LESSON #72: Introduction to Web Traffic

By | July 23, 2010

This is the point in the lesson series that so many people have been waiting for… web traffic!

We’re going to spend 14 consecutive lessons covering web traffic strategies, starting right now…

(Watch this video…)

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Main points:

  • Internet marketing without web traffic is futile.

  • If you’re really an Internet marketer, you WILL find a way to get traffic to your site.

  • You can outsource it.

  • There are no magic bullets!

  • Web traffic requires (at least initially):

    1) Work
    2) Money
    (Or both)

    -All web traffic is not equal regarding what it takes to get it, and what you get out of it.
    -Best to look at it in terms of ROI.

  • 5 main web traffic strategies that I’ll be covering:

    1) List building
    2) Paid traffic/advertising
    3) SEO
    4) Affiliate, JV, and Piggyback Marketing
    5) Social Media, Web 2.0, Viral, and “everything else”

    (See video for details of each)

  • We’re going to avoid the scammy and spammy stuff.

  • We’re going to keep it mostly “white hat”.

  • Instead of focusing on traffic tricks and tactics, you should focus on traffic fundamentals.

  • Those who get CONSISTENT traffic for the LONG TERM are those who are good at one or more of the fundamentals of web traffic.

    Action steps:

    1) Be a list builder.

    2) Choose to become an expert in at least one other area of web traffic.

    We’re going to start with paid traffic in the next lesson!

    As always, you are welcome to post your questions and comments below 🙂

    Have a great day!

  • 101 thoughts on “LESSON #72: Introduction to Web Traffic

    1. Petre Tudor

      Hi Eric,

      Excuse my for my typos but I’ve 70 old and I do strive to learn your all lessons to be able to get more sales because it is financial crisis here and I need buy more your ebooks to learn online marketing better.

      I already corrected myself.I agreed all your recommendations and now my squeeze page has a better look. You just can test it by clicking on above link, if you you have time.
      I hope I’ll get more subscribers and a sale at least now.
      I’ll use Traffic Exchanges until I’ll learn your next methods to get traffic to my website.

      My question to you is following:
      Why I got more subscribers without to get a sale at least?

      Respectfuly,
      Petre Tudor

      Reply
    2. Ray

      I agree with you Eric. If you create a splash page in a traffic exchange. Send them to your squeeze page to create your own mailing list. Great information as always. I especially like your last lesson on Tracking.

      I am going to track using Prosper 202. I have used Google Analytics and StatCounter. But I will try Prosper 202 to track. Keep up the good videos.

      Eric Tips Faithful Follower!
      Ray

      Reply
    3. panicattacks

      The “Traffic” or “List” argument is similar to the Chevrolet or Ford argument. HOWEVER, TRAFFIC is KING. Everything revolves around it, even list building.

      Reply
    4. Ben Sinagra

      Eric, I am learning a lot from your videos. But one area I am intrigued by is to do with list building. I have two questions:

      (1) I have joined Aweber and they do a great job but I have trouble with confirmed opt-in. For prospects, I would like not to have to confirm the opt-in. Aweber lets you do this but you cannot alter an entry in the list until it has been confirmed. Also, I believe un-confirmed entries are automatically deleted after 30 days. Do you always use confirmed opt-in for everything? If so, how do you smoothly integrate it?

      (2) Secondly, if a person comes to your sales page and makes a purchase, how do you integrate the confirmed opt-in process? Or don’t you use confirmed opt-in in this situation?

      Thanks,
      Ben

      Reply
    5. Joe

      Great material as always. I’ll be looking forward to the series. There are two ideas I’ve been looking at for so called free SEO web traffic. One is using wordpress and creating a large number of posts using optimized articles(WPMAGE automates this). The other is the Epic Traffic approach where they create many sites(50+) and point to a single monitization site. I will be attempting both approaches but was wondering if you had any comments on that.
      Thanks
      Joe

      Reply
    6. emmanuel

      hi eric,thanks for your tips,there are websites which sell traffic. is this real. for example there are websites such as webnetjoe.com which promise to deliver so & so visitors to your site if you pay so & so amount. do they really deliver such visitors and what methods do they use?

      Reply
    7. Ben Sinagra

      Eric, I have noticed my test entries over 30 days without confirmation are indeed deleted automatically by Aweber. How do you handle the requirement of a confirmed opt-in for some one who submits their details (once) for a newletter?
      Regards, Ben

      Reply
    8. Sandy

      Hey Eric, your lessons are great and so is your paid stuff but i am kinda stuck now as the traffic is where it all starts, if I have understood you well so far. Wondering when we could get started on it and how would these 14 lessons last. Wish to plan and do a lot based on this.

