Traffic Generation Blueprint

Then, you can design a strategy to go from where you are
to where you want to be and identify tools and systems
that could help you implement your strategy and reach your
goals.

As you can see it's tactical, not strategic. Once a tool is
strategic, then you need to change your process! Or you're
too dependant on the technology / tool you're using, thus
risking your whole business model.

This does not mean tools should not be performing and really
suit your business needs. For example, a strong back office
management system is fundamental, and should be correctly
set up and managed to ensure your business is robust and
reliable.

This just means, that if you envision the development of a
single product / service in a given niche and devote all
your time and effort to it, then you probably don't need the
same solution as someone developing a publishing company who
will need a system robust enough to manage hundreds of
different products. Once you have your vision, and your
strategy, you can (and you must) find the right tools.

The scope of the above is pretty large:

- we've given examples related to business management.
- but you can apply the same to traffic generation for
example, to site building, to customer relationship management,
to product development, and to affiliate marketing...

See the point? Each of the above areas will require inputs
and goals you want to achieve.

I know of people buying the latest black hat craze that will
automatically create 100,000 backlinks overnight :-) or a
blog commenting spammer (and you can replace the word "blog"
with forum or guestbook - the same concept) ...

When they have no idea what a blog is or how to operate a
simple website or blog. Talk about going black hat...and
then going to these huge BH beasts...

Of course, there's always a starting point for anything.
Here are the most common questions I receive:

- I have never done that, I know nothing about site
building, site marketing, list building, traffic generation,
so where do I start?, Should I join this membership and also
this one to do that more, and why not this other one?

No! Until you know what you want to do with those services
you should not join anything! :-)

I know it's against all odds to say such a thing, but it's
true.

In addition, there are many great f.re.e resources to learn
from, so that you should only pay for extra information or
services you know you will use.

BUT, if you follow some easy steps (see below) then you can
start getting your feet wet and plan to join that kind of
membership (or any other service in the marketing area of
your choice: traffic generation, niche marketing, resell
rights, affiliate marketing, product development, list
building...)

This means you first need to create your blueprint,
your plan...

******Blueprint to Site Building - Site Marketing*******

To illustrate this, I will take the "Site building - Site
Marketing" example.

If you were to need a blueprint to really start doing things
in this area, here is what I would recommend:

I/ Find a topic you're interested in, or something you think
is funny, or a good trend.

Simply head to ebay pulse, Yahoo Buzz, or Google Trends to
identify that kind of hot topics.

http://pulse.ebay.com/

http://buzz.yahoo.com/

http://www.google.com/trends

You can also simply go to Digg.com, Technorati.com,
Reddit.org, Stumbleupon.com and see what the most popular
topics are, and the kind of comments they receive. It's a
great source of information and it will help you position
your site and tone.

The thing is you want to identify a popular topic that you
feel could be popular for many weeks or even months.

II/  Set up a blog: You want to do it the f.r.e.e way.
That's easy. Simply create a blogger blog (google blogging
platform), or a hosted wordpress blog (wordpress.com).

I recommend wordpress as the usability is second to none...

As you see, you don't need a domain name, or private
hosting.

(of course if you already have a hosting account, and
want more flexibility, then install it on your server,
and regi*ster a domain name accordingly)

For hosting you have 'easy' plans with hostgator:
http://www.ethiccash.com/hostgator

For domain name, we have domains starting at $1.99
http://www.ethicnames.com

III/ Find some keywords that will orient the content you
want to post on your blog.

a) find them with your head first: by checking what is
popular on social bookmarking sites and trend report sites.
You can identify the popular searches that keyword tools
won't have yet in their database. Then try to imagine, as a
'visitor' the kind of info you would like to find.

Write them down

b) you can go to http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

to get 100 variations on any keyword at no co*st. It could
easily complete your list

c) Finally, if you need some additional lateral keyword, you
can go to one of my favorite tools:

http://www.kwmap.net

IV/ Create some articles: you can simply google your keyword
in an exact search : "bird feeding in winter" and see how
you can summarize some of this.

Note: use the quotes front and back.

You can also go to wikipedia.org and find some content that
you can then 'use' for your article (not copy / paste, but
just to gather the ideas)

The U.S. government also has some nice content sources:

Here is, for example, a resource I used when I did some
research for the last 4 Niches-in-a-box packages (just for
stats and topics research)

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/

(nlm stands for National Library of Medicine, from the NIH:
National Institutes of Health)

It's the world largest medical library :-)

Government information at NLM Web sites is in the public
domain, although some parts might be provided by licensed
3rd parties. But this means you can re-use the content on
your site. It's good to always give credit to the source
though, especially in the medical field as it gives
credibility to your site and also removes any liability from
you.

