Website traffic is the lifeblood of any online business so it is understandable that it is the focus of a great deal of internet marketing effort. A number of strategies have been developed and improved over the past few years which help webmasters build website traffic. Some of these ideas are excellent, some are okay and some are downright scams.

One of the most effective strategies to drive traffic to your site is viral marketing. The purpose of viral marketing is to make word of mouth recommendations easy. If people discover something on the internet that is particularly interesting, funny or even shocking, they are likely to share it with friends.

Viral marketing makes use of this human tendency by deliberately placing controversial, amusing or unique content on a website or blog in order to increase the popularity of their site. In doing so, website traffic increases and more interest is generated in a company’s products or services. Online games, streaming video, and surveys are all popular viral marketing inclusions as are controversial articles or unique information.

A particular benefit of this form of internet marketing is that it is generally low cost and easy to implement. The long term benefits outweigh the time or cost of driving initial traffic to the site because these visitors will become your ongoing marketers and continue to bring traffic to your site. As personal recommendations grow, so too will your website traffic.

Using a “Tell A Friend” Script

An effective and simple way to take advantage of viral marketing is to use a “tell a friend” script. This is a basic programming script which can be included on your website. It is usually put on pages where media is used so that a visitor can easily pass the media on to friends or family.

The way the “tell a friend” script works is that a viewer is given the option to give his name, email address and the recipient’s email address in order to send the media to them as an attachment. The recipient would not interpret the email as spam since their friend is seen as the official sender. Therefore, the email is likely to be opened and read rather than simply deleted.

Using a “tell a friend” script greatly reduces the likelihood that your email will be blocked because it is sent officially from the referrer. Consequently, it can be a very effective marketing method that has the capacity of working very quickly.

Once the email is opened by the recipient, most will read, view or play the media included. This provides a company with a wonderful opportunity to introduce themselves, their products or services. Also included is another “tell a friend” script.

Thus, the cycle continues. As more and more people utilize the “tell a friend” script to pass on interesting material, the number of people actively aware of the company or site being marketed will rise exponentially. Often people who enjoy the information or material they have been sent will then click on the link to the site. Traffic is therefore driven to the website which benefits from an increasing pool of potential customers.

How Can You Get a “Tell A Friend” Script

“Tell A Friend” scripts require only very basic programming skills, however you can still obtain a script even if you have no programming experience whatsoever. These scripts are easy to find on the internet and can be copied and pasted onto the desired page. Simply search for the term “tell a friend script” on any search engine.

On the results page you will find that there are many different links to sites offering a “tell a friend” script. Click on these links and see what they have to offer and if there are any conditions to using the script. Choose the script that suits you best and copy and paste it to your web page.

The “tell a friend” script is an amazing viral marketing tool that can provide spiraling traffic generation benefits for little or no cost. Combining this strategy with creative media ideas and insight into what will catch people’s attention can lead to a dramatic improvement in your business’s profitability.

No matter how good the “tell a friend” script is in creating a buzz, if your chosen media doesn’t attract interest as quickly as expected you will need to have patience. It may take a little while for it to be shared online. Ultimately, however, it will spread and an increasing number of people will view your ads and visit your site. Once viral marketing takes off, your website traffic will increase and so will your sales.

Although most online entrepreneurs are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of email marketing, many do not know how to conduct an effective email marketing campaign. Unfortunately, these people will be very disadvantaged over competitors who are well versed in using subscriber lists to market to prospects. The purpose of this article is to bridge this knowledge gap and offer some useful tips for online business owners who would like to implement an email marketing campaign to increase website traffic and of course, sales.

If you can afford to do it, hiring a professional to design and implement an effective email marketing campaign, is the quickest way to get up and running. The reason for this is obvious. Not only are such experts well experienced in email marketing, effective email marketing strategies are constantly being developed and adjusted. Using the services of someone who can dedicate their working life to implementing successful email marketing campaigns means that you don’t have to experience the long and often expensive learning curve in order to achieve the same outcomes.

By being free to focus on your core business instead of having to spend most of your time learning and implementing new internet and email marketing strategies you will be better placed to achieve your business goals. So a professional who can design a complete email marketing campaign for you can provide an enormous boost to your business on more than one level. However, once the decision is made to use a professional service, the difficulty is actually finding one that is of high professional quality and can deliver the best outcomes. Do not simply respond to a good piece of advertising or a professional looking website. You need to choose a professional who can demonstrate significant, long term experience, show a track record of successful campaigns, pay attention to your concerns, is able to detail and explain the strategies and can agree to a reasonable deadline for your project completion.

One of the most popular ways to use email marketing is to offer an e-course on a topic related to your niche. Ideally, such a course will comprise short, easy to digest sections, be genuinely informative and of interest to your target audience. You can also write the course in such a way that the information can be used to support selling points for various products and services. However, it is very important that you do not use your e-course to directly sell because this could be deemed to be spam. Simply offer information and links they can follow to your website where you can more directly promote your products or services.

Another very effective email marketing strategy is the publication and distribution of e- newsletters. An e-newsletter is simply an email equivalent of a more traditional print newsletter which is distributed conventionally. The cost of distributing an e-newsletter is next to nothing so it is an ideal method of disseminating information and directing readers back to your website. Most of your e-newsletter should be good quality content including feature articles, briefer articles offering helpful tips, and possibly product reviews. You can also include graphics if you wish, however you need to be aware that people with slower running computers or on slower internet service plans may become frustrated and close the newsletter. Include links to your website pages or to affiliate sales pages and use some soft sell sales pitches to encourage your readers to click through. Although you can certainly encourage people to buy a product in an e-newsletter, you can be more convincing on your own sales pages.

