subject: 5 Free Resources For Increasing Traffic To Any Website Free of Charge! [print this page] 5 Free Resources For Increasing Traffic To Any Website Free of Charge!
Obtaining financial freedom through the business model known as affiliate marketing isn't rocket science and no matter what anyone else says for that matter; there also isn't anything 'new' in the way of creating a long term, fully sustainable income from it either!
The easiest definition of what affiliate marketing is and how it works is it's simply the promotion and/or selling of another person's product and/or service and then being paid a commission once a sale has been made.
Now, unlike you more typical commission based jobs out there, as an affiliate marketer, the potential to earn money 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days out of the year is quite realistic, whereas if you're just a commission based sales person, you're only making money, no matter how good you are at 'selling', is when you're at the office, on the sales floor or on the phone. The minute you stop working, no matter if you've been a salesman for 3 days or 30 years, your cash flow will inevitably stop coming in.
On the other hand, as an affiliate marketer, once you've laid the foundation to your affiliate marketing business, once you start making money, it's almost damn near impossible to make it stop coming in. So, imagine being out on the ski slopes of your favorite ski resort and knowing that no matter how long you're there, your affiliate marketing business is making money around the clock? Pretty awesome visual if I don't say so myself!
So, let's dive into the more profitable ways of how successful affiliate marketers actually make the core of their income.
1. Social Bookmarking: Much like someone would bookmark their favorite websites within their own browser, social bookmarking is just the same with the exception of instead of saving a website within your browser, you're now saving it online for the whole world to see! With such popular social bookmarking sites like Digg, De.Licio.us and Propeller, to name just a few, if your website has good content, it's not unlikely for you to see a surge of traffic coming to read what it is you have to say. And let's face it; making money online is all about the numbers. The more traffic you have, the more likely it is you're going to make money!
2. Article Marketing: Just as the name applies, one can increase their traffic sources by simply writing a few, well-written, keyword targeted articles and uploading those articles to a few, well-known article directories, who themselves are well liked among the main search engines. Again, much like social bookmarking, if the content in your article is good, you will see a surge of traffic originating from those well known article directories starting to come visit your own website and/or blog to read more about what it is you have to say.
3. Social Network: If you're not familiar with social networking, maybe these two very popular website names will help: Facebook and Myspace.
Social Networking is all about meeting like minded individuals who share the same hobbies, interests, social status, etc, etc., as you do and openly sharing things amongst one another. Tap into any good niche within any social network and you can almost guarantee, if done right, you'll see a lot of traffic to your website/blog and in the process, a nice happy bank account with more 'zeros' in it then you could ever imagine!
4. Forums: Forums are everywhere and no matter what the topic, from breastfeeding to survival preparedness, you'll find a forum where other like-minded people congregate and share their thoughts on whatever it is they all like and why their members of that particular forum. Learn to understand the wants/needs of your fellow forum members and it's not impossible to not only direct traffic from that forum over to your website, but see some sales as well in the process!
5. Web 2.0: If you're not familiar with popular Web 2.0 sites, just think of sites such as Squidoo.com, HubPages.com, Youtube.com and Viddler.com and the list goes on. The cool thing about Web 2.0 properties is that they're all free to join and allow you share almost anything and everything you can think of and do it quickly, easily and best of all, efficiently. It's almost like having a 'fill in the blanks' type of marketing team on call 24/7!
Now that we've covered the most popular ways that affiliate marketers tap into free resources for bringing free traffic to their own websites and/or blogs, my only tid-bit of advice regarding these methods is to simply choose one at the beginning, whether it's article marketing or video marketing, stick with one resource until you start seeing results and then move onto something else. And always remember to 'test' different aspects of your business along the way, because even though affiliate marketing isn't rocket-science, it never hurts to try something new which has the potential of creating even more money for you!
For the best resource regarding affiliate marketing, which has allowed me to go from a 'cubicle slave' to a self-employed single mother who works full time from home Monday through Friday, click here!