But just a quick search on the web will give you access to
any government sources. And they are simply awesome.

V/ Post content to your blog: at first you can create 5 to
10 articles, split them into 4 or 5 categories (you will be
able to add more categories to your blog with time), and
post 2 or 3 each and every day during the first 3 to 4
weeks.

Then you can feed it with say 1 article every 2 days or so.

(I know this is where you start getting bored of doing this
manually, and would like a tool to automate it :-) )

While it's not the topic of this newsletter, I have this
tool, and you will soon hear about it.

VI/ Now, if you look back to what you have...you might be
delighted, but you might also be frustrated: you have a good
site, using a robust and reliable blog platform. With time,
you have even added some affiliate links to your posts or
sidebar to start monetizing it.

You even tried to add adsense blocks to it.

But No traffic! Nada! Well, it's normal! (what you did is a
bit like if you had written 10 pages in your office and were
wondering why no one calls you to congratulate you about
these wonderful articles)

Of course the world does not know about your site, your
articles, your concept...


VII/ To start driving traffic, you need to inform the World
Wide Web that you exist. To do so, you have 2 ways:

a) Put some links on other sites: those 'backlinks' link
directly to your site, and someone could click on them.

b) Let search engines spread the word about your site. But
please be nice to them :-) or they will ban you immediately.

Of course it's a big summary of what traffic generation
is... but that's pretty much all.

(to get more info about this, you can check the 30 minute
traffic videos I have posted at
http://www.dynamic4marketing.com)

But to make this a real blueprint, here is what you could
do drive traffic almost instantly to your site:

- Submit all your posts to 4 or 5 social bookmarking
sites (digg, stumbleupon, technorati, furl, ...): try to be
creative there for your Title and stories so that people
want to read them

- Find some blog related to your niche and comment on them
(I did not say 'spam them', but comment, bring value to them
and do not forget to link back to your site)

- Find forums related to your site, join them, read them,
and then start contributing

- Submit your blog feed to feed directories

- Submit your articles to ezinearticles.com and
articledashboard.com for more long term traffic

VIII/ Don't do any of the above without setting a tracker on
your site

http://www.statcounter.com will is a fr.e.e traffic tracker
that you can easily plug into your blogger blog or wordpress
blog (they give you step-by-step instructions to do so)

This is fundamental: generating traffic is simply useless if
you don't know:
- where it comes from
- what keywords are
currently generating traffic (your live site is your best
keyword research tool)
- what marketing efforts (social
bookmarking, forum, blog commenting...) generated the most
traffic, to what kind of article... -
 how long your visitor
stays on your page, what they do on your page...


As you see all this does not cost a dime: just a little bit
of your time. But this is how you will understand how things
work.

**End of the Site building and Traffic Generation Bluepring**

Then, and this is the point here, you can identify:
- if this is what you want to do :-)
- if you want to do it
manually as a hobby

- if you want to go the extra 10 miles and find tools that
will automate things for you : a script to automatically
post to your blog, scripts to automatically submit your posts
to social bookmarking, niche packages to upload and start
marketing, thus removing 6 out of 8 steps in the above process.

As you see, any step, and single phase of the above process
can be outsourced, or converted into an automated process
with all the existing tools.

But if you don't know what you really want, then getting
these tools before knowing how is useless.

In summary, we all need to learn things before knowing what
we should learn next. You should not be told what you need
to learn. The learning process is personal and individual
and only you can say where you are in your learning curve,
and how you want to move on. A 'guide' is often useful
to help you identify the next steps.


Dealing with information overload, systems, business
models...and all the external solicitations is really
difficult. Almost impossible. People are even reluctant to
join genuine fre.e. offers for psychological reasons: not
knowing what comes after the regis*tr*ation page is scary.

"Is there an OTO page? Will I be able not to buy it? I feel
bad if I join your f/re*e membership and don't buy anything..."

I am sure you know what I mean. Make things clear in your
mind. Do not jump on everything, but take everything you
feel is good for you and that will help you succeed. First
the fre.e stuff and then select among paid programs but only
the ones you really need. But even for the fr.e.e stuff,
be very selective.

But, in the meantime, don't panic: internet marketing is not
a life or death choice. It's first about learning and then
(while at the same time) implementing. If you think you have
no other choice, this means you have not a good vision of
your current situation. But don't jump into internet
marketing because you're desperate. It will close the doors
and most of the opportunities, instead of opening doors and
allowing them to come fr*e*ely.

By taking your time, and assessing things properly,
information you receive will become far more 'productive'
and 'profitable'. You will be able to quickly select the one
you need from the noise of all the rest. And this is how you
will build your own learning process and monitor your
progress.

That's all folks!