How To Generate Traffic To Your E-Commerce Business Using Free Methods
When considering traffic driving methods, it is important to understand why people go on the internet in the first place. There are a number of reasons. To research particularly about products or services or to buy or to communicate and socialise.
The strategy must always be to capture people's interest and then to capture their details so that you can build a permission based email marketing list. As many of the successful internet marketers say "The money is in the list".
How do you do this without spending large amounts of money. Again the important thing to remember is to do what is measureable. Social media and the like is a very powerful medium for finding people who can become customers, but it is hard to measure the ROI in terms of time spent.
There are several other methods which are much more measureable. Online forums and online communities are very good places to start. The reasons being that you are in contact with people who have declared that they have problems or want advice on a specific topic and they are the type of people who you have identified who may well be interested in your product or service.In answering their queries, you do two things.
Firstly you establish yourself in their eyes as an expert and secondly you have gained their confidence as someone who has helped them. They are therefore much more inclined to click through to your website where there should be an opt in box displayed to capture their details in exchange for say a free ebook. Forums are powerful communities and in demonstrating your expertise you can attract the attention of many. It may well be worth setting up a separate one page website or squeeze page just for forums. In this way you can very accurately measure the response from the time you spend on them.
Certainly one of the most effective ways of both finding potential customers and "pre selling" or driving qualified traffic to your site is article marketing. Whereas many people are aware of article marketing, few realise the tremendous benefits it brings to your marketing strategy. In the first instance you are often answering specific questions that you know from experience your ideal customer wants to have answers to. Secondly you are educating and informing the casual reader who may well have an interest in your area and is carrying out research. By having them read your article, you are beginning to convert them to a customer.
Thirdly you are providing fresh content and so improving your chances of higher search engine rankings.
Fourthly you can measure exactly what the ROI is in terms of your time and effort. The keys to article writing? Make sure your headline is appealing and positive and where possible shows that the reader will find valuable content if they read it. An example would be "Labrador puppies - 3 fun tips for easy training" Secondly, use keywords in the title and as near the beginning as possible. Finally, make sure the content you provide is good, original and where possible makes the reader think.
Peter Robson has over 30 years experience in business and with his business partner Debbie Crossley runs a company helping people set up and run niched e-commerce businesses. for more information go to http://www.yournichebusiness.co.uk/
Category Article business, ECommerce, Generate, Methods, Traffic, Using
