Why Traffic Touts and List Pushers Are Bad For Your Business

By Charles Kangethe
Posted Friday, June 18, 2004

In this Article we look at the second competitive advantage of
successful Internet Marketers - Warm Traffic and True O'pt-In
Lists.

Good, Bad and Ugly Traffic
--------------------------

Marketing depends heavily on the type of Traffic you attract.

* Untargeted Traffic

Similar to Traffic passing high street shops in vehicles.

This Traffic is of very little use.

* Targeted Traffic

Similar to people window shopping on the high street.

There is a chance that if the products appeal, they will walk
in to get a better look. Competition from other shops, for this
type of Traffic is very high.

* Warm Traffic

Similar to browsers who walk into the high street shops to
"Touch and Feel" the merchandise.

Your best prospects and chances of sales come from this group.

=> Sidebar - What Traffic Touts don't want you to know
* They can and will sell you untargeted and targeted Traffic.

* Very few can deliver warm Traffic!
<=

Wrong Traffic Is Bad For Business
---------------------------------

* Paid Traffic

1) Adverts in Cyber Space

Surfers who see your ad have a choice of acting on it or moving
on.

This can deliver all three types of Traffic. It depends on the
quality of your advert AND where the advert is placed.

2) Buying Popups, popunders, or popovers of your offer

Depending on where you buy your Traffic you are given the
O'ption, at a cost, of filtering for language, geographical
region and surfer interests'.

=> Sidebar - What Traffic Touts don't want you to know
* Page Impressions with no filter deliver untargeted Traffic!

* Page Impressions with filters result in untargeted to
targeted Traffic. You have to buy big Traffic volumes to
convert a small percentage into warm Traffic.
<=

3) Pay Per Click (PPC)

If you have never done a PPC campaign start small with a less
competitive engine than Overture or Google.

PPC delivers highly targeted to Warm Traffic depending on the
quality of your advert.

4) Cost Per Action (CPA).

Providers of CPA are not easy to find because the entire risk
of the promotion lies with the provider not the advertiser.

This is a good way of building Warm Traffic and only paying
when that Traffic takes particular action such as subscribing
or buying on your web site.

CPA delivers Traffic similar to PPC.

* F'ree Traffic

1) F'ree For All (FFA)

FFA sources typically generate untargeted Traffic. But there is
another reason to avoid them.

They are not entirely F'ree !

Apart from the time it takes you to earn "credits" which are
the currency FFA's, any Traffic costs you bandwidth, and
although most hosting accounts these days have generous
bandwidth, if much of it is being used by people who will never
buy from you, then that is a wasted business cost!

2) Traffic Exchanges (and Safelists)

People exchanging Traffic are often, like yourself, primarily
sellers of services and products and not buyers.

Unless you have exceptional or very unique products you are
unlikely to attract much buying interest from the other people
in the exchange program.

3) Search Engines and Directories

These sources deliver highly targeted to warm Traffic in
potentially big volume.

The drawback is that Search Engine O'ptimisation is difficult,
and time consuming.

It can be frustrating because the payback in higher ranking and
Traffic often takes anywhere from 6 weeks to 3 months

4) Self syndication through Writing Articles and Press Releases

This results in similar Traffic to Search Engines, but the
volume is significantly lower !

When Is An O'pt-In List Not An O'pt-In List ?
---------------------------------------------

Many marketers do not really understand True O'pt-In lists and
therefore they end up building a collection of names and e-mail
addresses from which O'pt-Outs are highly likely.

* Single O'pt-In Lists

Constructed on the strength of a single contact people receive
a one off or periodic information and products from you.

* Double O'pt-In Lists

Constructed as above, with a confirmation step that the signup
details are correct before you send information or start
selling.

* True O'pt-In Lists

True O'pt-In lists go a stage further. They capture the
prospects mind.

Your aim is to intellectually and emotionally involve the list
with you and your business.

Do not fall into the trap of sending occasional mails from an
autoresponder to your single or double O'pt-In list and think
that is enough.

You must motivate people with useful offers, as well as
intellectual and emotional triggers to remain on the list AND
to buy from you.

O'pt-In e-mail lists can be :

* Purchased

=> Sidebar - What List Pushers don't want you to know
You have no easily checked evidence of :
* How long ago the names were obtained
* Where the names were culled from
* Which competitors have the same names
* A genuine interest in your offer from the list
<=

* Home Grown.

Building your own list from Targeted and Warm Traffic is the
slower but surer way to succeed.

The key is to nurture your lists and turn them into True
O'pt-In lists and not just a collection of names and addresses.

Putting It All Together
-----------------------

Your Prime "Paid" strategy should be :

Start PPC (and CPA) campaigns Capture names and e-mail
addresses Develop autoresponder messages using Triggers and
Motivators to create True O'pt-In Lists

Your Prime "F'ree" strategy should be :

Start a SEO exercise Compliment the SEO with an self
syndication campaign Capture names and e-mail addresses
Develop autoresponder messages using Triggers and Motivators to
create True O'pt-In Lists

=> Sidebar
* The two strategies above will create Warm Traffic
in volume and help you build responsive True O'pt-In lists. The
Paid route will deliver results faster. The F'ree route will
deliver Volume.
<=

However, to make a decisive move to the super marketers
bracket, you need Traffic and lists in even bigger quantities.
Here is how to explode the volume.

A) Build a themed web site with highly O'ptimised content
pages.
B) For each content page develop offshoot pages that
are equally highly O'ptimised.

The result is a tree like structure. For an example let's say
your theme site is about Golf.

* Your home page is about Golf in general.

* Your main content pages include Putting, driving, chipping,
pitching, the mental game.

* Each main content page has sub content pages so under Putting
Pitch marks and repairs, grass types, reading the green etc.

If all the pages in this structure are keyword phrase
O'ptimised your Warm and targeted Traffic will literally
explode.

How do you build so many O'ptimised pages ?

The old "not recommended" way was to build Search Engine
friendly, people unfriendly Doorway pages.

For a new Search Engine and People friendly, way to do this
there are two tools you should look at in the Relevant
Resources Section.

Relevant Resources
------------------
Learn Pay Per Click Tactics
=> (http://www.anysurf.com) - Practice for low cost on this engine
=> (http://www.payperclicktools.com) - Information on PPC
=> (http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com) - PPC directory

Simply Easier Marketing 1 - First Competitive Advantage
=> (http://www.simplyeasier.com/ownarticles.html - HTML version)
=> (http://www.simplyeasier.com/articles/affiliates.txt - Text)
Version

How To Build An O'pt-In List F'ree e-course
=> (http://www.simplyeasier.com/Optin/theOptinstrategy/)

Build True O'pt-In Lists with intellectual and emotional triggers
=> (http://www.simplyeasier.com/21mm)

An unusual Cost Per Action Solution
=> (http://www.simplyeasier.com/articles/radio.txt)

Syndicate yourself with F'ree Press Releases and articles
=> (http://www.simplyeasier.com/articles/press.txt)
=> (http://www.simplyeasier.com/articles/how2write.txt)

Build Search Engine and People Friendly Web Content Pages
=> (http://www.trafficequalizer.com)
=> (http://www.rankingpower.com)