AUTHOR: Jorge M. Vega COPYRIGHT: ©2006 by Jorge M. Vega – All rights reserved WORD COUNT: 1155 ——————————————————– As an affiliate marketer, you may have all the special qualities needed for success in this business. You may have the necessary drive, diligence and perseverance to be able to make the whole system work. You may have all the tools, and all the bells and whistles necessary to maintain the business, including a unique and interesting website, a follow up system in place, the bestproduct anyone has ever seen, and enough original content to make both the New York Times and CNN turn red with envy. Unfortunately, all these will prove completely useless, if you don’t know how to drive traffic to your own website. Without traffic, your business will sink into oblivion, together with any sales, fortune and dreams that you might have realized if you’d only known how to perform this key,essential task successfully. Getting interested prospects to see your website is a difficult undertaking, particularly when you consider the fact that there are rivals everywhere waiting to derail your best efforts. The immensity of the internet in general, as well as of the affiliate marketing world in particular, has given birth to fierce competition among affiliate marketers, each of whom has their own great product to offer. With millions and millions of websites piling up on top of each other, how will yours ever get noticed? The 7 best ways to drive laser-targeted traffic to your website, which we’ll cover in detail below, can help those who are determined to stick it out in this business come out on top, while shaking off the apparent obstacles in their path. STEP ONE: USE SEARCH ENGINES The first step in driving traffic to one’s website is to rely on search engines. Because they are popular for driving fr’ee targeted traffic, they should never be ignored by any means. Having top search engine rankings is vital in building popularity links, and the use of the appropriate keywords is important in attaining this goal. Once a website is on top of the list, a feat accomplished by the most clever marketers, it’s easily accessible to the entire world without any out of pocket expense from the affiliate. STEP 2: LINK EXCHANGES The second way to drive traffic to your website involves contacting other webmasters for possible link exchange partnerships. Locating websites that are related to one’s own website is the first task. Once you have found a potential link partner, send the webmaster a personalized email asking to establish a reciprocal link exchange with him/her. If they’re not familiar with what you propose, an unlikely possibility since this is a hot discussion topic all over the Internet, spell out the mutual advantages of exchanging links to them. Naturally, the best partners for you to find are those webmasters who are on the receiving end of lots of traffic. STEP 3: WRITE ARTICLES The third method is to write your own articles. This is an effective way of promoting a website because good content, that is appreciated by readers, can lead them to visit your website out of the interest you arouse in them through your words. There’s also the added advantage that your articles, if interesting enough, will be picked up and posted by many webmasters on their websites. There are millions of web site owners hungrily looking for original content to provide for their visitors and customers. Let them choose yours. Over time, your article and your resource box may appear on thousands of web site all over the Internet. And, your resource box is silently sending visitors to your affiliate site, even while you sleep. Talk about the perfect Silent Partner. STEP 4: DO JOINT VENTURES The fourth way is through joint ventures. This is one of the most effective ways of promoting a product or a service. Establishing partnerships through ad swaps or link exchanges is of tremendous benefit to both parties, as it allows both of them to reach a wider customer base in a shorter amount of time. As any smart and successful businessperson will tell you, growth in any business is directly proportional to how well you can ethically leverage the resources of other people – to the benefit of both parties. This philosophy is at the heart of any joint venture agreement. STEP 5: YOUR OWN AFFILIATE PROGRAM The fifth step is to start your own affiliate program. Having affiliates to do the work means allowing them to bring tons of traffic to a website. A dramatic surge in sales can be realized as a result, and both the affiliate and the website owner will benefit from the partnership. Of course, running your own affiliate program requires a greater commitment from you in terms of time and effort. You’ll need to be prepared to manage all aspects of this business, from recruiting affiliates, to providing them with top notch sales materials, to tracking sales and returns, all the way to paying out their commissions on time. STEP 6: BUILD AN OPT-IN LIST The sixth step is to have a list of opt-in subscribers that can be contacted on a regular basis. This is one of the most, if not the most, valuable assets any marketer possesses. The use of autoresponders and personalized newsletters is one way of keeping track of them all. You can contact them periodically with new product and service announcements – potentially leading to more sales and increased profits. STEP 7: TARGET YOUR MARKET The seventh step requires that you know your market through and through. It is important to learn how to target only those who might have a special interest in the theme or topic of your website. In this manner, a solid customer base is going to be created. Once a potential customer shows an interest in your website by paying a visit, you must not waste any time in trying to prove to him/her that their effort is worth it. Traffic generating strategies are important in trying to make one’s affiliate marketing career move forward. It’s always advisable to plan one’s moves in whatever business one might undertake; this is particularly true in affiliate marketing. If you know how to get people to see what you have to offer, then your success quotient rises dramatically.