Today, in my newsletter, Marketing Success and Profit, I announced a special daily series that I will be doing starting on Monday. It doesn’t have any big, high profile type title, but it is going to be as practical as I can make it.

The daily series, “10 Daily Steps Towards More Traffic” (see, I told you it wasn’t that exciting of a title), is going to cover ten aspects of getting more website traffic. These steps are going to be real things that you can do as soon as you read that day’s issue.

I am not going to be reprinting them here on the blog. I am not going to be releasing it as a free autoresponder course afterwards either. I am going to turn it into a report though. There will be a small fee to access it though. So, this will be the only time you can get this daily course for free.

Get Your 10 Steps To More Traffic…

The only way you are going to be able to get this short little special course for free is by going to my ezine sign up page and subscribe.

I hope that you will take the time to subscribe today.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Related posts on Affiliate
• Is affiliate internet business really gain a monthly income? If so …
• How To Automate Your Affiliate Marketing Campaigns | How To Make …
• What Is Affiliate Marketing?

• Related posts on ezine
• Ten Essentials Skills For Making Money on the Internet | Mass …
• Need Quality Content For Your Blog, Website, Ezine Or Newsletter …
• The City E-Zine » Southwest Airlines cancels flights this …

• Related posts on free internet marketing
• networkmarketing » Blog Archive » All Affiliate News
• Are you on MLM Struggle Street ? (Network Marketing) Success …
• Ebay Sellers-how To Market Your Auctions

The biggest reason people go to the ‘net is for information. This information is in the form of articles, or web page content, that populates websites. Gaining a piece of that traffic is the number priority of any online marketing business. Article writing, then, is a huge part of what you do as an internet marketer.

Here is a quick little presentation video that explains quite well the reasons why you want to use these articles and how to write them.

Article Writing Tips

Recently I wrote a quick post about what I believe internet marketing is. In that post I did a two things. First, I defined internet marketing as…

Internet advertising is being a loud voice to your market where you solve their problems with your products or services and build continuous, long lasting, and mutual relationships.

The next thing I did was lay out a quick formula that I think simplifies, and brings that definition, down to its most basic form.

Internet Marketing Formula = P + R = T

In that formula is the basic ingredients for your success with internet marketing. Doesn’t really matter if you’re into network marketing, affiliate marketing, adsense marketing, or marketing your own product or service. If you’re doing it online (or offline really) then these three variables are the main ingredients for your success formula.

But, what does it mean and how can you use it in your own marketing strategy? Just like any other type of algebraic equation, you plug in the numbers you know and solve for the one you don’t.

P = Problems

Or you could also substitute the words ‘need’ or ‘want’ here too. However you phrase it we’re talking about the things, solutions, services, goods, and/or information that people need or want. This is your contribution to their life.

You find out what people need, what they are struggling with, what they are buying now and you offer it. When I first started with copywriting and providing advertising services it was because of two things. First, I knew I wanted to help people. Second, I saw an overwhelming need for a real, personal, low-cost, and creative advertising service. I saw the problem and provided a solution.

Most advertising campaigns are built on trying to get the most traffic to a website so you can monetize that traffic in some way. When you build your advertising around a problem, or a want, or need, that traffic is already pre-sold into buying. Much more effective.

R = Relationship

Think of your favorite places to shop. Think about the people you buy things from. What makes that place, that person, so special?

It’s the relationship you have with them.

I’ve been teaching my clients this for a long time. This is something that I think a lot of affiliate marketers miss out on when they try to go for the quick buck. Long lasting relationships are a very powerful, and beneficial, tool in online marketing. Really for any type of marketing, online or off.

The recent boom in social media and the emphasis on building relationships people are finally realizing this for the first time.

When you think about it, building relationships with the people who visit your site is really one of the most important things you can do. Everything you use should be geared towards creating a foundation for future repeat business and referrals. Social media enables you to put more personality and build those relationships.

