Every day they show up. Maybe you only get three or four or maybe it’s more like twelve or fifteen. They pop into your inbox just when you think you need them. So you order. You spend $100 or more on ebooks and “systems” promising “server-crushing” traffic boosts. But do they really work?

The answer to this is about as easy to come up with as a fair price. There are a several different factors that contribute to the success (or failuer) of certain traffic tactics. In this article I am going to discuss a few variables that may influence their effectiveness. Here are three questions you can ask yourself before investing your time and money marketing on a social network.

Does The Network Get Enough Traffic?

When Squidoo made its debut there was a crazy rush of ebooks released teaching how to exploit it for tons of attention and traffic. Some of these books were excellent while others were about as “duh!” as you’d expect. Regardless of the ebook’s quality or the effectiveness of the tactics therein, if Squidoo had not taken off and remained a popular site then the ebooks would have been useless.


If you are considering the purchase of an ebook that is based around a particular social site, make sure that this site is popular enough to continue as a source of traffic. For instance, a sweet little Squidoo knock-off launches. Let’s call it Squidon’t. You receive no less than ten emails advertising ten different products promising to teach you how to get in on the ground floor and send everyone that ever visits Squidon’t to your site. That’s killer. Unless of course only seven people ever visit Squidon’t.

Do People on This Site Care About my Product/Blog/Whatever?

Now I’m not saying that it’s never a good idea to jump on a new opportunity. In fact, new opportunities are often the best way to go. Just make sure you do your research before you pay $47 for an ebook explaining how to exploit the network. Traffic is just a part of it. You need to be sure, before you put in a bunch of time, that you have a place within the network you choose.

A bit of a side note: I never really considered MySpace to be the best place for business marketing because most of the folks frequenting the site are not generally looking for business opps. It’s another post altogether, but since I read that MySpace gets more traffic than Google I have been reconsidering my position. I will most likely be following up with a post about MySpace after a bit more research. I am familiar with several gray-hat type tactics that are very time-consuming and debatably effective. If anyone has any feedback about using myspace for business marketing, I’d love to hear it.

In any case, when you choose to invest time and effort into using a network to build traffic, be sure there are people on the network interested in whatever you have. The best way to do that is to get familiar with the space. Create your account and then spend a week or so surfing around. Make some friends in your niche, see what other people are selling and be sure there is a place for you and your product or service.

Do I Have the Time to Invest?

Most tried and true traffic tactics take time to work. It is highly unlikely that you will find a method that doesn’t require a certain amount of time committment. The good news is, once you put in a healtyh amount of initial effort, the really effective methods often work in perpetuity. If you set up a page on FreeIQ and build a bunch of links to it, you could enjoy traffic for months or even years.

Keep in mind that, on top of learning the tactic and normal implementation time, you will need to spend some time testing and tweaking. Most worthwhile traffic-building methods are not out-of-the-box miracles. You will definitely need to customize until you find the right mix for whatever you are offering.

If you are going to spend money on an ebook teaching new traffic tactics you definitely want to be sure you are going to give it the time it needs to be effective. This question is perhaps the most important of the three because a tactic that is not properly developed is a complete waste.

You may want to believe the promises on the squeeze pages, but that is exactly why those promises are there. Take them in stride and just be sure to do the research. There are some really great programs out there so it is just a matter of finding the right tactics for your product or service. If you start with the three questions above, you’ll be in good shape to make an informed decision.

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27 Responses to “Traffic Generation Products: Three Questions to Ask Before you Buy”

  1. no imageRobb Lochaber (Check me out!) on January 22nd, 2008 1:02 pm

    For me the acid test for any traffic boosting approach is the litmus test. Track the traffic from that source. How much converts? How much time on site do they spend?

    Nothing worse than getting 10,000 hits where 99.99% only stay on site 15 seconds or less *flushing noise*

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  2. no imageSara Ch. (Check me out!) on January 22nd, 2008 8:46 pm

    Robb,

    I completely agree. It is sort of like when an article shows up on Digg and you get an onrush of traffic…for one day. What a letdown when that disappears!