      Thx again

      Sandy

      Reply
    9. Michaela

      Hi! Eric, I am with hostgaror for the last 3 years, by the way excellent host, supper support, and only after this video I come back to my cPanel to look to statistics and I notice “Attracta”, it look good to me and I sign in… I am surprised to notice a difference on traffic after 3-4 days… so it is a great tool and I am sure it must be part of your traffic strategy, am I right?
      Michaela

      Reply
    10. Bill

      Hi Colin, Do you have all the Tools you need for internet marketing? As Eric has explained the need for an autoresponder, you should also check out the market listing of similar sites and see how your site compares to the highly listed sites. Compare, learn and adapt.

      Bill

      Reply
    11. Bill

      Hi Eric,

      Just read an email from you about a Forex program you recommend and how you are a top vendor for it. I was hoping that you could post a video on how you are participating in the Forex market, what tools you use and how successful you have been.

      Thanks!
      Bill

      Reply
    12. Eric Post author

      I’m not a forex expert. I’m just marketing the course; the guy who made the videos is the expert. Same thing with my stock trading course, however I have done quite a bit of stock trading.

      Reply
    13. Eric Post author

      Hi Ben, all my lists are double opt-in. The key is to give them good instructions to go check their inbox after they initially opt-in. Also it helps a lot to have a good incentive for them to confirm their email. I talk a little about it in lesson #63 http://www.ericstips.com/tips/lesson63/

      Reply
    14. Eric Post author

      I’ll talk a bit about them in lesson 74. There are some real ones, but the traffic is generally sub-par.

      Reply
    15. Eric Post author

      My advice for both of those methods is…

      Great, go for it…

      But remember that although those tactics will achieve SEO rankings, it is quality content that will survive SEO in the long run. So make sure you’re including quality content that real people will desire to consume.

      Reply
    16. Eric Post author

      Thanks 🙂 I do use confirmed opt-in for all lists. I would recommend re-watching lessons #61-70.

      Reply
    17. Eric Post author

      I would have never guessed you were that old! 🙂

      Your next step will be to get to test it with some good targeted traffic, and I’ll be covering traffic in depth.

      Reply
    18. Angelina

      Great lesson Eric! Online marketing is all about web traffic and targeted traffic. And there are no magic bullets! I agree very well with the 5 major categories you made for web traffic- the fundamentals. And it’s good to realize that it would a lot of time effort (or money) for one to really master just one major part of web traffic. Many thanks!

      Reply
    19. liz @ lladro porcelain figurines

      Hey Eric, your videos are such a great help. One of the things that has helped me the most with getting traffic is building inbound links. I don’t mind telling you they are a pain in the you know what but they have worked well for me. Also building internal links by connecting your pages using keyword based text. Thanks again!

      Reply
    20. Matt

      Eric,

      Thanks again – I noticed if i Google “Eris Tips” it returns your website PLUS 6 of your other pages from within your site. How do I get Google to do that with my site?? (And yes this is a new site from your webinar -( well it will be when finished)

      Reply
    21. Virginia M Mooe

      Hi Eric:

      Thank you for your web traffic information.
      Can I make some money just with “List Building and link to different websites for drawing buyers to
      buy from them.” because there are many traffic information to learn and watch. You do not know which one is good for you. Waiting for your answer. Thank you.

      Virginia M Mooe (from: Brooklyn, NY )

      Reply
    22. Eric Post author

      Yes you can make money that way. If list building is a foundational part of your business, you can monetize your list as an affiliate, without necessarily having a product of your own.

      Reply
    23. Eric Post author

      I think it’s mainly a matter of establishing your site over time, and making it authoritative for your niche. Obviously my site would be VERY authoritative for the search phrase “Eric’s Tips”, since that’s what my site is. Google knows that the searcher is probably looking for my site, so they show more pages of my site. So in most cases they would not show 6 pages of a site for a given search phrase, but 2 or 3 pages is pretty common.

      Reply
    24. Jessica

      Eric,

      Hello. My name is Jessica Walman. I know you are extremely busy, but I really need your help!!

      I’m e-mailing you because you seem so sincere in all of your blog postings and seem like you really care to help others succeed. Well, I’m in a bit of a situation. I have an 18 month old son and I’m 6 1/2 months pregnant with a little girl. I cry almost every night because I try SO HARD to think of a way I can stay home with my kids after this little one is born. We can not afford for me to stay home because I make pretty decent money at my job. However, I don’t want to regret not staying home and raising my children. And at the same time, not only do I need to, I WANT to assist financially in my household.

