How to Increase Website Traffic and List Building on a Budget
I recently sent out a question to my online friends asking them what their biggest questions were related to internet marketing. There were a wide variety of questions, but two that seemed to pop up repeatedly.
How do I increase website traffic on a budget?
How do I build my list?
These are two great questions which I can write countless posts answering, but I will here give the basic instructions on how to achieve this.
The very first thing you want to do is get an autoresponder. No matter what business you have, the money is in the list, and it is imperative you start building it from day 1. An autoresponder is cheap (less than $20 a month), and will allow you to communicate with the list you are working so hard to build.
So I am going to assume that you have an opt in form on your website, whether it is a squeeze page, blog, or any other type of site. To get people to opt in, you should give something away for free. This can be something as simple as a free report on something like, “The top 5 tips on list building“. Once your people opt in, you can just send them to another site with this information, or even simpler, you can just have those top 5 tips given out daily for 5 days through your autoresponder. A perfect example of this is the form you see on the right of this blog post.
Ok, now that you have your list building tool set up, it is time to advertise your site.
The first way you can advertise that is completely free is through video sites such as YouTube. In addition to getting traffic directly from the video sites like YouTube, videos have a great chance of getting ranked in the search engines. Just make sure you use your keyword in the title and description of the video, and you place a live link in your description as well. If you have a little more of a budget you can use a video submission tool which will increase your exposure by submitting to multiple video sites and bookmarking them. Videos are very easy to create, and can really be of anything. Provide some good content on your subject matter, or take a different approach and be funny. As long as you just do it, you will see results.
Another way to generate website traffic is to write a press release. I have seen great results using a webwire.com press release, as well as prweb.com. If you can afford it, I would choose the Google option within webwire, but if not, the regular release costs about $20. Press releases have a good chance of getting ranked themselves, as well as increasing your page ranking and generating direct traffic.
Artcle marketing still works and is free. Write 10-20 articles per keyword you are targeting, and submit them to places such as ezinearticles.com and isnare.com. Make sure the content in the articles is good, and not simply spam with your keyword grossly overused. If you’re not a big fan of writing, you can outsource your article writing at a place like elance.com at around $4 to $10 per article.
Then you can hit the social networking websites. There are many, but I’d suggest starting out with the 100 pound gorillas. Use Twitter and Facebook to begin with followed by others as time permits. Have your link in your profile, but do not spam people with offers. That’s not how social networking works. Make friends with people who share interest in the types of products you are selling and build relationships. Share good content and ideas, and people will find their way to you. In addition these sites again help with page rank.
I would also make sure to use different web 2.0 properties. Create a wordpress blog at wordpress.com, a lens on your topic at squidoo.com, a hubpage at hubpages.com for starters. As always, provide good content about your keywords, products and services. Include your link in your profiles, as well as within your posts occasionally. Comment on popular lenses, hubpages and blogs related to your niche.
While increasing website traffic and list building on a budget can be time consuming, it will pay off in the end. You will gradually grow your list, and as money comes in, you can then begin to pay for more advertising, whether that means venturing into the ppc arena, or simply outsourcing more of the aforementioned tasks to free up your time to be more productive in other areas. No matter what, don’t give up, because making money online is certainly a realistic goal to attain!
