Need Advice on Getting Some Traffic

[djaco99]

I've read so much about the importance of using an autoresponder and building a mailing list that I finally bit the bullet and started using one. I chose AWeber because someone on this site recommended it, and find it very easy to use. I'm using an autoresponder for both my websites, and have created a monthly newsletter as well as a "special report" to give away to those who subscribe to my newsletters. Now I need some traffic/subscribers, and will accept any advice anyone can offer. Here's what I've done so far:

Both of my sites are relatively new and not completely picked up by major search engines yet. I have started exchanging links with other relevant sites, and have submitted my url's to many, many directories and search engines. I have blogs pertaining to both of topics, with links to my sites on each. I try to write a blog post at least once a week and use 2 pinger services to get the word out. I also submit articles on a regular basis to ezinearticles.com, again trying to submit at least one article per week for each topic. My articles are doing fairly well, with a lot of "reads" and several have been picked up for publication on other sites.

Last weekend, I submitted 32 ads to Craigslist and got my first 2 subscribers (yay!) to one newsletter. I was hoping for more, but what do you expect for free, right? My question to you now is: what do you suggest I do next to start driving traffic to my sites? Should I sit back and be patient, try PPC (if so, which program do you recommend - I'm thinking MSN), or something else? I have toyed with the idea of doing some classified ads in newspapers, as well as distributing flyers locally in an effort to do some "offline" PR.

Any suggestions will be much appreciated. I've read way too many affiliate marketing newsletters and reports and although I think I'm headed in the right direction, I'm a bit confused as to what to do next. My gut feeling is to focus on getting more incoming links and sit back and wait awhile for the SE's to do their thing. I'm eager to start some PPC ads, but not sure which program to start out with.

[Lisa76]

Hi dcaco99,

Before doing any PPC, I would invest in some of the "strong link" directories.
http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php

I have a fitness site and I got into Google in record time (compared to other sites I have) because I paid for a few directory listings: Yahoo, gimpsy.com, goguides.com, etc.

Don't get me wrong, you don't have to pay for a bunch of directory listings to get traffic from the engines, but it did seem to hurry things along a bit. Google can take up to 6 months to a year to rank your site and I found that those listings seemed to speed up the process.

Google is very big on outgoing links and lots of content so if you can work on those two things you can get quite a bit of traffic without PPC. I am not against PPC and I use it now, but if you're just getting started just writing good content will be your best friend.

[djaco99]

Thanks so much for the advice. I will check out strongestlinks.com right away and see what I can do. Sounds logical to me to invest some money in links right now, as opposed to PPC. You have confirmed my feeling that I should now focus on getting good links and adding content.

[Lisa76]

Yep! When you do it right, content will be your best friend. I actually didn't start investing in PPC advertising until I was making enough money to do so. Content is what got me to the top of Google and Yahoo. It takes a while, but be patient and you'll get there. Good luck!

[djaco99]

Thanks - you have inspired and motivated me.

Speaking of content, what's your opinion on adding other people's articles to your site? I have added some articles from article sites just to add additional information on certain topics. I've heard that your ranking could get penalized by using articles due to duplicate content, but I've also heard that this is not the case. What's your take on using articles in moderation?

[Lisa76]

Adding a few articles from time to time won't hurt, just make sure they don't make up a large percentage of your site. I rarely use them.

You are right, the search engines are starting to penalize for duplicate content so those pages just get ignored.

I remember reading about a service where you can use other people's articles but you had the rights to re-write parts of them yourself and add your own affiliate links. I can't remember where it was. I may have read about it on associateprograms.com. I think Allan Gardyne reviewed the service in his newsletter.

Perhaps someone else on the forums can recall that service. I know there was a fee involved though but it may be something worth looking into if you have trouble coming up with your own content.

[Rob_TID]

Here is a list of services to Ping.

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://fgiasson.com/pings/ping.php#
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de/

[Rob_TID]

You should also sign up at http://onlywire.com to take advantage of social bookmarking (yes, you will need to sign up with every site that they list)

I would also suggest posting at least three quality, original articles per week or at least 600 words each. Make sure they are optimised for particular keywords and get your blogging buddies to link to them with those keywords in the anchor text.

Be sure to submit your best articles to reddit.com and digg.com

I would probably also use PPC AFTER I had done a cost-benefit analysis (ie. how much will one subscriber be worth to you? Then you need to spend less getting that one subscriber.

[djaco99]

Wow - thanks for the great information! How do you feel about the practice of submitting my articles to more than one article site?

So far, I've mainly been using ezinearticles.com, but would like to "get more bang for my buck" by submitting the same article to several article directories. Do you see anything wrong with this, or should I modify each article a bit for each place I submit to?

[purplebear]

Just joined so here goes with my first dummy question. lol I could probably do a search for it to find out what it is but since I'm here....fugure might as well get the first of my dummy questions out of the way and just ask. lol See it all the time online but don't have a clue as to what it means
So....explanation please what is a "ping" ? Hmmm not even sure if there is such a thing as a "ping" or is it the act of "pinging" lol