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Sunday, April 16, 2000
8 Things You Can Do Today To Start Increasing Traffic
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Are you doing everything you can to increase traffic to your web site? Check this list of no-cost/low-cost things you can get started on now to develop your web site traffic so you can sell more products or services!
1) Develop a Traffic Attitude
Most people approach the web passively. They put up a web site. They wait. Nothing happens. They complain. Or even, ridiculously, pull off the web, like it's the web's fault that 60 million people didn't drop by before breakfast.
If you want traffic, you've got to work for traffic. That means developing the Traffic Attitude. This attitude consists of the following parts:
- Recognition that the web doesn't promote itself
- Determination to master web promotion
- Decision to find every conceivable means of building your traffic, and
- Use of them all — every day!!!
2) Post — Daily
Did you post today? Yesterday? The day before? Probably not! There's a problem right there. You should be a 365-day-poster. The following are the reasons you should post every day:
- You can get unlimited postings.
- They're free.
- You get a stream of prospects.
- By working with these prospects properly you get qualified prospects and, ultimately, sales.
Postings work! The key?
- Developing client-centered benefits for your postings. Push BENEFITS, not features.
- Making sure each heading in your posting leads with that benefit.
- Making sure the body of the posting further develops your main benefits, while providing all the means necessary for your prospects to connect with you NOW.
Postings work because they excite prospects with the value/benefit that you have available… and provide these prospects with everything they need to know to connect with you On days when you don't post, you're thwarting your own traffic.
3) List Free Classifieds — Daily
There are so many places on the Internet to get free classifieds, it's staggering. How to find them? Easy. Go to any of the web search engines and enter "Free classifieds."
Hundreds of places will come up. Now start reviewing them looking for the right places for what you're selling. Then list. Set yourself an objective. Five a day is good. Use your scrap time. This mindless work; do it when you're not at your mental peak.
Note: Free classified ads at most Internet sites expire after a certain amount of time. That's why you have to keep returning to renew them.
4) Use Free Links
While you're looking for free classifieds, you're also going to find places that provide free links. What's the difference?
Classifieds and space ads provide information enabling the prospect to connect with you. Ordinarily you get to say more, but there's no point and click connection to your site. On the other hand, with a link, all you've got to do is click on the link and the prospect is immediately connected to your site.
When you add a link, you're usually allowed a few words (a dozen or less) to describe it. Think about these words carefully. What you want to post is a BENEFIT, not just a descriptive feature. In other words, what's the prospect going to get when she visits your site? The better the benefit, the more visitors you'll get!
5) Take Advantage of Paid Links
You want to be associated with high traffic malls and web sites that do extensive on- and off-net advertising. If the company is aggressively advertising its web properties and bringing in traffic, and if they reach the kinds of people you want to reach, why, then, you need a link — even if you have to pay for it. When looking at such companies, ask hard questions about just how they develop their traffic and how you will benefit from what they do.
6) Add Your URL To All Marketing Communications
It staggers me how many opportunities for web promotion pass every single day without being utilized. Look at the following in your business:
- Business cards
- Card deck cards
- Space ads
- Yellow pages ads
- Brochures
- Flyers
- The envelopes you mail in, etc.
Have you got your URL on them… or are you literally throwing away promotional opportunities every time you think you're "marketing"? If you want traffic, make sure everything you use promotes your URL.
7) Don't Just Promote Your URL… Also Promote the Chief Benefit of Visiting Your Web Site
The next time you have a chance, utter your URL to a prospect and see what happens. I already know. You'll get a quizzical look, maybe worse. Why? Because URLs per se aren't motivating. That's why if you're smart you'll not only put your URL on all your marketing communications but will also insist on presenting the chief benefit of visiting your site, too.
You see, on every single marketing communication you use, you need to present the most important client-centered benefit of your site… as well as the means of accessing it, the URL.
Thus, include chief benefits like:
- Lose 30 pounds in 30 days!
- Make $100,000+ in commodities this year!
- Reduce your travel costs everywhere you go!
Get the drift? Lead with benefits… follow with features (the URL address). Both are essential to traffic building.
8) Develop a Response Template
Are you annoyed by unsolicited e-mail? I was, too, until I got smart about it. I figured these people were just a new kind of prospect. Thus, I developed a series of response templates in which I made the benefits of what I was selling very plain. Such a response template should include:
- An offer
- Benefits of what you're selling
- Product/service descriptions
- Client-centered testimonials
- Complete purchase information, and, of course
- Complete information about your web site!
In other words, a response template is the best kind of client-centered marketing communication.
Dr. Jeffrey Lant is one of America's best-know marketers. He has authored 14 books.
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