No matter which email marketing strategy you decide on, you will need to monitor your results regularly. While some aspects of your email marketing strategy may be working, others may not be and will need to be replaced or adjusted. You also need to know what aspects of your email marketing campaign are most successful so that you can use them more often or more comprehensively. For example, you may notice a spike in website traffic whenever a new newsletter is sent out. If this is the case, it might be a good idea to send your e-newsletter out more often. Just by paying attention to what is working and what is not, you can maximize your email marketing success.

An important aspect of successful network marketing is the ability to identify and use marketing resources that are both low cost (preferably free) and effective. If Squidoo isn’t on your current list of resources, it should be. Here are seven tips on how to successfully use Squidoo in your network marketing efforts:

1. Do a good job on your Squidoo lens. Make sure you fill it with interesting and helpful content. Readers will rate your lens so give yourself every chance of receiving good ratings as they influence the amount of readers you will get.

2. Make your lens search engine friendly so that people searching on particular terms will be able to find your lens via search engines. The first step to achieving this is to do your own keyword research before even creating your lens. You can discover the most searched terms on Yahoo and Google so that you can write your content to reflect your target audience’s interest. You can also check Squidoo’s own tag clouds which show which words or phrases are most highly searched. Include your chosen keyword phrase in your title and add them to your lense’s tags. Squidoo allows you to have forty tags per lens so it is a good idea to find keyword phrases to take advantage of all tags. This will make your lens even easier to find.

3. Don’t be afraid to say you are an expert. We are all experts at something! You can sell yourself and your expertise in Squidoo’s bio area. Include your photo and make sure you are using a professional username.

4. Squidoo provides a social networking opportunity so make sure you make it easy to get your readers involved. This is an important free marketing tip for Squidoo as your readers can increase your traffic by recommending your lens. Here are some great ways to get your readers interested:
- Be controversial. Don’t be afraid to provoke debate or disagreement. Your aim is to get people involved.
- Utilize the Guestbook module to stimulate debate.
- Allow other people to link your lens to theirs using the Plexo module. Doing this will help your lens ranking increase while at the same time providing access to more content for your readers.

5. Update your lens regularly with new content. An easy way to keep your lens updated with new content on a daily basis is to use the RSS module. You can have your lens updated with RSS feeds from your own blog or from other blogs in order to keep the content fresh.

6. Attract return visits. One of the easiest ways to keep your readers returning to your lens is to set up an autoresponder by which you can notify them of changes. If you have your own blog you can link from it to your lens. If you guest blog you can include your lens URL in your bio information. If you comment on other people’s blogs or in forums you can provide a link to your lens in your signature.

7. Take advantage of pinging and social bookmarking services. By using sites such as Only Wire and Social Poster to bookmark your lens or the RSS services of blog pinging sites such as Pingoat or Pingomatic you will be able to create back links to your Squidoo lens. This is a great way to generate traffic to your lens.

A Squidoo lens provides a wonderful opportunity to market your network marketing product, service or business. If you follow these free MLM marketing tips you will reap the rewards of a highly effective yet free strategy.

There are three main difficulties facing anyone who is aiming to earn a living from internet marketing: isolation and lack of support, constant bombardment with new products and opportunities and the temptation to hitch their wagon to every new star on the internet. How then, is it even possible to become successful with internet marketing?

Self-Discipline

Online or offline, if you want to be successful in your own business, you must be self disciplined. You have to create your own workable routine because there are no strong external influences telling you when to start work and evaluating your productivity. It’s easy to procrastinate when you are working at home. Talking on the phone, coffee with a friend or even a favorite television show can all keep you from getting down to the business of making money.

You need to be proactive, organized and determined to succeed. How you spend your time is entirely up to you. Do you have the self discipline to give your business the time and energy it requires if you are to succeed?

Emails can also be significant time wasters. Do you have the self discipline to organize your email reading and responses to a specific time frame? Do you need to opt out of mailing lists that are causing your inbox to fill with unnecessary emails?

This is not to say you can’t sign up for emails, but limit your subscriptions to only a few sources that provide information that can genuinely help you. Easier still, you can subscribe to their RSS feeds.

You don’t just need self discipline to regularly do the things necessary for success, you also need self discipline to refrain from doing things. In particular, it may be very tempting to buy products that promise great profits or ways to make your life easier. It is easy for money to go out than is coming in. If the product will not directly benefit an aspect of your business that you have decided to improve or build, then (at least for now) don’t spend the money.

However, products that reduce the amount of work you would normally do, streamline your operation and perhaps even assist with outsourcing or delegating of work so you can spend more time earning income, may well be worth considering.

A training product that focuses on an area that you do not currently need, should be ignored. There may be a time for it in the future, but not at the moment.

Stay on Focus

To be successful in internet marketing, you need to stay focused. The internet provides a volatile online work environment that makes it easy to get distracted and caught up in each new opportunity that comes your way. To avoid this mistake, you need to have a business plan and stick to it.

However, you need to be flexible. If your plan is not working the way you thought it would be willing to make necessary adjustments to get the results you actually want. Don’t change your plan just because you feel like a change, though.

You certainly need to be passionate about your vision and goals, however times of boredom should not be mistaken for signs you need to change a business plan. Persistence pays off and sometimes you have to persist through boredom. If you need to, take some time off and rekindle your passion and excitement for your business. Only change a business plan if it is not working.

Long term success comes from focusing on a single business plan, adjusting when necessary but overall moving forward and achieving established goals. Chopping and changing leads to a pattern of failure.

By taking a self disciplined and focused approach to your internet marketing business, you will give yourself the best opportunity of achieving long term success.