Help! I Need Traffic Now!

By Jack Humphrey
Posted Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Get the truth about internet marketing and get out of crisis mode when marketing your website.
Help! I Need Traffic Right Now! -Jack Humphrey (http://power-linking-profits.com)

If I had $1 for every time I have heard that line from a client! So now I am going to put some myths to bed regarding website promotion and attracting targeted traffic to a new website.

Some of the answers to the traffic problems you might be facing may seem harsh. But at least you can go to bed tonight knowing that some things you have heard about on the net are just not true, so you can quit worrying about not doing everything you can to promote your site.

Rule #1: If you do not have a list of previous customers or a list of people who subscribed to find out more about your services or products, you cannot generate immediate traffic to your site the way the big guys do. This is their #1 weapon in a large arsenal the pros use to drum up quick, targeted traffic that is in the mood to buy.

Rule #2: If your market is highly competitive, forget Pay Per Click search engines. Whatever ebook you read telling you that PPCs are the way to get instant traffic usually leave out one important thing: if you sell "How to" information on making money or other extremely competitive keyword groups, you can forget about the PPCs. And if you have a casino site, well, just forget the PPCs even exist unless you have a million-dollar ad budget.

Rule #3: If you do not secure or do not know HOW to secure joint ventures with other website owners with big lists, you cannot have your targeted traffic now. That is another in the top ten list of power promotion the pros use and it works. But you have to know how to approach people, and you need to start working on some relationships with like-minded site owners so you can "roll-out" one day in a big way.

But none of the above is going to happen today if you don't have those crucial components.

One of the things I really hate about how 99% of internet marketing and website promotion information is handed out on the net is that it is severely lacking in the practical. Like, "This tactic is going to take you 3-6 months to see any huge results, so make sure you keep your day job until your website is paying your bills!"

I think it is irresponsible for people to tell others that they can have x number of targeted visitors in a way that makes it sound like it will happen TOMORROW. It won't. And NOTHING will do that for you until you have a list to mail to that trusts you, and/or a good group of joint venture partners you can pay commissions to for sending you sales.

As a moderator for The Internet Marketing Warriors forum, I see post after post of people saying that they have no job and want to "get started" working on the net and building a business!

Getting started on the net takes serious time in the vast majority of cases. It is a building process. You cannot get into the search engines over night. You cannot launch a product line by yourself without connections over night. If you have no list, then your first goal is NOT to drive tons of traffic to your site to buy your product!

You first goal is to get yourself into every corner of your market in all the sites that your customer demographic surfs. And that takes time. You need to write articles, start a linking directory and link with other websites, and you absolutely, positively need to collect names and email addresses so that you can build repeat traffic to your site in the future with announcements.

You goal is to get "known" in your niche. It is to get people to trust you and appreciate what you do for them FIRST before they ever buy one single thing from you.

There are thousands of things to do to build a website that attracts traffic and sells products in enough volume to provide a full-time living for you and your family.

If you don't put in the hours of work BEFORE you quit your job, you are going to be out of work and left with no way to pay bills. Then the desperation kicks in and you find yourself buying stupid things like "guaranteed traffic." One of the biggest misnomers on the internet today.

Building a business on the web out of desperation is no way to build a solid foundation for your future. The truth hurts. But knowing the truth saves you time, effort, and gets you on the right track so that you CAN begin working on the right things in building your business.

The good news: There are ways to build a business website that gets you where you want to be, with profit levels that are acceptable and that provide a decent income, as fast as possible on the net.

That is not to say it will be over night, but there are tested and proven ways to profit on the net in a reasonable amount of time. And you can skip all the junk methods preached by people who have no idea what they are talking about.

First, solve your crisis. If you need traffic RIGHT NOW because you are desperate for money, go cover that base with a part-time job and work on your site in off hours. Don't look to your web business to save you when you haven't done the things you must do to build foundation that will support you.

There are way too many broken dreams left in the wake of bad choices and impractical goals. As your desperation rises, your bad choices usually rise right along side.

This comes from personal experience in this area. I have been there, done that. And my purpose today is to get webmasters in this "crisis" mode to understand that a real business takes time to build. Same as in the offline "real world."

If you can get out of desperation mode and come at the problem with a clear head, you will make better choices in structuring your marketing campaign.

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About the Author
Jack Humphrey is an Internet Marketing Consultant and Author of Power Linking 2: Evolution (http://power-linking-profits.com) which is a solid marketing campaign resource for anyone looking to drastically increase their website's reach on the net.

Jack runs (http://webmastertraffictools.com) and is the author of "Power Linking 2: Evolution" at (http://power-linking-profits.com) More Information at (http://jackhumphrey.com)