LizTomey.com

Yes… I’m still living in Mexico and exploring this country. I LOVE it, and I LOVE my new life/work balance. There’s currently way more life than work in this balance, but with only two more months left in the year it’s time to even that balance out. But that’s why you guys are seeing so many images of Mexico in my blog images. I’m incorporating my personal life into my business, and I hope you guys are enjoying it. 😊

Anyway… For the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about traffic. I did a very thorough tutorial on the complete overview of website traffic which can be seen here. I started with that so you could get the “big picture” and the basics down. After that tutorial I told you where you should be driving ALL of your traffic. You can see that tutorial by clicking here.

Those two tutorials are going to instantly put you on the right path to driving traffic.

Now, I was all ready to start tutorials on getting into specific tactics and then I had this question come in…

“Liz, I have a few niche websites and am always getting confused as to which traffic suits. For example… dog training, self-improvement, affiliate marketing, preppers, etc. Any advice on what traffic (paid and free) suits?”

Now, this is a question I see a lot, so before I get into tactics, let me answer this…

First of all, there is no “rule of thumb” here. There is no, “this traffic works for this niche and not for this niche” rules. The only exception I can think of would be solo advertising (where you pay list owners to send your email to their list) because solo ads are generally only available for certain niches. Like the biz opp, internet marketing, and a few self-help niches.

Side Note: Can you think of any other tactics that are niche specific? If so, let me know in the comments below. You’ll help others by leaving your ideas. 😊

So, with that being said… You need to see where your niche can be reached online!

Are they searching Google? You can figure this out with keyword research. If they are then you need to use SEO.

Are they on social media? You can figure this out by searching the different social media sites. If they are, then you need to be using paid social ads. If you don’t have the money for paid social ads, you can use organic social media tactics.

Are there affiliates who promote products/services like yours? If so and you can give them a percentage of your profits, then you need to have an affiliate program.

I could go on and on with examples here, but YOU must find where you can reach your target audience and use the website traffic tactics that will get you in front of them.

Another thing to keep in mind once you’ve found how to reach your target audience is to make sure you can actually USE those tactics. If they take money, do you have money for it? If they take skills, do you have the skills to use those tactic?

So, the equation to figuring out what tactics to use for your niche is…

Reach (X) + Ability (Y) = Your Traffic Strategy

With what tactic can you reach your niche (target audience)? Do you have the ability (funds/skills) to reach them with that tactic?

Let’s look at a working example to really bring this home…

If I’m in the home gardening niche, and I’m driving traffic to a squeeze page, I would do my research and figure out how to get my squeeze page in front of people who are interested in home gardening. That’s my niche/target audience.

I could do keyword research and see if people are searching the search engines for information related to home gardening. If so, then SEO would make since to use IF I either had the funds to outsource my SEO OR the skills to do it myself. However, if I found no one searching the search engines for my topic, then I’d know NOT to use SEO.

It’s a process of elimination… Have a list of website tactics, and go through them until you find a tactic that solves the equation…

Reach (X) + Ability (Y) = Your Traffic Strategy

So, I’m going to leave you with a main list of traffic strategies. There are a ton of ways to do EACH of the things in this list, but this is a great list you can get started with. If you can think of a website traffic tactic, it probably falls under one of these main strategies…

SEO
Solo ads (email ads)
Paid social media ads
Organic social media marketing
Content marketing
Paid search
Media buying
Affiliate program
Content/Ad swaps

Side Note: If you can think of a tactic that doesn’t fall under one of these main topics, please leave me a comment in the comments below. I’d love to make this list the biggest list of MAIN website traffic tactics, so if there is something you can think of that doesn’t fall under one of these main tactics let me know!

Okay, so now that I’ve gotten the basics of website traffic, where to drive your website traffic, and the how to pick the best website traffic tactics for you…. (wow that’s a lot of learning) it’s time to move on to learning the actual tactics.

The next several tutorials I will be taking some of the main topics from the list above and doing tutorials around each of them. Since part of the equation of WHICH traffic tactic to use is ABILITY, you can acquire the ability by learning how to do it. So, I’ll be putting my teacher hat on and showing you how to use some of these tactics.

I’ll see you in the next tutorial!

Liz

P.S. Remember I have LearningIM.com which teaches TONS of different website traffic and marketing tactics via topic specific workshops. If you want to learn more from me QUICKLY then I highly recommend you get a LearningIM.com all access pass (you get ALL current and future workshops for one price) at http://www.LearningIM.com

And we’re back in action… Over the last few weeks, I did a launch and then ran into some huge technical issues. I’m still battling those, but I’ve got a handle on it and now have time to get back to the website traffic tutorials.

