you will create a buzz around your site. This is why you see long list posts like 50 ways to xyz, or 100 tips to ....
these list posts get a lot of people talking, and people will want to share it with their friends who are also interested in your topic. they take a lot of time and research, but they create a buzz, and get the natural linking to your site.
One of the fastest ways to get some traffic is through forums. I join 3-4 forums in every niche, and try to post helpful posts (like this one). I try to do at least 4-5 posts a day, helping answer people's problems. By doing this, I build up my reputation pretty quickly, and gain the trust of the people there. I don't generally link to my own sites in posts, although if it is allowed, I do on ocassion, especially if I have a post on my own site that answers someone's questions.
you have to be careful with self promotion on forums, which is where most people fail. the more you do it, and the better your reputation is, the more you can get away with it, but still, you need to avoid it where possible. some forums also don't allow it at all, so you have to walk a fine line. Always make sure you follow the rules of any forum.
a lot of forums allow links in your signature but not in your posts. some forums allow these links to be indexed with google but a lot of them don't. due to the spammers. forums arent really as much about getting a link as they are about branding yourself and helping people.
All the social networking I talk about is dependant on persanal experience in your niche. I am not an expert at any of my niches, but I do have a lot of experiences, and I use those experiences to brand myself. I also am personally interested in every niche I go into. I personally think if you go into a niche for the money, you are wasting time (but that is just my opinion). when doing things, ask yourself if you never made any money at it, would it still be worth your time? if the answer is no, then you are in the wrong niche.
