Needless to say, I’m finding myself a little behind now in the program, but as much as i do not like it – i am still making progress each and every day and that is what matters.

The latest lesson entitled “Traffic Tornadoes” was really good, informative and motivational. As the name implies, the lesson was focused on… yep, you guessed it! methods used to help get web traffic to your site(s).

I am really looking forward to seeing what i do with these traffic methods.

So here we go – traffic generation – something i have not necessarily been too good at for the reason that it really is “work” and tedious repetitive work to boot!

The goal i have with this process is to get my feet wet, and trample on everything and anything i can do to get web traffic to my site myself. By doing so, and most importantly by analyzing the referring sources, i can determine where to focus my time and energy on based on the results I have received afterwards.

The 80 20 rule states this:

80% of your efforts will drive 20% of traffic
20% of efforts will drive 80% of traffic

So from what i gather from this, (assuming i understood correctly), your time should be broken down by:

Spending 20% of your time working on your content (blog posts, products, etc..)
Spending the other 80% promoting it or driving web traffic to it.

With that said – outsourcing any traffic generation methods that can easily be outsourced is my goal here, assuming that i can get it done for the right price and of course with minimal supervision required.

Now,

Traffic methods suggested by Alex to get web traffic:

Blogging

Oil Rig Hopping/ Review other internet traffic blogs

This means hopping from other related blogs and posting quality comments with a link back to yours.

Where and how to high traffic blogs…

Where?
http://www.winningtheweb.com/im-top-blogs/

How?
Type into google.. “<your niche> blogs” “<your niche> + blog”

Giveaways
Offering something for free to visitors who subscribe/join your mailing list.

Twitter
Twitter is a micro blogging service which you can use to build better relationships with.

You are allowed 140 chars/letters to a twitter post and any post you make on Twitter can be viewed by anybody who is following you.

Think of Twitter as a text messaging service which allows you to send out messages to anybody on your contact list (people who are following you). Can you see the potential for traffic generation and more importantly business here if you have a large amount of people following you?

PS: you can follow me on twitter – http://www.twitter.com/colinpike

Youtube
Create and post your videos to youtube with links displayed inside your video.

Youtube links
Comment on other videos with a link back to your site.

Additional traffic methods I will be putting to use:

Building a Squidoo.com lens

Hubsites.com

Article promotion
Submitting articles to Ezinearticles.com, Goarticles.com and Articlecity.com.

RSS Submit
Another program which i bought which allows me to submit my blogs RSS feed to 65+ RSS Feed sites with a push of a button.

Yahoo answers
Visit Yahoo answers and start answering questions in your niche and leaving your url in your comment.

Optimize each post for SEO
I will be doing keyword research prior to posting any content on my blog. This will allow me to find a keyword phrase(s) that has good traffic and little competition that i can rank organically for. I can then take my chosen keyword phrase, insert it into my post title and optimize the post by inserting the keyword into the content.

Directory submission
Have the software packages Directory Submitter and Submiteaze for submitting my site to directories with.

These software programs basically semi-automate the submission process by taking you to the directories submission page and auto filling pre-defined profile information into required fields.

Put tell a friend form script on site

Search Engine Submission

Submit to Yahoo Site Explorer
Submit to Google Webmaster Tools

Alexa commenting
As the title implies – leaving comments/reviews on this site with a link back to your site.

Social Bookmarking your site/pages

digg.com
technorati.com/faves/
slashdot.org
furl.net
listable.com
propeller.com
flickr.com
searchles.com
socialogs.com
fluther.com
sk-rt.com
stumbleupon.com

You can also choose to use online tools that submit your bookmarks to numerous social bookmarking sites at once, such as:

Social Marker

In addition to this, i also have a plug in called Auto Social Poster on my blog which automatically bookmarks my posts to 20+ different social bookmarking sites.

Updating your Facebook Status after every Twitter post

Every Tweet you make in Twitter will automatically update your FB status, in turn driving more traffic to any link you include in your Tweets. It kills two birds with one stone – saving you time.

To do this, add this application to your Facebook:

http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/

After adding the application to your FB, you’ll noticed a link button that says “Want Twitter to update your Facebook status? Click here”

Click it, and you’re done.

…

Although i do not know how i am going to go about recording everything i do in an organized fashion just yet, i can only assume that it will be setup in excel and i strongly suggest you do the same when setting up your plan for getting web traffic to your site.

There are tonnes of ways you can go about getting traffic to your web site, however this is a good starting point – don’t you think?

Traffic is probably the biggest obstacle you’ll need to overcome before you are prepared for success and the best part about what is set to transpire here is that all traffic you’ll receive from this idea of Garry’s will be targeted – meaning those people who click on your link to visit your blog through his newsletter will be looking to find out what you are up to or what you may be offering on your blog. In addition to this, you’ll only need to do the work once and you are completely set up for as long as your links remain active in his edition.

It really does not get any easier than this – Virally generated traffic!

This is a great opportunity for students to get more exposure to their blogs through his newsletter – which mind you would be a great resource to personally have as well, so subscribe to his newsletter. The bottom line here is that i suggest you all head over to his blog and read more to get a better picture about this concept:

Get a slice of the 1 MILLION up for grabs

In a non-related update:

The Wordpress eBook i have been working on this past week has now is just about ready for it’s final touches and proofing. The draft has been completed to my satisfaction and it’s looking good. Should be ready real soon.

The only real obstacle i am facing so far should in turn be the easiest and is figuring out what exactly i want to name the damned thing! If any of you have any suggestions, fire’em over!