If you’re wondering how to build those relationships, here’s just a few different ways:

1. Weekly email newsletter
2. Videos
3. Blog posting and commenting
4. Connecting on Facebook and Twitter
5. Joint Venture partnerships

When you take the time to cultivate these relationships you are in effect stretching your advertising dollars. People want to do business with people they know, like, and respect. They will also refer that person to others.

A lot of my business comes from repeat clients and the people they refer. Relationships is a very powerful variable in the Internet Marketing Formula

T = Traffic

The end result of working with the first two variables is traffic. Every person online wants their share of the billions of people who actively surf the internet. This is the answer to our equation.

When you add both the problems (needs, wants) and the relationships you have built and are building the outcome is traffic.

You can’t have one and leave out the other. The formula isn’t P = T, or R = T. They are not equal or compatible.

P + R = T is the equation to have cemented into your mind as you begin planning, evolving, or implementing your advertising campaign.

Sample Internet Marketing Formula In Action

To get a perspective on what a marketing plan would look like using the P + R = T formula here’s a mock example.

Joe has started a new website focusing on movies. He wants to get traffic that will do a few things while at his site.

1. Sign up for the RSS feed.
2. Interact with comments.
3. Click on product links from Amazon.
4. Click on other related ads.

So, let’s work the formula.

Problem, Want, or Need

Joe sees an opportunity to provide real movie reviews, news from someone who really loves movies to an audience that isn’t as internet savvy and more wholesome. He sees that bigger movie sites are geared more towards a younger crowd.

Joe builds a site with this problem in mind and writes articles and posts directed at this type of audience. He is putting his personality into the posts in an effort to be real, and hopefully people will trust when looking for real movie news and reviews.

Relationship

Joe is thinking this site needs to be more like a family instead of random traffic from search engines. So, he is building relationships on StumbleUpon, Digg, Twitter, Facebook and in movie forums. He is also setting up a weekly email newsletter with special information on movies, dvd releases, and other information.

Another major component to his relationship building is going to be found in the comments on his blog and the comments he leaves on other blogs. He interacts with the people who leave comments on his blog so that they will want to come back. And by commenting on other blogs he is extending his reach to a bigger audience and engaging in the conversation going on there.

One more relationship builder that Joe is going to use is writing articles for article directories. These articles are going to be different from movie reviews and be like ‘10 Best Family Movies’, or ‘What Movies Should You Watch This Summer’. This will provide a jumping off point for people to get to know Joe. The perfect relationship builder.

Traffic

By concentrating on the problem (real, relevant movie reviews from someone who truly loves movies) and the relationships (through interaction and information) his traffic will begin to build over time and actually multiply at a good rate.

P + R = T

The Internet Marketing Formula isn’t some kind of gimmick or get rich quick scheme. It is a process by which you can “plug in the numbers” to help you create an effective internet marketing strategy.

I often tell my kids when they get stuck on an Algebra or Geometry question to do just that. I tell them to remember the formula they had learned to solve the problem and “plug in the numbers”. That’s what I’m telling you now. Use this formula and “plug in the numbers.”

I was on the phone today with a potential new client and after some “get to know you” type conversation he asked me a question that kind of stumped me. Not because I didn’t know the answer, I just wasn’t expecting it.

“What is internet advertising?”

I just took it for granted that the person who was going to hire me to work on his advertising campaign knew what internet advertising was and what it was all about. Silly me.

After explaining what it is that internet advertising is, and more importantly, what it is to me, we began to talk about goals, focus, costs, and putting a plan together. But, the question still rattled around in my mind. “What is internet advertising?”

Internet Advertising Defined

Success in internet marketing begins with what you believe that internet advertising is. Sometimes where you start isn’t always where you should start.

While I was explaining this internet advertising thing, I kept coming back to one thing over and over.

Internet advertising is being a loud voice to your market where you solve their problems with your products or services and build continuous, long lasting, and mutual relationships.

Take a minute to think about that for a second. I have been.

I’ve been thinking about it and the more I think about it the more I like it. In fact, let me rephrase that. I love it.

It think this is exactly what internet advertising, or any type of advertising, is.