      I have been trying for almost 3 years to start my own business and have not succeeded. It wasn’t until recently I heard about Affiliate Marketing that I started to read and learn about it. I am a very hard-working and determined person, yet for some reason haven’t been able to make any profit! Within the past couple months I’ve been doing affiliate marketing and made a few sales, but have made no profit due to what I spend on PPC. I have been watching your videos about making a product, yet I go round and round trying to think of something to sell! It’s hard for me to say, but I have no experience in something that warrants me to sell my knowledge, I’m not an expert on anything, I’m just simple and work, hang out with family (who are my best friends) and that’s it! I’ve look at resale right products as well as PLR and every topic I think of I talk myself out of after looking researching it online. I’ve already lost money and am so nervous about going round and round doing the same ‘wrong’ thing over and over again.

      To make a long story short (I’m so sorry, I didn’t expect for this to be this long), I really want to make a info product, however, I only have 2.5 months before I have this baby. I’m not asking to make hundreds of thousands of dollars (at first), I just want to make a few thousand a month to allow me to stay home with my children. Once I attain this, I am then VERY willing to do what I need to do to make a lot of money, because like I stated early, I am a very determined person and I want to contribute financially, it’s in my nature, it’s who I am. I know in your videos you don’t teach too much on affiliate marketing (yet it does intertwine with the info product), but is there any advice or assistance you give to help me achieve in affiliate marketing? This is not my long term goal, as I truly want to create an info product sometime next year, but I just don’t know what else I can do to be able to stay home with my son, Oliver, and my soon to be daughter, Elaina (that is due mid-January)

      If there is any assistance you can give, I would GREATLY appreciate it. I really am desperate and don’t know what else to do!!!!

      Thank you SO much for reading this and your patience with me. I look forward to hearing from you!

      Kind Regards,

      Jessica

      Reply
    25. Jose Damaso Ramon

      It´s absolutely true: There is no business without traffic.
      Thanks a lot for your video. Thinking like a marketer is essential to be on the right track to become a real business success.

      Reply
    26. Eric Post author

      Hi Jessica,
      Affiliate marketing with PPC is an increasingly difficult business model. It’s to the point that Google no longer wants affiliates using Adwords. I saw this coming a few years ago, which is why I chose to focus on information marketing in the lesson series, which I feel is a more sustainable business model.

      First, I must say I think you need to relax and take a longer term approach to this. You’re probably not going to build an income stream in the next 2 months. It is possible, but those kind of focused product launches require a lot of work and stress. I’m no doctor, but that’s not a good thing for 3rd trimester of pregnancy.

      Next, if you do want to go the info-product route, I recommend having someone else do the product creation. Since you’re not an expert, and are struggling with product creation, a good solution would be to partner with an expert.

      You can do some niche research like I taught in these lessons, but then find an expert (either locally, or online) who can create the product such as an ebook or video series.

      Since you don’t have the cash to outsource it, you can make it a 50/50 deal or whatever percentage you think is fair. Perhaps the expert could also provide support for the customers, and you handle the marketing and technical stuff, etc.

      I have done this very thing in a niche outside of the “internet marketing” niche, and plan on doing another such partnership with a friend of mine who is a medical professional next year in a totally different niche.

      So stop spending money for now. Find someone who can create a product that you are confident will sell (based on your niche research). Then when it comes time to market it, you can come back and spend some money on my recommendations for marketing tools and services 😉

      Reply
    27. cek

      Hi Eric:

      I’d like to ask if you would prioritize which methods you would suggest focusing on to market an information product. With the help of your lessons my product is created and ready to go. The hooks for list building are in place….I’m exhausted getting to this point =)…and now the real work begins. With the horror stories of PPC losses and effort to “master” SEO what should I focus on? I feel too much an “infant” in this process to pursue affiliate arrangement for loss of control. What techniques should be my focus for this type of product to get some traffic going?

      As always….your teaching is terrific and your mission here so appreciated.

      ~carolyn

      Reply
    28. Eric Post author

      Affiliate traffic is my favorite traffic for information products. However, before putting a lot of effort into getting affiliates, you need to make sure your product converts traffic. So if you’re not comfortable with using PPC for testing, I would recommend using some various free traffic methods which I will be covering in upcoming lessons. Then once you know you’ve got a product that will sell, I would focus on affiliate marketing, and integration marketing (both of which I will be teaching).
      There is more than one way to skin a cat, and my preference is not necessarily the right one or the best one, but that would be my priority.

      Reply
    29. Johan Hedin

      Nice lesson as always Eric. I totally agree with you. Some of the prospects that I meet are so caught up in social media because of the propaganda of this channel…Although this can work, there is a lot of misleading information out there.

