To achieve true success with your internet marketing business there is one element that you absolutely must have – traffic, and lots of it.
There are many ways to get traffic to your web site or affiliate program.
One the best ways to generate traffic (and highly targeted traffic at that) is also extremely cost effective. In fact, after a single one off cost for appropriate software, the cost to you is practically zero.
I have always been drawn towards achieving any given target at as low a cost as possible provided I get the results I am seeking. Why pay more than you need? I have built a successful internet marketing business primarily using free or low cost traffic generation methods.
In this article I would like to show you how you can generate a constant and increasing flow of traffic to your web site or affiliate program without spending a ton of money.
One of the best ways to create viral traffic - traffic that grows exponentially - is to create a report (preferably in pdf format) on a subject closely related to your market, and distribute your report as a free resource.
There are many thousands of surfers searching for free stuff, at the time of writing this article, Google is returning 2.9 million results for the search term “free ebooks”, and 3.1 million results for “free reports”, so you can see that there is massive demand.
The creation and distribution of your free report will build your traffic slowly at first and gradually build up over time, but we’re talking about essentially free traffic here, so you have nothing to lose. To create your report, follow these simple steps:
1: Choose a “hot” topic
Visit any online marketing forum and you’ll quickly see what people are looking for in your niche – often information (how to do this, that etc.).
Write your report on what’s in demand to give your report the widest possible audience.
If you’re really stuck or suffering from “writer’s block” you may well have reports or ebooks that you have downloaded gathering dust on your hard disk and you can use these for inspiration.
Don’t simply copy other writer’s work though – this can get you into a lot of trouble with copyright issues. Instead, rewrite them in your own words.
Within your free report, include hyperlinks back to your website (typically on the title page and at the end of the report) and links to your products or affiliate programs within the body of the report.
Step 2: Give your report an attention grabbing title
You want to ensure that your report gets noticed so don’t use a title like “Marketing Basics”; a much better title would be something like “Secrets of 200% More Traffic – How To Instantly Get Twice As Much Traffic For Your Site”.
Step 3: Compile your report into pdf format
PDF's are the most widely used document distribution format on the internet and will give your report the widest possible audience. There are many programs available that will create a pdf from a word processor file, and these days you should be able to get a good one for less than $20.
Step 4: Promote your report
Obviously, the first place you want to advertise your report is on your own web site (if you have one)
But you for true viral traffic, summarise your report into an article and submit the article to one or more of the free article directories.
In the article’s resource box you would include something like “Like this article? Get the FULL - free - report from [yoursite] by clicking here” (hyperlink to your report’s download page).
Result – free traffic!
As a bonus, the article stays on the article directory producing more and more traffic back to your site.
Plus, as article directories are free resources your article may well be picked up by others and spread around the internet, getting even more exposure – true “viral” traffic that operates automatically for you.
In addition, search engines will also identify the link back to your web site which will increase your site’s ranking.
