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If you are trying to make money online, you need traffic and a list. Before you can build a list, you must have traffic to your site or opt in page. I have listed some of the ways I drive traffic to my website.

1. Provide fresh, unique and useful content

It is important for you to have high quality and unique content on your website so that visitors will spend more time there.  If you have useful information on your website, you, considered an expert in your niche, will get customers much easier.

2. Optimize your website for search engines.

In order for your site to appear on the search engines, your niche keywords and phrases must be in your headlines and the rest of the content. This means that your website will show up and will rank high when people search for those keywords. Ping your website when you add new content. This makes search engines robots index your website, which ultimately drives traffic to your website.

3. Offer free reports and content.

Giving away short reports or eBooks in which you include your website URL is an effective way of driving traffic and building your list. Encourage sharing of these items, thus making them viral. The more reports or eBooks you write the more traffic you will drive to your website.

4. Participate in targeted forums.

Make useful posts in the forums related to your niche, and have your website link in your signature.  Every time you post or respond to questions on the forum, your website URL is seen by all visitors to the forum.

5. Write and submit articles.

This is a very powerful tool for driving traffic to your website. In all your articles, make sure you have a resources box or author’s biography, which includes your website’s URL. After reading your article, people will want to visit your website. Allow reprinting of your articles, one article with reprinting rights can create hundreds of backlinks to your site.

6. Encourage Social Bookmarking

Give your visitors a way to share your site with others. Instead of confusing your visitors with icons from 16 different social bookmarking sites, you show them a single Share icon.  Popular social bookmarking and sharing widgets are from Share This, Add This, Add to Any, and Tell a Friend.  Some of these widgets provide you with tracking and analytics while others offer multi-lingual support.  Choose the one which best fits your need.

7. Include your URL in your business email signature.

Anyone you communicate with can potentially be a prospect, so promote your website every time you send an email.

8. Publish your own newsletter.

Publish a newsletter that offers free tips and content on a regular basis. The newsletter can have links to items of interest on your site, increasing traffic. A newsletter keeps your URL in front of people for return traffic. Again, encourage subscribers to share your newsletter.

9. Start a forum.

By having a forum on your niche, you are established as an authority on your topic. By answering questions and helping people in your niche on your own forum, you drive more traffic to your website.

10. Arrange a joint venture.

Identify webmasters and list owners that complement your website so that they can advertise your site to their list. This is no cost traffic. Contact some list owners and present your request.

11. Create RSS feeds.

Submit the feed URLs to the major RSS feed directories. This will help generate traffic to your website.

12. Offer an affiliate program.

Having an army of affiliates advertising your site is an effective way of generating traffic. Create links and other material so all your affiliate has to do is copy, paste, and promote.

13. Use video marketing.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth ten thousand. Create a video about the product or service that you offer on your site and post it on YouTube and other such video sites. Add your URL to the video; this will enable viewers to visit your website.

14. Exchange links with sites of a similar niche.

Trading links with other sites is a no cost way to increase web site traffic. Every visitor to the exchange site is a potential visitor to yours. All you have to do is reach an agreement with other webmasters.

15. Brand yourself.

No, I am not talking about a hot iron or a tattoo; I am talking about creating a name for you, a brand. Join social sites like twitter or facebook. Keep your interaction mostly social. Post a bio that tells everyone what you do and how you make your money including your URL. In time, they will come to you or your site. On occasion, if you have something truly great on your site, mention it. Do not push or act like a fast talking used car salesman. If someone has a problem, help them solve it. The solution may be a free report or paid product you offer.

By following the tips outlined above, you will create a great number of backlinks to your site. These links will boost your search engine stats and drive a lot of traffic to your website, boost your sales and grow your online profits.

Now, get busy and take action.

1. Point-of-Contact Marketing…

A prospect finds you on the Internet from content you have created or from the social networking sites to which you belong.

2. Get Permission to Communicate.

After prospects find you, the link or URL takes them to your lead capture pages. To make it simple, some people use lead capture pages from systems like Renegade Success or Magnetic Sponsoring. You can create lead capture pages if you want to.  It is not hard for non-techies to do this. You can get an example here.

Generally, prospects trade their information for something of value.  Your prospect fills out your lead capture form and you have another prospect added to your list.  Now, the most important part, number three.

3. Proper Care and Feeding of Your List

You now have permission to communicate, which gives you the chance to build a relationship with them and, in time, to place your offers in front of them.

The key to attraction or magnetic marketing is to provide value in the form of free information, such as books, articles, live events or recorded trainings. It could be products or services related to a larger item you are offering and there should be very little or no commitment attached.

The trick is to under hype and over deliver.  My rule is to communicate at least twice a week for four weeks before placing an offer in front a prospect. During this time, you have given them value as well as built a relationship and trust.

Another very important thing to remember, never offer a prospect or customer crap whether it is free or not.  Check out every JV deal you offer to make sure it gives your list value for the money spent.

Recap

1. Your prospects and customers came to you,
2. They gave you permission to communicate with them,
3. You gave them something of value before asking them to look at what you are selling.
4. You will continue to offer them value because your relationship is built on trust.