Attracting Traffic

Now you have a site that looks the way you want it, you have content and products waiting to interest your customers - but where are they?

With the size of the internet today, there is effectively no chance of anyone stumbling across your site by chance. So we need to generate traffic - and not just any traffic. We want visitors who are interested in our subject and willing and able to spend some money - if not today, then on a future visit.

Promote, Promote, Promote

Traffic generation is a massive subject, and now that your site is up, promotion of the site may well occupy 90% of your on-line time.

It's such a big subject that an entire 196 page volume is devoted to it when you buy Make Your Site Sell!. I don't have quite that much space available here, so I can only point you in a few useful directions. By all means follow my pointers here, but I do urge you to consider purchasing MYSS! as the single most cost-effective way to generate income from your site. (Apart from this guide of course - but being free, it's cost-effectiveness is off to a great start).

A Quick Word on Banner Ads

The general concensus is that banner ads are a waste of time - they don't work, surfers have tuned them out, they cost too much (or if you're selling banner ad space - they cost too little), and so on.

And for most people, most of the time, it's true.

But

That's because most of the time, people are using badly designed banners, on the wrong sites, directing clicks to the wrong pages - and paying too much for the priviledge!

Frankly, I've only seen one person who has a firm grip of making banner ads work - and we can all learn a lot from him. I first saw his principles being used by leading internet marketers (though I didn't realise it at the time) - so I was really interested when he published an e-book that allows us all to share his experiences.

In "The Banner Advertising Traffic Machine", Scott Covert shows how you can easily make banners that get click rates of 4%, 5%, even 6% and higher (compared with industry averages of less than 1%). He also shows how to buy advertising space at deep discounts, and how to be truly scientific about making banner ads work.

This is really useful information if you want to place banner ads on other sites to advertise your business - and if you are using banner ads on your site to promote commercial partnerships. You can get more background on the principles involved here

If you decide to create your own banners, here are a few key points to bear in mind:

• Standard banners are 468 pixels wide by 60 pixels high - use a different size at your peril !
• GIF format graphics will be accepted anywhere, JPG are ok in many but not all.
• Size matters - the smaller the banner file size, the quicker it will display - so it will be seen more often and for longer.
• Most banners are awful. Next time you notice a banner ad - and especially if you click on it - ask yourself why it worked and how you could use that technique.