I have created the first one where I went back and started with the barebone basics. Even if you think you KNOW the basics, you probably don’t, so make sure and read that one before continuing. You’ll be surprised how well I’ve laid “traffic getting” out in its simplest form…

You can see it at https://tacoboutmarketing.com/blog/website-traffic-basics-and-why-you-need-the-basics

Now that you have all that knowledge in your head and you’ve decided HOW you want to drive traffic, then your next step is to decide WHERE that traffic will go.

For 99.1% of you that will be to a squeeze page… Sometimes called a lead capture page, landing page, etc., but this page has ONE job. To get people on to your email list.

Why?

Because once you have an email list you can email that list and send them to anything you want!

For example, let’s say you’re an affiliate marketer in the gardening niche. You just found a new product that you can be an affiliate for, and it looks like it will be a good seller.

You could do all kinds of stuff to get traffic to your affiliate link, but if you had an email list, you could bang out an email, send it to your list, and instantly make money.

One more example…

You have your own t-shirt line and you just thought up a killer design for your line. If you had a list of people who joined your list to get discounts you could bang out an email with your new design and a new discount code, and BOOM… again… you’re instantly making money.

I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of a business model where driving traffic to a squeeze page shouldn’t be THE #1 thing you drive traffic to.

Why not spend your time driving traffic to ONE thing instead of several different things?

Setup a squeeze page offering something that your target audience would love to have for free (discount code, special access to a Facebook group, a quick read PDF, etc.) and promote that heck out of that thing.

Then when you have something that could help those people and make you money, send out an email and you have instant traffic.

Now, if you’re just getting started, I highly recommend you have ONE squeeze page, get it working, and actually get good at email marketing.

Then you can create additional squeeze pages to capture different people who weren’t interested in your offer or who didn’t see it.

Let me give you an example…

One of the niches that I’m in is the Internet marketing niche. There are so many topics in this niche. So many problems that I know how to solve. So, if I was just getting started, I would probably create a squeeze page that gives away a checklist of several different Internet marketing tactics.

Why?

Because I’m building a general list and want to get as many people interested in the topic as possible. So, a general overview of Internet marketing would be perfect to entice people to get on my list.

Now once I had that working well, I could create another free offer or discount offer or whatever for my niche and start driving traffic to it too.

I would then be driving traffic to that squeeze page too, but I’d still only be driving traffic to squeeze pages and emailing my lists to get them to anything else that makes me money.

Here are a few diagrams showing you the “getting started” version of having ONE squeeze page, and then the “as you grow” version showing multiple squeeze pages.

Now, my big huge mega point here is that you absolutely NEED a GOOD squeeze page, and you that’s the ONLY place you need to be driving your traffic to. Get people on your list. Then you can use email marketing to get those people to anything you want…

Note: If you have multiple squeeze pages you’ll split your “traffic driving time” between all of them.

Now, I do have an entire workshop that shows you how to create the perfect freebie to get people to get on your email list, how setup your own squeeze page and a few other pages you’ll need, ways to make money from your list, and even how to get your first 1000 subscribers in 90 days! If you don’t know how to start building your list then you need it!

You can see that workshop at https://learningim.com/list-building-kickstart-workshop-w

Okay, so hopefully this little tutorial has taken even more stress of running your business off your shoulders. When you have ONE thing to promote… squeeze page(s)… you can put all your focus on it and see much more success. You can use multiple traffic tactics, and in all save so much time!

Isn’t this better than trying to individually promote all the different things in your online business to make you money? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to put things in front of your list multiple times (it is said it takes 7-10 times…or more… for people to see something before they buy it) so you can make the most money?

Yes!

And…

Yes!

So, take the advice I gave you here, go create a squeeze page, and put all of your traffic driving focus on it.

Now I have taught you all about website traffic in general, where to drive your traffic, and now it’s time to start talking strategies! The next several posts in this series will all be tactics that you can use, so stay tuned.

Oh… One last thing… Above I stated that once you get people on your list you need to email them to get them in front of the things that make you money. That’s called email marketing. What I have explained above is list building, and that’s two separate things. I will circle back after I get through the traffic tutorials and start talking about email marketing, so don’t worry… I’ll cover all of that too ASAP! But if you want to learn it RIGHT NOW I’ve also got an entire workshop on email marketing that you can instantly begin learning from me with. You can see it at https://learningim.com/email-marketing-kickstart-workshop

Okay, so after reading all of this… Comments? Questions? Leave them below and I will answer you. Seriously… I will help you! 😉

The other day I was reading a blog post from someone and they were talking about the basics of building a website. They were talking about how no one pays attention to the basics because they think they KNOW the basics. However, most people who say they KNOW the basics of website building aren’t even USING the basics and don’t even have a website.

So, when I tell you I’m about to cover the basics of website traffic and you immediately think, “Well, Liz, I already know the basics.” ask yourself if you’re getting all the website traffic that you need. If that answer to that is NO!, then you need to come with me and let me teach you the basics.

Are you ready to begin or are you already getting all the traffic you need?

