Top 5 Low Cost Ways to Generate Targeted Traffic

Top 5 Low Cost Ways to Generate Targeted Traffic
By Peter Harkness

Before we talk about the best ways to generate targeted traffic, you need to do some preliminary homework.

Ask and answer these 2 questions about how your business and the people you're targeting fit together:
1. What does my business do? How do I solve people's problems or make their lives better?
2. Who is my target audience? What do they want? How am I going to satisfy their needs?

We all know that the Internet is a huge place. And unlike print or television, you can't completely control who sees your marketing messages. But by knowing your target audience, you can increase the chances that the right people - people who are the most likely to buy - visit your site.

Now that you know who your target audience is, now it's time to learn 5 ways to reach out to them:

1. Search Engine Optimization is a fancy term that means you use the language that your target audience is most likely to search for online. If you want to be an Internet marketing coach, everything you put online should appear near the top of search results when people look for an Internet marketing coach.
2. Offer a free newsletter on your Web site. This is a way of generating traffic when people share the newsletter with their friends. Use the newsletter to talk about new content on your Web site and you generate traffic in repeat visitors.
3. Exchange links with complementary online businesses. If you sell your expertise on real estate investments, trade links with listing agents. This way you increase the chances that your target market will find you. Reciprocal links can also raise your rating with search engines.
4. Submit keyword-rich articles to article distribution sites. This brings you traffic when people find your articles. But make sure the articles you post give people some value for their time. Consumers today aren't interested in empty marketing.
5. Use social media. You can direct huge amounts of traffic to your business site by having a positive presence on sites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

The best thing about these five ways to generate targeted traffic is that they're free. You do have to spend time to do them correctly, or else you need to be willing to invest some money to have good people do them for you.

When you give traffic generation the priority it deserves, though, you'll receive benefits immediately and for a long time in the future.

The thing about the Internet is that the content you create today can be found long after you've shut down your computer. This means that your content can work for you just like your money works for you in a savings account. That's why you need to know your market very well before you start working to generate traffic - your misfires will be on the Web for years, too. Evaluate the ways to generate targeted traffic correctly, and you'll be getting worthwhile traffic to your Web site for a very long time.

Peter Harkness served in the U.S. Submarine force for 20 years and was formerly the Director of Operations for a large university. He brings his values of hard work, perseverance, and leadership to his Internet marketing venture, which is thriving as more and more brick-and-mortar businesses fail every day. He is the creator of the Million Dollar Plan of Action, which he uses to guide both new and seasoned marketers step by step through the process of building and marketing their businesses and their brands online. It is his mission to create a team of 100 successful entrepreneurs by the end of 2012. For more information, visit his website at http://www.homebusinessinternetmarking.com

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