Protective Put Secrets

Blogs. Social networking (Web 2.0). Forum marketing. Article marketing. Link trading and exchanges. Joint ventures. Search engine optimization. Video marketing. Press releases (almighty Google loves news!). Classified and display advertising. Pay per Click (PPC) advertising and the newer Cost per View (CPV) advertising. And the list goes on. 

Every single business on the Internet constantly needs to build web site traffic, or visitors, no matter what they are selling. It is perhaps the one, single common denominator among successful web sites. You have no doubt heard a lot about the need to design a pretty site, with good navigation, using slick, tight ad copy, etc. 

But there are many successful sites out there that are just plain ugly, or have a poorly written message. However, they all live or die with a steady stream of traffic!  And not just any traffic. You do not want people coming to your site who happen to be wandering around the highways and byways of the Internet. These are visitors who just happened to be in the neighborhood, so to speak. 

No, you want people who are interested in, and ideally, even searching for your product or service. Your online business survival depends on this selected or targeted traffic. So where to find it? Preferably quickly? Well, the experts and gurus promise truckloads of traffic using one of the methods I mentioned at the beginning of this article. They promise you that they have cracked the code, learned the secrets, hijacked Clickbank or Google, found how to dominate any niche, etc. etc. 

Maybe they really have done what they claim. The truth, though, is that a regular stream of targeted visitors to your web site is hard to come by. It can be very time-consuming, tedious and frustrating. Remember, you are competing for attention with the other 20 billion (yes, that is billion, with a b) web sites on the Internet. 

There are simply not enough hours in a day (or week!) to use all the above methods on a regular basis. So the conventional wisdom is to pick one or two that appeal to you, and spend most of your time on them. For example, if you like exchanging information and ideas with people, perhaps social networking is for you. 

If you are a good writer, produce articles and submit them to article directories such as articlesbase.com. And so on. The important point here is to be consistent, persistent, and patient. Work hard. Most traffic-building methods take time to show results. The ones that may work faster, or even instantly, will cost you money. Perhaps a lot, with no guarantee of results. 

This is the unpleasant truth, and price, of success on the Web. I do not know of anyone who got rich overnight. I do know marketers who toiled over a hot, sweaty computer for years, before becoming an instant, overnight success. 

So how then, do we build web site traffic and attract that elusive, targeted visitor to our site? There are only a few ways, generally speaking. You can advertise, using banner ads, PPC, ads in ezines, and so on. Or you can use traffic generated by others. Setting up joint ventures with other marketers is an example of this. 

Or, finally, you can create your own traffic by putting original content on your sites. This will (slowly) attract the search engines, and increase your web site ranking. Many of us use this option because it costs little or nothing, and it works. Combine it with a few of the methods I mentioned above, and you will be well on your way. Unfortunately, this process takes time, often a lot of your time, and it can be very boring. 

The good news is, technology has galloped to the rescue. Today there are software packages that will automate much of this repetitive work, leaving you more time to work on creative tasks. This will save your sanity, and much hair-pulling. And maybe even your marriage. After all, we work on the Internet because we do not want, or cannot find, a regular, 9 – 5 job. So we do not want to go absolutely crazy from long, monotonous tasks. 

If you are very lucky, or have something that is truly new or newsworthy, then one of your articles, videos or blog posts might go viral. This means it will spread from person to person to web site at lightning speed, just like a real virus. This is a fantastic traffic generator for you, but is very difficult to pull off. It usually happens by accident, or unexpectedly. 

Traffic generation is an ongoing process, not something you do only once and then forget about. Concentrate your efforts on one or two techniques or approaches, set up a schedule for what you will do each and every day, then do it. Automate the tasks whenever possible. One thing you share with the top, successful marketers is that you, and they, have only 24 hours in each day. They use those hours productively and wisely. You must do the same.