When it comes to running an offline or online businesses, the most critical things owners need – besides the necessary licence and equipment – are traffic, leads and sales. Yet in spite of knowing this, the underlying question in most of their minds – is how to get more while spending less or better still, for free?
Having said that, this is what my article going to address today.
Now regardless of what they are called, they still boil down to one common factor which is people. Because without them taking action the way you want be it seeing your offer, listening to and reading what you presented and taking up your free and paid offer, your business is not going to last. That is the brutal truth in traditional and internet marketing as well.
So the question is how do I get traffic?
To be honest, there is no right and wrong answer. But there are free and paid methods you can use.
However before even doing so, it is important to identify if there is a market for your offer and connecting with people within that. This is absolutely necessary in order to build an audience as in groups of people who know, like and trust you. Especially when you focused on free methods which I touched upon later.
It is the same way with how you got to know your friends, boyfriend, girlfriend or spouse and how politicians do to get more people to vote for them and formed the government. You might also see that in networking events and seminars.
Below are both free and paid strategies I know and learnt from more experienced marketers.
A. Free
1. Article Marketing
This is by far the oldest but still workable method. What you do is write and submit an article like what you see now into relevant sites like Ezine Articles.
2. Blogging
This is more of a long-term SEO and wealth building strategy.
You can write whatever you want in your blog – preferably WordPress into your own domain and hosting and then connect with other bloggers in your niche either through blog commenting or guest posting.
3. Classified Advertising
You might not believe this but this is how I got started making my first dollar in 2008.
This is a great alternative and test to paid ads.
What you need to do is to come up with a eye-catching headline and 2-3 lines ad with links before posting to relevant sites like Craiglist and Gumtree.
4. Directory Submissions
In the past this used to work very well.
But in the wake of Google’s relentless updates, many sites have come and go so apart from Dmoz, they are no longer variable today.
5. Email Marketing
This works provided you have a quality email list of subscribers who are eager to read from, trust and buy from you.
But for this to work effectively, you need a high converting landing page and reliable autoresponder to send unlimited emails.
6. Forum Posting
Forums are online discussion sites in which people congregrated and discussed about common issues and interests.
To get started, there are important rules you have to abide by in order not to get banned.
Such as do not spam but provide helpful information in answering what they need and want to know with your blog and landing page links in your signautre – which is the footer text below every post you make
7. Google SEO
If you provided good quality content in your blog in the form of articles and even videos with social media channel links – I will be talking about later, the major search engine will reward you with higher rankings on first page for maximum exposure and even leads and sales from your searchers.
This also helps if you have comments and questions below your posts.
8. PDF Submissions
You can also compile a set of 5-10 articles into MS Word or Open Office into a report or e-book with an attractive cover before publishing in sites like Calameo, Scribd and Slideshare.
9. Press Releases
They are basically online versions of newspaper reports in which you can submit to related sites.
There are both free and paid services in which you can submit.
10. Social Media And Networks
You can also participate in social networks like Facebook where you can post on your timeline, create fanpages, live events, videos and joined and share in groups like what you do in forums.
Others include LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and Tumblr.
11. Video Marketing
This is where you create your videos from your own PC or iPhone camera, powerpoint slides or both with some music background and introduction or highlighted points text.
If you just want to show your face, you can use camera.
But if you want to share your PC screen, I will recommend Jing and Camtasia Studio – the latter gives you a free 30 day trial before you pay a one-time fee of $197.
12.. Web 2.0 Properties.
You can also post your content in other blogging platforms like Blogger, Hubpages, Webs, Weebly and Wix.
In the past these used to work like a charm in the form of Google Wonder Wheel.
But now you can only posted what you had not in your articles and blog posts.
This works best when you are doing e-commerce and your info products.
13. Webinars
They are online versions of seminars in which you can invite your subscribers and customers to attend before presenting your offer.
For this, I recommend Go-To-Webinar and Zoom.
B. Paid
For paid strategies, I will recommend 3 platorms in Bing, Facebook And Google Ads. At the time of writing this, mobile apps and YouTube Ads also came about.
With that said, these are both free and paid methods I know of getting traffic, leads and sales for your sites.