Upon returning from a recent seminar, I had two messages from
newspaper reporters on my answering machine. They were both
seeking interviews. I also had emails showing that I'd earned
several thousand dollars while I was out of town speaking. The
orders had all been processed automatically, and the emails were
just for my information. It was at that point that I realized my
Internet business had truly reached critical mass.
Critical mass is a term that I first heard my friend Jack
Humphrey, author of Power Linking, use in reference to generating
website traffic and growing a business. Jack used it to define
that point at which you could stop actively promoting your online
business (for a while) and it would continue to grow and
prosper.
I'm sharing this with you because I want you to see the tools
that enabled me to reach that point. This article will show you
to see why those tools are so powerful.
Let me begin by telling you that it took me eight years to grow
my online business to the point where it is largely self-
sustaining! I don't want to mislead you there. A big part of
success is unwavering persistence.
Now, let's look at the tools I used to reach and maintain
critical mass.
1) Search engine marketing. All of my important sites ARE
manually submitted to the search engines. I submit and re-submit
them "semi-automatically" though. I use a site called
SelfPromotion.com. This site allows you to store all relevant
data about a site into their database. The software then submits
your site to selected search engines and directories.
The beauty of self-promotion.com is that you can then set it so
that the software periodically resubmits your sites. It's truly
"set it and forget it" website promotion.
SelfPromotion.com is free, but if you make a contribution, to
help pay for the upkeep of the site, you get access to more nifty
tools. You can get a free account with them at:
http://selfpromotion.com/?CF=Willie%20Crawford
That URL lets Robert know that I sent you. I've used
this tool for over 5 years now - and love it!
2) Article marketing. I've written and distributed over 300
articles. Articles establish you as an expert in the marketplace,
build inbound links to your sites, pre-sell your products, and
help you rank higher in the search engines for your targeted
keywords.
The power of article marketing is that once the articles are in
circulation, and on hundreds... or even thousands of websites,
they can work for you forever. I still get traffic to some of my
websites from articles I wrote in 1998!
Many online marketers now use articles to market their websites,
but they don't do it very effectively. Articles have to be
written, and deployed, in a way that they both gain you
advantages in the search engines and that they convert readers
into customers, subscribers, clients, and fans. That means your
articles need SOLID content.
In writing articles (or having them ghost written) you must
always remember that people surf the Internet looking for
information and solutions to their problems. Your articles must
actually provide this information or help them to actually solve
their problems. Distribute articles that accomplish this, and
you'll develop an endless stream of raving fans, all storming
your website for more of YOU.
Writing articles is relatively easy. If you don't know how to
write articles though, I recommend that you take advantage of the
training available at a site called Content Propulsion Lab.
Content Propulsion Lab teaches you not only how to use articles
to grow your business, but also how to use multi-media content
(such as MP3's and online video). You're shown how to deploy
multi-media content in a way that causes the search engines to
gobble it up.
I mentioned the multi-media content because, while articles work
beautifully, website audio and video is growing at an amazing
pace. You need to offer your audience information in the formats
that they prefer consuming it in. More and more, this format is
becoming audio and video. These formats allow your audience to
connect with you on a much deeper level since they see or hear a
live person. Connecting with your audience on a deeper level
means MORE sales.
I now use Content Propulsion Lab's resources to push my content
out to an amazing array of places. I also TEACH others how to do
this through tele-classes and webinars featured at Content
Propulsion Lab. You can check out all of the mind-boggling
capabilities Content Propulsion Lab offers at:
http://CashThroughContent.com
3) Viral tools. A viral tool is merely something that, once set
in motion, continues to grow, and spread, and benefit you,
without any additional input being required from you.
Two of my favorite viral tools are online discussion forums and
blogs. Online discussion forums allow people interested in a
given topic to congregate and and discuss that topic. Over time,
your discussion forum will develop a core following who will help
to spread the word, and help to maintain the community. Seek
volunteer moderators to help police the forum and maintain
standards. Many people will volunteer for a link back to their
site, or just for the exposure.
The number of blogs is growing exponentially. Blogs are proven
traffic magnets. A blog allows you to share information,
opinions, etc. with your audience. If your blog engages your
audience they will help to spread the word. At the same time,
blogs are visited frequently by the search engines. Search
engines notice which ones are updated often and become "trained"
to spider those blogs often.
Because blogs are spidered so often, it's one of the quickest
ways that I know of to get a new site noticed by the search
engines. Just post a link to one of your new sites on a blog
that's frequently crawled, and the search engine spiders will
follow that link and index your new site. This is VERY powerful
to be such a simple technique.
Blogging is very simple, but there are lots of tricks and
techniques that offer you an amazingly competitive advantage. My
favorite blogging platform is WordPress, which I learned all
about from my friend Sherman Hu. Sherman has a series of short
online videos that explain practically everything you could ever
want to know about blogging with WordPress.
You can watch 22 (yes - 22) of Sherman's videos on WordPress
blogging absolutely free at:
http://ShermanHuOnWordPressBlogging.com
Other viral tools include ebooks, PDF special reports, MP3 audio
files, and Camtasia videos. We can't cover all of these here,
but any of them could be created, and then offered to the
marketplace. If they deliver tremendous value, or even
entertainment, they will be passed along. If you create these
viral tools properly, they will lead highly qualified traffic
right back to your site.
4) Link Building. People find, and then visit, your sites by
following trails. Those trails can be mentions of your url in
online or offline media, articles, press releases, and links on
other sites pointing to you. The more links you have pointing to
you, the greater the chance of someone finding one of those links
and visiting your site. So, you should set out on an aggressive
effort to build quality links pointing to your site.
Since I value quality links over sheer quantity, I have over the
years simply emailed webmasters of sites I wanted to exchange
links with suggesting the exchange. Now, I hire others to
coordinate link exchanges for me. This is a better use of my
resources in the long-run than doing it myself, since there are
services that do this fairly inexpensively. To locate one of
these services, simply type in an appropriate term at the search
engines.
You can also set up an affiliate program as a way to reward
others for linking to you. Affiliate program management
software, such as the one I use at http://ProfitAutomation.com
allows you the option of paying people (on a per click basis)
just for sending traffic to you. I do this on a few sites, but
on most sites where I have affiliate programs, I pay on a per
sale basis. This still generates a lot of one-way links but only
costs you when those links make you sales.
There are many, many more techniques that you can use to build
a steadily increasing flood of traffic to your sites. I use
literally DOZENS of different methods. If you're looking for an
"encyclopedia" of traffic generation methods, I highly recommend
a course by my friend John Reese, called Traffic Secrets. You'll
find John Reese's Traffic Secrets Course at:
http://TrafficSecretsByJohnReese.com
The most important part of building your websites' traffic up to
critical mass is just getting started. Pick ONE of the methods
outlined above and get started. As you verify that a particular
method works great for you, and your marketplace, keep using that
one and then add others. If a particular method doesn't produce
for you, stop wasting your time with it!
One final thought... even when you build your website traffic to
critical mass, you still should continue to promote.
Yes, you'll continue making sales, but if you completely stop
promoting, sales will eventually begin to drop off. Major
international corporations such as Coke(tm) have proven this
over and over again. That's why you see these major corporations
with MAJOR market domination continue to promote their products
and services.
Now that your understand the intricacies of generating
self-sustaining website traffic, what are you waiting
for? ;-)
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