You…
You’ve…
And…
Its launch day, you’re excited at the awesome opportunities you’ve heard about in affiliate marketing, you wait patiently and … no one comes.
Ouch.
Launching a new website, from scratch, can be a real shock to the system. Just because you have a great design, great idea, and great opportunity doesn’t mean you’ll pull in traffic. Sure, you covered your bases by reading up on traffic generation tactics – you probably put some into effect – but things still aren’t going the way you want them to, and no, the occasional spike isn’t doing it for you.
If only you could create a consistent flow of visitors to your website.
A stable growth in traffic would give you excellent insight into your performance and would start trickling in money through your affiliate offers. Blah, what am I doing wrong? You might say.
Stop. Take a moment. Breathe. Relax.
Drop everything you’ve learned and follow this guide:
The Foundation that will become the First 100 Visitors
Why 100 visitors a day?
Thousands would be great, millions even better, but let’s be realistic here: one hundred visitors, a day, is more than enough to get your website profitable.
A single conversion out of the 100 on a $100 product could be $50 on your end (at a 50% commission) – that’s almost $1,500 a month – for one, yes, one, conversion a day.
The point I’d like to make is that higher traffic doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be successful.
As I’ve said before: it’s about the conversions.
When you focus on the first 100 visitors, a day, you’re thinking in realistic goals.
The one hundred mark isn’t outlandish but it’s not entirely easy to achieve. It’s right there in the middle, next to the tipping point, and this quest toward the 100 visitors will teach you more than you’ll ever need to know about traffic generation than any amount of blog posts on the topic you’ll read.
There are three pillars of traffic generation:
- Filling your website with relevant, valuable content related to your niche
- Sharing the content on social networks, content platforms, and email lists
- Leveraging your connections with fellow bloggers and site owners, having them share the work
Creating Remarkable Content
The content you create can’t be run-of-the-mill pieces.
If they do not make an impact, teach in-depth topics, make a visitor laugh, or encourage visitors to share then you’re not going to have an easy time building your website.
Your content must be extraordinary; it needs to be on a level that people would pay for the information. In a lot of ways, you become the tutor – you’d charge for a great skill in the real world – that same information, distilled into an article on your website – are your skills, documented.
I would suggest that you create (at least) ten amazing pieces of content for your website; these would be in-depth tutorials, lists, and strategies (maybe a series) related to your topic which are at (or beyond) a premium product offered in your niche.
The idea is that you’re “pushing the free line”; your content is so powerful that people feel the need to pay for your expertise but, rather than taking the money, the “pay” comes as a form of interaction and sharing which, in turn, increases your brand exposure and chances to convert new visitors on affiliate offers.
Tapping the Social Networks
You should be active on social networks because these provide free methods for sharing content, networking with fellow individuals interested in your niche, and used to gain feedback for your work (along with new ideas).
I suggest being active on the larger social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
These three networks are enough to gain you a solid following.
Link your social profiles on your sidebar, within the posts, and while you comment on other blogs in your niche. Grow your network and encourage followers to share your content by sharing theirs; reciprocate with your followers and your social media usage will become an integral part of your traffic generation.
Learn what you can during the early days of your social media usage; don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
Experiment with the networks. Build your following with people that actually engage with your message which is far more powerful than just amassing numbers on these networks (much like the idea of the first 100 visitors, mentioned above).
Networking on Steroids
You have a limited amount of contacts when you’re first getting started. It’s no biggie; your network will grow as you stay active. A handful of contacts can become a powerful team of promoters of your message.
For this, I would suggest you identify a few key players in your market (but not just the “big boys”); seek out people that are on your same level that share your same enthusiasm about running a site, creating content, and affiliate marketing.
Get in touch through any means that suits your style. Share their content; ask if they could do the same for yours. Work together on bigger projects, cross-promotional strategies, and giving one another feedback on new projects.
Nurture these relationships with your best community members and business associates; these are the people that will help your business go well beyond what’s possible on your own. Always provide a one-to-one value trade with your network and go above-and-beyond when the time is right; business grows when you help other businesses.
Our Traffic Generation Step-by-Step to the First 100
Let’s get at it on building what will become a blueprint for the first 100 visitors, a day, to your website.
Follow these actions, each day, and you will reach this goal.
The process will take at least 2 – 3 hours, each day, but once you’re over the tipping point – you can begin to step back – you just have to push during those early days.
Here’s the process:
1. Wake up early and immediately go to work on creating content for the day. Aim for 600 – 1,000 words detailing an exact question or subject you’ve uncovered through your website research.
2. Publish the post and immediately send it to your followers through Twitter. Post a picture along with the link on Facebook. Jump on LinkedIn and share on your feed. Post on Instagram.
3. Jump into your RSS feed and tab open whatever new blog posts you can find on relevant blogs you have subscribed to, and begin commenting on their work (after reading, of course) to create a relationship and some interest if you’re linking the blog.
4. Email your list (if you have one) about the new content on your website, ask for them to read, leave a comment, and share your work.
5. Go on over to a content hub and write a short, promotional post (500 – 700 words) related to the post you just pieced together, link back to it, and run the rounds sharing this new piece of content.
6. Jump back to your post and begin answering any and all comments from bloggers coming back through your comments on their blog; return to theirs and continue the discussion.
7. Ask your closest followers and business associates if they could share your content, directly, and then share their stuff (even if they don’t for yours, that day – as a token of goodwill).
Repeat.
Traffic generation is truly easy as it sounds.
It does get difficult as you scale your projects and marketing efforts but the first 100 visitors, a day, is truly about repetition in your workflow. Repeat the steps, each and every day, until you’ve hit a stable influx of visitors to your website.
From there, it’s a matter of testing new strategies you’ve read about.