      Reply
    30. David

      I don’t understand, you said that you don’t condone misrepresentation, or stealing content and spinning it, etc., but that’s almost exactly how “Total Traffic Annihilation” works, which is a software that you recommended a couple of days ago! Or am I misunderstanding something?

      Reply
    31. Eric Post author

      I did not recommend it on Eric’s Tips, but you’re right I did pitch it to a few of my lists, as a part of an ad swap, in which I was donating 100% of my commissions to charity. I decided to go ahead with it based on my judgment that Steven is a good guy, and he has a good track record outside of that particular product. Also, while I don’t generally condone “grey hat” methods, I’m not 100% against them either. I personally stay away from most of that stuff, but as I explain in the off-page SEO lesson, it can sometimes be very hard to compete without utilizing some of those tactics. So to reiterate, it was a rare situation where I based the recommendation more on the person than the product. I do think the product has merit, but it’s certainly not for everyone.

      Reply
    32. Gabrielle

      Dear Eric, I’m a newbie, and I just join new business and now trying to find a way to generate traffic for my new homepage.

      Unfortunately internet here is too slow, i failed to watch the video, is there somehow you have other document that I could read? would you kindly send to my email ***********

      By all the comments wrote here, I know you must have good tips on this.

      Thanks n sorry for the hassle.

      Reply
    33. Rick

      I have the opposite problem as many – I have a product – it is a good one. I just can’t get traffic to my site. My niche is not the best choice but I am an expert in it so made sense to start there. Looking to move into bigger niche but still very hard to compete when funds are tight. For those trying to make an ebook or video series… it takes a lot of time – 100’s of hours to make and produce a quality product on your own.

      Reply
    34. Nedra

      It’s amazing how little as newbie’s know and ever learn without the proper guidance. It is great to have this positive direction, Eric.
      Nedra

      Reply
    35. Shannan

      As always, thank you. Your the constant in my mail. I’m looking forward to Instant Products. My ideas are out there but not in a profitable manner, too many and too scattered. And I need to help others as soon as I can.
      Is there room in “instant products” for affiliate related products to be added? I assume yes, but I’ve been so wrong so often. Wrong place to ask? Probably. Sorry.
      Again, I love seeing your wife’s face and yours in the inbox each day. You can not know how much you have helped. Big fan of ‘pay it forward’. I want to help more.
      Take care, Shannan

      Reply
    36. Eric Post author

      Thanks Shannan, Yes you can promote affiliate products in addition to the Instant Product Engine products. You can promote them on your thank-you pages, etc.
      You can also add your own additional products for sale.

      Reply
    37. Rosemarie

      Hey Eric

      First off I want to thank you for all of the great helpful training. I totally agree with you on doing things right and legally. I lost a ton of money on programs like the ones you mention in the video, THEY DON’T WORK! Ones that could work you don’t want to do what the are suggesting. I am not here to rip anyone off or try to steel there traffic. After what i’ve been through online i really only want to make money liget.

      Reply
    38. Donald Paden

      Eric:

      Thanks for all of the great training that I have received to this point, and I look forward to the continuing the remaining lessons.

      Reply
    39. Micah

      Hello John,

      You can sell physical products in the same way.

      Are you seeking information on “Creating” physical products?

      Reply
    40. Claude Haggerty

      Hello Eric:

      I wanted to thank you once again for these amazing videos you have put together in Eric’s tips.

      Anyone interested in Internet marketing needs to go through all of your videos and implement what you teach. Your lessons are very well researched, well presented and they are easy to follow.

      I am a Grand Scale Illusionist that grew up in foster care, stuttered, was bullied etc. My show has raised over $4,000,000 for charity so far. I am currently creating some very unique programs that will help me to raise even more for charity and inspire even more children along the way.

      Your videos are helping me to inspire a lot of children around this world Eric.
      Most days I get up an hour earlier just so I can watch and implement the next video.

      Thank you so much for what you do.
      You are a good guy Eric and I look forward to being on your list and a loyal customer for many years to come.

      Would love to do work with you to benefit a local charity in your area as a thank you for all you do.

      Claude Haggerty
      Grand Scale Illusionist
      Motivational Speaker
      http://www.claudehaggerty.com

      Reply
      1. Eric Post author

        Hi Claude,
        That’s really awesome, you have an inspirational story! It’s an honor to have you on board 🙂
        And thanks for the offer, I will be sure to keep it in mind!! I just checked out your site and it’s looking good so far. I noticed you integrated list building on your boot camp page, which is great. I would also encourage you to integrate list building into the sidebar of every page of your site, so you can grow a list of your fan base. This is a list that can be monetized in many ways over time. Give away some sort of freebie, whether it’s a video or something cool that your fans would like. Then at your shows, tell people to go to your website for a free gift.
        Blessings

        Reply

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