Internet Marketing School

Traffic is the essence of any successful blog or website.

Basically, a blog is very similar to a website in its traffic generation methods:-

1. Article Marketing

Article Marketing, or the submission of originally-written articles to various online article directories, is always an excellent way to build the author’s/site’s reputation in the subject niche, and also to drive traffic back to one’s blog/website through the backlinks from the author’s article resource book at the bottom of each article.

If the blog/website is independently hosted, this will also aid in the creation of non-reciprocal backlinks which is good for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

2. Social Networking

Posting of one’s blog into blog directories (or website into website directories), using of social bookmarking tools (eg. delicious, digg it, stumbleupon), creation of community sites (eg. hubpages hub, squidoo lens, facebook groups, multiply groups, friendster groups, myspace group) help attract and build a group of active and enthusiastic community with a common interest for a certain subject.

3. Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

If your blog/website has a commercial purpose in mind, you may want to consider Pay-Per-Click techniques (eg. Google Adwords, Yahoo Ad Center, etc.) to drive traffic to your site. PPC is basically paying for targeted traffic to your blog/site, so it’s a cost-benefit analysis of whether you are willing to pay for the traffic (and how much to pay for each click). PPC is one of the fastest and most effective ways to drive TARGETED traffic to a site (usually as fast as 15 minutes upon activating your ads), and can be seen as worthwhile advertising especially if you can monetize back the money spent (and possibly much more) through your monetization techniques on your blog/website and the building of client/potential customer lists.

4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The king of FREE, organic search, this is great for any website, and works for a blog best if your site is independently hosted, ie. not hosted with wordpress, blogspot, etc. Search Engine Optimization is the skills and techniques of on-page and off-page optimisation required to get your blog/website and its sub-niches as high up the search engine listings as possible.

5. Video/Audio Marketing

Video/Audio Marketing is fast becoming the new “dark horse” in successful online marketing, due to its ability to reach vast numbers of people cheaply in a short span of time and capture their attention for a good few minutes due to the captivating ability of visual images and audio sound. Post simple, non-professionally edited videos into video sharing sites (like YouTube), and also into your blog, websites and social networking sites to enhance its effectiveness. Even after you have started building your client/potential customer lists, videos/audios remain a powerful way to connect and service your target audience.

6. Offline Marketing

Never neglect the power of Offline Marketing even though your blog/website is online. Namecards, greeting cards, stationery, promotional brochures and materials, paraphernalia, gifts, advertising, etc. should all make reference to your blog/website.

7. Other Methods

There are numerous other methods of traffic generation. For example, you can post valuable comments in blogs/forums/websites and add your blog link below your name in highly trafficked sites.

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