06 Aug 10 Website Traffic: Turn Left, Turn Right, Look Stop and Go

Traffic, visitors, customers, subscribers, readers, or people, whatever you may call it. It is the thing we want for our websites, regardless of the purpose of the website. Traffic is “the most important” thing. And traffic in itself means different thing to different people. For some it is something that you get as an result of search engine optimization (SEO), while for others it may be something that you get after investing some dollars in online ads (PPC, media buying, banner ads, Facebook ads, etc.). So what exactly is the nature of traffic; that is to say, what are the types of traffic?

There are two categories under which every type of traffic could be classified. Those categories are:

Paid Traffic
Free Traffic

Paid traffic

The traffic for which you have to pay even a single dime to the traffic source falls in this category. Traffic from PPC (Pay Per Click) ads, PPV (Pay Per View) ads, CPM (Cost Per Thousand) ads, Facebook ads, MySpace ads, sponsored tweets, banner ads, sponsored forum posts, etc., are the examples of paid traffic. And I must add here that your SEO agency does not fall in this category.

Paid traffic is said to be of high quality. It is believed that people clicking on the sponsored links are those who actively seek the solutions — whether informational or transactional — to their problems. But a proper care and due diligence is required on the marketer’s part to reap benefit from this source, for a small mistake can possibly cost you hundreds and thousands of dollars, if not whole business.

Free Traffic

Free traffic is the traffic that you get from Google, Yahoo, Bing, or any other search engines, or traffic even from twitter, Facebook profile page, MySpace, Digg, StumbleUpon, or any other social bookmarking or networking sites. Even traffic from classifies websites fall under this category.

Any traffic for which you do not have to pay to sending source is called free traffic. This is the best traffic you can imagine to have, and most of the Internet marketers focus on getting this. But some sources are too slow to deliver results — like SEO (search engine optimization).

For years, free traffic (unlimited) was supposedly Holy Grail of the online marketing industry, but soon the marketing community realized that paid traffic is also a good bet. And they started investing in it, big time. Paid traffic is worthy of admiration, for this is not something that depends upon the search engine’s (read Google) mood swing (read algorithm updates).

Google and other major search engine do affect paid traffic as well, but not the way it affects free traffic. It is advisable, therefore, to have a balanced mix of both kinds of traffic in your traffic getting plan.

That’s it for now. In the next article, I will talk about some traffic getting strategies. I am hoping to make it a series. Let’s see how it comes up. Till then keep reading.

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Tags: Banner Ads, Due Diligence, Forum Posts, Free Traffic, google, Google Yahoo, Hundreds And Thousands, Marketer, Mistake, Optimization Seo, Other Search Engines, Other Social Bookmarking, Pay Per Click, Pay Per Click Ads, Search Engine Optimization, Stumbleupon, Subscribers, Thousands Of Dollars, Traffic Source, Traffic Visitors

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18 Apr 10 Communication strategy in Presale Phase

As we talked earlier every sale is a three-stage process: presale, sale, and post-sale. Every consumer passes through these steps while purchasing a product, and depending upon the nature of the product one phase can be longer than the other phase. Sometimes presale phase is longer and for products that require training, post-sale phase is longer.

Consumer enters each stage with different mindset; therefore, the communication strategy in each stage should be different. In this part, I will talk about the communication strategy in the presale stage.

Presale communication strategy

This is the phase in which consumers are looking for more information on the product to avoid landing in trouble after purchasing it. Depending upon the nature of the product a buyer is considering, he or she may adopt the strategy to minimize the post-purchase dissonance, which they do by getting more and more information from different information sources.

Your goal as a marketer of the product should be to handle perceived objection of your customers in this phase. Synchronize all brand touch points and make them deliver one message to the consumer — creative execution of the message can be different, but the core should be the same.

Channels to use

The selection of communication channel will largely depend on the nature of the product. But, almost in every category, the consumers look for information in presale phase. Therefore, you should use the channels that are involving.

You should use print, and web in this phase.

What type of message

Create a detailed print ad that gives all the information. You can also provide free booklet with magazine on the usage and maintenance of the product, if the product is high involving, or you can tell them various use of the product in the booklet.

For web, I will not recommend banner ads. Use video to show the usage of the product. Do not hire a professional. First use a professional to demonstrate the product then introduce an average consumer to show how easy it is to use the product. This will send the message. You can also send out e-mailers, or run a viral campaign to get consumer involved in the product.

You can use many more tools, but only consideration in this phase should be to strengthen the belief of your customers in your product by providing ample information. Try this for your product, and let me know how well it went.

Tags: Banner Ads, Communication Channel, Communication Strategy, Consumers, Creative Execution, Free Booklet, Information Sources, Marketer, Mindset, Nature Of The Product, Objection, Post Purchase Dissonance, Purchasing

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04 Apr 10 3 More Ways to Get Unlimited Traffic – IV

Traffic is the queen whom king (content) wants to woo.

And for that one use whatever means possible—some even summon the evil force (black hat) from the dark recesses of search engine marketing. But as an ethical marketer, we should not concern ourselves with those means; more so because we can get the same result with legit means as well. In this blog post, I will discuss about 3 more sources that you can use to get people to your websites.

Pay Per Click advertising

PPC, as it is commonly known, is one of the quickest means to pull traffic to your website. The downside of this traffic source is it is not free. You can use this method should you need a lot of traffic quickly for your website. This traffic source is increasingly used by affiliate marketers. If your budget permits, you can also use this traffic means to get traffic until your SEO effort starts pulling in visitors.

Banner adverting

Purchasing advertising space to display your banner ads on a highly successful website or a blog will fetch you a good amount of traffic, provided your banner ad has been optimized for conversion. This again will cost you money, but it can get you targeted traffic from the related niche. Mostly, people who click on a banner ad have an inclination towards taking action, so converting this traffic will also be easy.

Banner exchange

If you have a blog or website that gets substantial traffic then you can use one of the advertising blocks to exchange banner with an equally or more successful website or a blog. This has the same effect as banner advertising on traffic getting, but it does not cost a dime. But there is some opportunity cost involved, as you are giving away a banner slot which could have been used to make some money.

The traffic sources I have talked about above should not be used if you do not have any revenue model. There is no point in using PPC campaign for traffic, if you use AdSense only to monetize your traffic. You must have something to sell to use any of the methods described above.

Tags: Affiliate Marketers, Banner Ad, Banner Ads, Banner Advertising, Banner Exchange, Banner Slot, Black Hat, Dark Recesses, Evil Force, Inclination, King Content, Legit, Opportunity Cost, Pay Per Click Advertising, Revenue Model, Search Engine Marketing, Substantial Traffic, Traffic Source, Traffic Sources, Unlimited Traffic

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18 Apr 10 Communication strategy in Presale Phase

Presale communication strategy

Channels to use

What type of message

04 Apr 10 3 More Ways to Get Unlimited Traffic – IV

Traffic is the queen whom king (content) wants to woo.

Pay Per Click advertising

Banner adverting

Banner exchange

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