Introduction to Traffic and Marketing Mistakes
Ask just about any online marketer on the planet if they have enough traffic, and I bet the answer is “no.” Even the marketers who’re pulling down the huge traffic numbers want more traffic. And the reason is pretty simple: because more traffic equals more customers, more sales and more cash.
However, while most marketers want more traffic, there’s also a good chunk of marketers who’re making some deadly traffic and marketing mistakes. That’s right, they’re shooting themselves in the foot and settling for a trickle of traffic when they could be so much more.
Are you making these deadly traffic and marketing mistakes too? Find out by reading on…
Mistake 1: cherry-picking traffic methods
You’ve probably read a ton of books, blog posts, articles and other materials about getting traffic. Maybe you’ve even started developing a plan for which traffic methods you’re going to use and which ones you’re going to skip.
Hold up there for a second…
If you’re completely skipping a traffic method because you think or even know that it won’t work, then that’s one thing.
For example, trying to generate traffic from some decade-old, untargeted source like a “start page” exchange is pretty fruitless. If you read about this in some old traffic report then yeah… feel free to ignore it.
What I’m talking about are ignoring proven traffic methods that are sure to bring targeted traffic to your site.
For example:
- You don’t feel like building a list or publishing a blog, because you don’t really feel like developing and committing to a publishing schedule.
- You don’t want to get joint venture partners or affiliates, because you’re happier working alone.
- You thumb your nose at social media, even though your target market is young and known to hang out on Facebook all day.
So what if there is a traffic method that you don’t really feel like doing? Then hire someone to do it for you. Because if you want to build a thriving business, don’t skip over a promising traffic method just because you don’t feel like doing it yourself.
Mistake 2: not being consistent
Sometimes marketers start off really enthusiastic about driving traffic to their site. They start running ads, doing content swaps, blogging, setting up a Facebook page, optimizing their pages for the search engines, setting up an affiliate program… and so on.
This goes on for a few weeks, and the traffic starts coming in at a nice clip. So when the marketer sees all the targeted traffic filling up his traffic logs, he diverts his attention and starts working on something else. Many marketers think that if they stop working on their marketing, that somehow the traffic will just keep coming in on its own.
Of course it doesn’t work that way.
Content swaps lose effectiveness as the content drops off the blogger’s front page.
Affiliates start to lose interest and go seek out other opportunities.
Facebook fans and blog readers drift away when they realize there hasn’t been any new content in a while.
The competitors in the search engines knock your pages out of the top spots.
And of course paid ads don’t bring in any visitors once you stop the campaigns.
So here’s the point…
If you want to keep the traffic not only coming in but building over time, you need to do something every day to increase your traffic.
For example, you may do one or more of the following every day:
- Recruit new affiliates or joint venture partners. You might make it a goal to find five new partners before the week is out.
- Send an email to marketing partners. At a minimum, you can send them new tools to help their promotions, such as new ads, blog posts and graphics. If you really want to get them hopping, then send out an announcement about an upcoming affiliate contest.
- Post something on your blog, on someone else’s blog, or on social media. Or do all three. Aim for something that will engage readers and start up a discussion.
- Create a viral video. This could be something funny, super-useful or even controversial. Then post it on social media and see if you get any traction.
- Send an email to your list. Then make it a point to do this regularly, as the only way to build a good relationship with them is by sending your list engaging content on at least a weekly basis.
- Start up a Facebook ad campaign. Just be sure to use the ad platform’s power tool to get your ad in front of as targeted an audience as possible.
And so on.
In short: Small steps on a consistent basis lead to big results over time.
And now the third mistake…
Mistake 3: skipping the tracking and testing
Many marketers waste a lot of time and money chasing after advertising strategies that simply don’t work for them. Maybe they’re using ineffective ads or calls to action. Maybe their lead pages suck. Or maybe they’re even posting ads in places where they’re getting very little action.
Why on earth would someone keep throwing money and time at advertising that doesn’t work?
Simple: Because these marketers have no idea their advertising doesn’t work.
And you know what? Unless you are tracking and testing your ad campaigns, you too might be wasting a lot of money and time running lousy ads.
So what you need to do is start keeping careful track of what works and what doesn’t. You’ll need a tool to track and statistically test your ads and campaigns. You can find plenty of tools around, such as Google Analytics, or the open-source alternative at Matomo.
Check your other tools, which may have built in tracking. One good example is your email service provider, as many of the big providers can track open and click-through rates.
Once you decide what you’re going to test, then be sure to test just one element of your ad campaign at a time. That way, you can be confident that any change in the conversion rate is due to that one element, rather than something else.
For example, if you’re testing the best time of the day to send emails – 9:00am or 9:00pm — then you need to randomly split your list into two groups and send out the exact same email to both groups.
If everything else about the emails is exactly the same, then you’ll know that any difference in conversion rate is due to the time it was sent out.
Conclusion
These three traffic and marketing mistakes seem pretty simple, and yet you’ll face dismal amounts of traffic if you make these mistakes too. So be sure to test everything, diversify your traffic methods, and take consistent steps every day to build your traffic.
Of course the question is, what all should you be doing to build traffic? And another one: what is the best way to bring in targeted traffic?
The answers to these questions can make or break your business, which is why you’ll want to get your answers from the best source around: LOCALLY
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