Starting a Business With Free Traffic

What does it take to start and grow a profitable Internet business?  

While there are many facets to growing a profitable business online, there’s one thing you must have in place…a plan of action or course to keep you on track.  Without a business plan, there’s no way to determine if the actions you are taking are leading toward your intended goals are keeping you from growing and developing into a thriving business. 

Any successful business has in some fashion adhered to a model or plan that’s led them to the success they are experiencing.  And while many businesses leave clues to their success, they are just too many unknowns to build a business on clues. 

If you are starting a business, having a definite plan in plan will serve you in many ways.  This is one of the best ways to insure that you are on the road to success instead of floundering around, getting nowhere. 

Unlike a typical brick and mortar business, starting a business online has many advantages over offline enterprise start-ups.  The main advantage you have online is the low entry to startup.  With a basic website consisting of a few pages, you can have a business online catering to your favorite niche in just a few days. 

One of the most important aspects of starting online is that you can tap into many types of traffic sources relative free or at minimum costs.  Free sources of traffic may not be your best quality traffic sources and may not be the best way to target leads and prospects, but still…since it really does not cost you much of anything, but a little bit of your time, for this reason it remains one of the best ways to jumpstart an online venture. 

Most people don’t have the money needed to invest in expensive advertising campaigns.  Should you decide to invest into paid advertising at the start, you’d have to have a large chunk of discretionary dough that you don’t mind losing should your ad flop. 

The only way you should invest into paid advertising is if you are sure you have all the components in line for success.  This means you have a proven winner…a product or offer that’s been proven and tested to convert into buying sales. 

The best way to know if your idea or product is a winner is to drive some free sources of traffic to it and test it over time.  This way, you are given the flexibility of adjusting your marketing efforts at the cost of free traffic instead of paid, which could be expensive. 

Should you decide to tap into free online traffic, there are a myriad of choices that you can select from, of which, each can be good sources or means of testing your ideas.

Below, you will find my top six recommended sources of testing free traffic: 

1. Start A Blog.  This is a great way to target your market using keyword rich content or articles that are relevant to you market.  There are many free blog sources online such as Blogger and Word Press.  Blogs are ideal for making your website theme related and has many SEO advantages for the SERPS or natural organic search engines. 

By writing theme related content, you can be sure of people finding your article blog posts in the search engines.  Blogger and Word Press both have many plugins and template themes to help you in the process.  The key to using the traffic from your blog is to have a highly visible link or banner ad on your blog where readers can click through and see your main offer. 

2. Write Press Releases.  Again, this is an excellent way to get the word out across the Internet.  There are many free PR site on the Internet that will let you submit free press releases.  These PR sites are strong in Google, Yahoo and MSN. 

Having a press release on free PR sites puts your website in front of potentially thousands of Internet users and provides tremendous SEO benefits for your website. 

3. Write and Submit Articles.  Article submissions are one of my key secrets to getting the word out about my websites and in improving my ranking in the major search engines.  There are many powerful sources online where you can submit quality article content about your website’s products, features and benefits. 

The key to using article marketing is to write the article in a way that informs or instructs the reader on tips and tricks, or in a way that gives the reader additional insight. 

Publishers are not in the business of publishing a sales pitch.  They want quality content readers can use.  In exchange they’ll publish your articles in their database that can be viewed by their readers as well as picked up by other sources all across the Internet.  If you have not written any artless, I suggest you start now. 

However, should you decide to write articles, don’t post the same article on your personal blog.  You don’t want to get hit for duplicate content.  So how many articles should you write and submit?  I recommend at least 10 articles a week.  (This is far more than enough to get a boost of traffic to your website.) 

4. Social Networking Sites.  One of the easiest ways to generate prospects for your online business is through social networking.  There are at least 20 outstanding social sites that have tens of thousands of members in all genres.  One great example is You Tube, Yahoo Video, My Space, Yahoo Groups as well as many others.  (Do a search for the top ten social network sites.) 

One of the greatest advantages to using these sites is in the ability to create a unique profile centered around your passions and to post your videos.  Having videos of your talking about a certain topic is a great way to build rapport.  This not only serves to build your credibility but also creates a virtual relationship that’s second to no other. 

People within the group instinctively get to know you…your likes, interest as well as your level to assist them in achieving their desired goals and dreams.  Don’t overlook this tremendous source of relationship building and traffic. 

The key to using these types of sites is not to spam them with all types of affiliate links, but with real content that’s related to the group.  Participation is the key.  It’s not about posting content as an attempt just to get a new prospect. 

The best way to leverage these networks is by participating in various discussions originated by other people.  If you can provide useful tips to an existing discussion, you will gain the trust of other members within the network.  Like always, have a link where permissible, pointing back to your website or a portion of the site related to the discussion. 

5. Video Marketing.  Closely related to social networking marketing, using video marketing is an excellent way to leverage the power of the Internet for business brand building, establishing new relationships, and targeting key people in your industry or profession. 

More commonly referred to as Web 2.0 Marketing, video offers a wide variety of possibilities.  Using nothing more than a web cam or video camera, you have create videos with targeted messages and have them uploaded to over 40+ video websites, working for you around the clock.  This is a powerful form of relationship marketing that you should use in your free traffic generating strategies.  

6. Forum Participation.  Have you participated in any forum discussions lately?  Then you understand the power of using this type of Internet media as a way of lending ideas, tips and insight to help others looking for answers.   

There are literally thousands of theme related forums on the Internet ranging from politics and government to adoption and work from home forums.  In order to make forum marketing work, you should stay away from automatic posting scripts, software and services all designed to spam the forums. 

How you approach a forum discussion has a large part to do with how well you are welcomed into the discussion.  Participants in a discussion will quickly see if the advice you lend is meant as a means of using the discussion as a way of spam or if you are genuinely interested in helping with your insight.   

Start looking for forums related to your industry, service or profession and start participating by providing meaningful information to others. 

By now you are probably wondering why I did not include other forms of free traffic marketing such as posting free classifieds, using bulk email blasting or participating in viral banner exchanges.   

While they certainly have the power to drive free traffic, they are more of a direct approach to marketing and therefore less effective as a means of establishing relationships.  If you’ve been in business for very long, you know that establishing relationships are key to building long term customers and clients who pay, stay and refer.

Author, 

Janice Price