Online Marketing Equation P + R = T

The ultimate goal to advertising a website online is traffic. That’s the T. Traffic is your income source. Without it, you’re not really accomplishing anything. But, the starting point for so many people when it comes to defining internet advertising is just the traffic. When really… that’s the ending.

You need to be a loud voice amidst the other clamoring voices to offer solutions to problems and to build relationships. So, it takes problems (P) plus relationships (R) to bring in the traffic.

What do you think?

I’ll be broadening out this definition in the days to come as I think about this some more. But, I was also wondering what you thought.

What do you think internet advertising is?

Think about it and drop your thoughts into the comments below. I’d love to hear them and hopefully begin to put together a grand definition as to what internet advertising is… in it’s simplest form.

Quick…

What is the most important part of your overall advertising campaign? Huh, huh??

If you want a better return on your advertising dollars then the answer to that question would be return visitors. Period.

Unfortunately, that concept is pretty underestimated. It seems, especially in the realm of network marketing and affiliate marketing, that the emphasis is on the quick sign up or the instant sale. I have several people contact me each week to write an email ad or two and always say something like, “I need this ad to pull like crazy to make me money in the next couple of days.” Ok. But, what about next week? Next month? Next year?

Long term is the new short term.

Most of the time I respond with something like, “I can write a great ad that will send traffic, but you should have something on your webpage to capture their interest and compel them to come back.”

That usually brings us into a conversation where I explain the importance of return visitors as opposed to just a one time shot in the fish pond.

In my previous post about how much money you should spend with your online advertising, I briefly touched in this topic but would like to shed a little more light on this. I truly feel, because of past, current, and future conversations with would be advertisers that this topic is widely underestimated. It’s just not in the realm of thinking.

I want to get something off my chest… every single advertising campaign you create must have long term effects. It simply must. Short term thinking, or advertising for a quick buck, will cost you more money in the long run. You actually lose profits.

Think of return before initial.

Before you ever put pen to paper, or keystroke to word processor, think about the return visitors before you begin pandering to the initial visitor. Here’s why.

When you begin to put the return visitor into your mind you will begin to formulate a plan, or a blueprint, on how to get people to return to your website or page. You will begin to see things a little differently. You’ll see them from the visitor’s perspective and not from a seller’s point of view. There is a big difference there.

When you’re seeing things through your seller’s eyes you just want the visitors and a quick profit. However, the visitor wants an experience. They want something they can engage with. They can feel emotionally drawn too. A website that will connect with them, pull them in, feel relevant to them, and give them a reason to come back will reap more benefits (profits) than one that focuses on a quick sale. That’s what you create when you begin with the repeat visitor in mind rather than the initial visitor.

Give them something to remember you by.

How do you do that? How do you get people to return? Give them something to remember you by.

Another benefit of thinking of the return visitor first is that you can begin to also plan out the incentives you will need to get people to return. In the online world there are several ways to do that.

You could…

give away a free report,
get them to sign up for an email newsletter,
download a free ebook,
entice them with a regular daily article,
get them to sign up for your RSS feed on your blog,
have a weekly podcast,
create your own online radio program,
ask for them to friend you on facebook,
produce a live video stream,
or even join your forum, or your own social network.

When you think about it, the possibilities are endless and only limited to your own imagination and creativity.

The key though is to make it your own. Be unique and give them something to remember you by. A big thing was, and in a lot of cases still is, popular was to give away free stuff that was rebranded. For example, ebooks that would contain your own affiliate links and even web page information. But, it wasn’t yours. It was someone else’s stuff. Someone else gets remembered.

Advertise multiple times for a one time cost.

Every fourth of July in my hometown there is a little carnival that comes and sets up at the park. There are some rides, food booths, displays, and even daredevil shows from time to time. I remember a time, when I was young, when you had to pay for each ride. It got quite costly and my parents would set a limit on how many rides I could do on. So I had to choose wisely.

