Archive | February, 2018

No worries – this is completely honest and ethical, and it’s a great way to begin sending free traffic to your new website.

Diverting traffic from other websites is one of the easiest methods of gaining free traffic. Ideally, you’ll want to “steal” this traffic from high traffic websites, because the more traffic your target sites get, the more traffic you can siphon off and send to your own site.

1. Look for high traffic forums and blogs that are directly related to your own niche. Ideally you want forums and blogs that have high traffic and also allow you to place a link to your website in every post you make, either in your signature file or in a clickable link.

Now then, you want to make as many intelligent posts as possible – thereby sharing your link several times or more – and do it in as little time as possible. The goal here is not to spend all day making forum posts, but rather to get in, make your posts and get out so that you have time to take care of other tasks related to your business.

Set a timer and search for specific posts that you can quickly reply to. For example, if your topic is SEO, search out the SEO threads rather than trying to answer a thread on content creation. You want to give short, concise, intelligent and helpful answers.

2. When your timer goes off, don’t close the forums. Instead, reset the timer because this time you’re going to create your own posts on these same forums. Search the forum for a thread that was super popular a few months ago, and start a new thread on a similar topic, only with your personal spin on it. This should get the posts responses piling up fast and furious, and will give your signature file plenty of views.

Be sure to check back on the threads you started at least once per day to answer some of the responses you received. If you continue posting daily in forums and on popular blogs, you should get a steady stream of people visiting your site. And while they may not be coming in droves, the ones that do show up are highly targeted and ripe for adding to your email list. Be sure to capture as many of them as you can by offering great content and a juicy reward for joining your list.

3. BONUS: If your niche is non-marketing related, find active posters on blogs and ask them to place your link in their signature file for a month for a fee – perhaps $25. They’re already posting, so it’s no extra effort for them and it’s great targeted traffic for you.

4. ADVANCED: Hire someone to post for you. If you outsource to the Philippines, for example, you can get someone to post on forums and blogs for you every day at a very reasonable rate. Not only does this free up your time, but because this is all they do, they can make far more posts than you ever could. One note: Until you are fully confident in their abilities, do not let them start forum threads in your name.

There you have it…

4 ways to “steal traffic”, and grow your online business; all without breaking the bank! 😉

So you’ve got a fantastic looking squeeze page that still isn’t converting worth a darn – now what? Sometimes doing the opposite of what everyone else on the Internet is telling you to do really pays off, especially when it comes to capturing email addresses.

Split test these and see if your subscribe rates don’t increase dramatically…

Forget the name. There was a time – a long time ago – when inserting a person’s name in an email increased the open rate. Those days are all but gone.

Worse yet, asking for their name decreases your response rate nearly every time. The only time to ask for their name is when they BUY from you – not when you’re merely asking them to subscribe to your list. So remove that box from your opt-in form, along with any other box besides their email address. The easier you make it for them to subscribe, and the less information you ask for, the higher you’re conversions are likely to be.

Remove the spam sentence. You know that great little sentence you have beneath the opt-in box that says you hate spam and will never ever ever ever share their info with anyone? Remove it completely. Don’t change it, don’t tweak it – just strip it right out of there. Repeated testing shows that having it there actually decreases your sign-up rate. Ironic, since it was originally intended to increase it by providing a sense of security.

Besides – if you ever want to sell your website and associated lists, you won’t be able to if you’ve told them you will never share their info. So you’re shooting your future prosperity in the foot while reducing your current sign-ups, all because you were doing what every other marketer on the planet is doing.

Tell them who you are. First, people hesitate to sign onto a list unless they have some idea of WHO is behind the list. They want to know not only what they get for joining your list, but also who you are – so tell them your name, use a photo of your face, or do something that makes it clear you are in fact a real live person.

Second, by having your identity on your squeeze page you will drastically reduce the number of people who check their email an hour or two later and wonder who in the world you are and why you’re sending them mail. The more memorable of an impression you make on the squeeze page, the more likely they are to remember you when they read their email. This is turn decreases the likelihood they will cry “SPAM!” and increases the likelihood they will open your email and actually read it. Remember, when people check their email they look at the “from” line first. Be memorable and your email will enjoy a much warmer reception.

Try split testing these three changes on your squeeze page and see what happens – I suspect your sign-ups will increase by several percent.

Scott Anthony of the Harvard Business Review did a piece on “3 Ways to Prioritize a Long List of Ideas, which you can read here…

It’s all about how to choose what it is that you should do next, which product to run with, which decision to make and so forth. Of course it’s written with large companies in mind, but the essence applies just as well to the Online Marketer. For example…

When choosing which product to create next, don’t always trust what people say they will do.

Rather, trust what they do. When I survey my readers to find out what they want to buy next, I also take into consideration that they may not know their own minds.

For example, if you ask someone what they want to eat tomorrow, they’re likely to say they want something healthy like a salad. But when tomorrow comes, more often than not they will order the pizza or pasta instead. It’s not that they weren’t telling you the truth; it’s just that people tend to think about the future in one way and act in the present in a different way. They’re certain tomorrow is the day they buckle down and do their work, or go on a diet, or begin exercising. Today? Let’s watch TV and eat chocolate cake.

So when you survey your customers asking what they want to buy, realize that what they say isn’t necessarily so.

Limit studying and planning. Prioritize action.

If all you’re doing is studying and planning so that you can make the right decision, then you’re not acting. And without action, there can be no reward. As Anthony states, visualize success and then figure out what you need to do to get there. For example, if you visualize your next success as selling a thousand copies of your new training program, figure out what you need to do to make it happen, and then do it. If you get stuck on the planning, you’ll never get anywhere.

Look for ideas and solutions outside of the box.

Whatever your niche of choice might be, don’t confine your explorations and learning to just your niche. Explore other avenues outside of your realm to see how they solve problems and how that might be applicable to your niche. Becoming myopic to your own area of expertise to the exclusion of all others can mean you’re missing out on stellar ideas to increase your bottom line.

Here’s a simple example: Angie has her own line of make-up products targeted to woman over 50 that she sells exclusively online, and she’s been struggling with lead generation. The other day she received her order of vitamins from a well know health company with millions of customers, and it hit her: What if she asked this company to place a postcard promoting her website in every box that contained one or more products designed exclusively for this target market?

Most online marketers would never even think of this – yet it’s an excellent way to get her website in front of her exact target market. And all it will cost her is the printing, since the health company is taking a percentage of sales as her affiliate rather than a flat fee for inserting the postcards.

Sometimes we find ourselves bogged down while trying to decide what to do next or how to do it – when really all we need are simple systems to keep us moving, and our business growing.