Okay so first things first… I’m assuming that you actually have something to send traffic to. Maybe it’s a squeeze page that you’re using to build your list (this is the optimal thing you should have and be driving traffic to) or maybe it’s to your store or your sales page or your affiliate link or… cheezus… I could go on and on here, but you get the idea.

Some of you will scratch your head and be like, “Liz, why do you have to even say that?”. Well, you’d be shocked at the amount of people who come to me and want to know how to drive traffic and when I ask them what they want to drive traffic to they have no clue. My face when this happens…

Now that we have that out of the way… 

Website Traffic Basic #1: Is IT Ready?

Is what you are wanting to drive traffic to actually READY for traffic?

Does it look good? Is it easy to navigate? Does it have a strong call to action? There is a huge laundry list of things you need to ensure are in order for whatever it is that you’re sending traffic to (be it a squeeze page, a sales page, a blog post, etc.). It needs to have ONE job and that job needs to be clear to the traffic coming to that destination.

Example time: If you’re sending traffic to a squeeze page. You need to make sure you’ve got a good offer there that people will actually WANT and copy that makes them want to get it right NOW, and an easy way for them to get it.Why would you want to go through the effort of driving a bunch of traffic if what you’re driving traffic to isn’t going to get you the results you need!

Website Traffic Basic #2: How Are You Going To Get Traffic?

Now the next step is deciding what route you want to go with getting the traffic.

This is where most people melt down and try EVERYTHING.

DO NOT do that!

I repeat… DO NOT DO THAT!

Is what you need to do is understand there are basically three ways to get traffic.

1. You can buy it.

You can pay for ads on social networks, you can buy advertising space on sites that offer it in your niche, and the list goes on and on.

If you KNOW that what you have gets results (meaning people buy from you, or optin to your list, or whatever result you want) then this is a great option because you will be able to recoup your investment and then some.

However, if you don’t KNOW that what you have gets results then you’re going to spend A LOT of money getting it all figured out.

My rule of thumb with paid advertising is that I won’t use it unless I KNOW I have something that will get results. Meaning someone subscribes or buys or signs up, etc.

2. You can borrow it.

When I say borrow, I mean use the traffic that others can send you. This is where you’ll get affiliates to send you traffic and you pay them a percentage of your profits or pay them for actions their people take. There’s a lot of ways to do this, but you need a product and an affiliate program.

Note: I cover all of this in my Affiliate Program Kickstart Workshop at https://learningim.com/affiliate-program-kickstart-workshop

3. You can mine it.

This is where most other traffic tactics live. This is where you are doing things to get the traffic. You’re “mining” it. You’re digging for it. Tactics like blogging, social marketing, guest blogging, SEO, YouTube marketing, and the list goes on and on and on and on.

And mining it is where 85% of you will be at.

If you don’t have money to invest in paid advertising and you don’t want to have an affiliate program (or can’t) then this is your only other option. That doesn’t mean you’ll have to do this forever, but this is where you will start.

Note: I cover all aspects of social media marketing on the biggest social media sites out there in various workshops I have. I also cover other “traffic mining” tactics in various workshops I have. You can get them ALL (and future ones too) for one price at https://www.LearningIM.com

So, that’s a “blanket” explanation of ways to get traffic. Each of the three I listed above have a several strategies within each. There’s literally thousands of ways to get traffic, but at least you know your main options and where you need to start.

Are you buying, borrowing, or mining traffic?

This post is getting a little long, so let me tell you about the last basic thing you need to know when it comes to website traffic.

Listen closely to me because this is KEY!

No matter HOW you decide you’re going to get it you need to make sure that you’re doing SOMETHING to get traffic every single day.

Every…

Single…

Day…

If you’re using paid advertising you need to make sure that your ads are working (stat checking), you need to be testing other ads against your ads to get them working better, you need to be looking for more places to advertise, etc.

If you’re running an affiliate program you want to be working on reaching out to affiliates, creating new promotional tools, etc.

If you’re mining it well that’s hard to say because there’s about a million different ways to mine it, but you need to be “mining” each and every day!

But you get the idea here… You need to be doing something each and every day no matter how you’re driving traffic.

Okay so let’s wrap up our talk on website traffic…

When it comes to the basics of website traffic you need to…

1. Make sure you have something that is ready for it.

2. Know how you’re going to get it

3. Never stop getting it. When you stop driving traffic you stop getting results. PLAIN AND SIMPLE!

Okay so now that I’ve covered the basics, what do you need to know now? What questions do you have?

If you’d like for me to continue on with talking and teaching about website traffic, then I’m going to need you to tell me what you MORE you need. If I don’t hear anything I’ll assume you’re good to go and we will change topics, so if you want to learn MORE about website traffic then leave your comments below or come over to the help desk and let me know what your questions are when it comes to website traffic…

Talk soon!

Liz