But, after a few years they would have a set price to get into the fair and then you could ride all the rides as many times as you wanted to. I was in heaven. One ride in particular, The Flying Bobs, was, and still is, my favorite. Every year, I make a point to ride it until I get sick.

I got to ride my favorite ride as many times as I wanted for just one price. When you advertise, and set up your website, for the return visitor you’re riding your favorite ride for just one price.

Everything your visitor downloads, signs up for, watches on video, listens to in a podcast, or sees in your social network advertises your website to them for no additional cost. You don’t have to get them to click on an ad somewhere, or read it in an email, or see your banner on a website. They just stay in contact with you through your own materials and productions.

Your advertising costs stay low, or the same, and you’re actually receiving more traffic, more sales, long term clients, and people who are ready to recommend you/your product.

Think repeat visitors and create accordingly.

Your next ad campaign will have much better results if you think with a long term mindset. Think of return visitors and then create your plan accordingly.

I love internet advertising.

I love the challenge of not only working to build traffic to a website for a client, but also the challenge to always be thinking ahead and creatively creating new ways to advertise and capitalize on the traffic by keeping people coming back.

Your advertising isn’t really all that effective if you don’t have a plan in place to keep the traffic you get to visit your website to continue visiting it. I usually grade my ad campaigns with several different criteria, but two of them are;

1. How much traffic is coming to the site everyday? and,
2. How much repeat traffic is re-visiting the site each day?

Two very important testing points to a successful advertising campaign.

The key is how do you get people to return.

Three New Ideas For Repeat Traffic

I don’t if it is because I get bored easily or because I like to stretch boundaries and not follow everyone else, but I like to fiddle with things. I like to change them or improve them just to do things different. Status quo is not in my vocabulary. I think it makes people stale and lazy.

So, I’ve been thinking about and working out some new ideas for generating repeat traffic to your website or blog. Here’s six of my idea.

1. Be A Reality Star. Online video is becoming increasingly popular with online marketers. The biggest reason for that is that it is getting a lot easier to produce. A flip cam, windows movie maker, and a youtube account is just about all you need. Just record, edit, upload. Quick, easy, and so very productive.

Video is a great tool, but I think is hugely underused by online marketers. And where it is being used is getting stale and boring. What I am suggesting is to create a video series that is different and fresh. Create a reality show that shows you actually working your business opportunity, using the product you’re trying to sell, talking with clients, or whatever your niche is in. Just hit record and forget… for at least 15 minutes anyway.

And then offer this everyday. Make a huge deal of it in your blog, within your social networking circles, and in your emails.

You could use a service like Ustream, which is being used by people with great success… but, I like the thought of videos on your own domain, your own server, and with your own site’s design. The whole reason to get repeat traffic is to get it to your site.

What can you make a daily series of? Get a little creative with it and have fun with it. People like to see others have fun.

2. Write A Page A Day. We all give away free stuff for people to join our mailing lists, but not often to get people to return to our web pages. What if instead of giving away an entire ebook, report, or some other freebie you just uploaded a new section each day?

This idea is to instead of having a complete ebook for people to download and read at their leisure (which usually never gets read), you just upload a new section of that ebook on a daily basis for a set period of time. That will keep people coming back each day, to your website, to see the new section.

Again, they are on your domain, your web page, and your design with your products made available.

3. Use A 30/30 Plan. What is the 30/30 plan? Very simply this. You ask an expert in your niche 30 questions and then release the answers, one at a time, for a period of 30 days. This would work great if your main website is a blog. People will keep coming back to see each answer.

The key to making this idea work would be to ask relevant questions to real problems that people are having. Within each answer make sure there are plenty of resources and other content that people will find interesting and useful.

Once you get the first 30 days done, have another set of 30 questions ready to do it all over again.

Repeat Traffic Can Be Fun

Advertising doesn’t have to be all about ads and hype. It is fun. When I begin working with a new client I get excited. Because it gives me another opportunity to stretch my creative muscles, blast through boring boundaries, and have a lot of fun doing it!

If you’re a do-it-yourselfer, like I am, then use these three ideas and have some fun doing it!