    You certainly want to spend your time on a network that delivers quality traffic, not just quantity.

    Great point!

    Sara

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  3. no imagekoky (Check me out!) on January 23rd, 2008 9:22 am

    These scams will always be around. Not sure who will invest in these sort of get traffic fast scheme…

    koky’s last blog post..Don?t Quit

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  4. no imageSalesDrivenMarketing.com (Check me out!) on January 23rd, 2008 10:27 am

    Hi there - good blog topic. Every website’s success is dependent upon how many people visit monthly. One easy way, and quick, is to effectively advertise on the 3 major search engines: Google, Yahoo and MSN.

    Best,

    j. Bruce
    http://www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com
    Contact the Internet Advertising Experts Today.

    Rate this:
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  5. no imageJed (Check me out!) on January 23rd, 2008 12:47 pm

    Thanks for the tips, it seems to be easy to spend money on your dreams but hard to spend time. Success takes time and there is no e-book around that, although there are books that can guide you. So use them as a guide and not the answer.

    Rate this:
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  6. no imageNikki (Check me out!) on January 23rd, 2008 12:59 pm

    Thanks for the tips! Nicely done. :D

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  7. no imagevoipBlogger (Check me out!) on January 23rd, 2008 3:36 pm

    Interesting article. Pricing for these ebooks very so much and really depend on demand and the media coverage of that topic.

    Rate this:
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  8. no imageNintendo Wii (Check me out!) on January 24th, 2008 3:24 am

    Yup! nicely written article. Nice tips too. Thanks

    Nintendo Wii’s last blog post..Nintendo Wii Games

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  9. no imagepenis büyütücüler (Check me out!) on January 25th, 2008 11:19 am

    niceee thnakss

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  10. no imageInvestment Banking Jobs (Check me out!) on January 25th, 2008 6:57 pm

    Great tips! Traffic building definitely takes time.

    Investment Banking Jobs’s last blog post..How Investment Bankers Decide If You Get An Offer

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  11. no imageBasement Ideas (Check me out!) on January 30th, 2008 2:28 pm

    Success takes time and there is no e-book around that, although there are books that can guide you. So use them as a guide and not the answer.

    Basement Ideas’s last blog post..Basement Ideas - Use A 3D Interior Design Tool

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  12. no imageJACL (Check me out!) on January 30th, 2008 10:19 pm

    There will always be all kinds of e-books. The trick is real life experience. A book can tell you the mechanics of pitching or swimming but you will never really master it until you have some hands on experience. Traffic building comes from hard work.

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  13. no imageStephan Miller (Check me out!) on February 4th, 2008 1:19 pm

    A lot of the ebooks I have purchased I see as information aggregators. Most of the information can be found online. But do you want to hunt it down? By buying the ebook, you have everything you need in one package.

    Stephan Miller’s last blog post..Brainstorming the Best Keywords for Your Adwords Campaign

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  14. no imageSara Ch. (Check me out!) on February 5th, 2008 1:42 pm

    Stephan,

    That’s a very good point. I suppose it is the old time vs. money equation. If you don’t have the money to pay someone else to aggregate the information, you can give your time.

    Sara

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  15. no imageneil strauss (Check me out!) on February 8th, 2008 9:22 am

    Yeah, I had spent money on ebooks because of impulse and of the staggering amount of traffic they were to bring only to find out its not really that good.

    Does myspace get more traffic than google!!!???? Are you sure? Where did you find this out from? If so I need to look into myspace too!!!

    neil strauss’s last blog post..Tantalize Her With Scents

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  16. no imageAntiVirus (Check me out!) on February 11th, 2008 3:47 am

    one tip: never advertise on blogcatalog

    the hit rate was so bad that i don’t recommend anyone to advertise there

    Rate this:
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  17. no imagebike (Check me out!) on February 14th, 2008 3:56 am

    always try out smaller packages before making a huge financial commitment!

    Rate this:
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  18. no imageL Pedigree (Check me out!) on February 26th, 2008 5:15 pm

    This is a fantastic post. I love your blog check out my financial news blog

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  19. no imageMelissa (Check me out!) on March 2nd, 2008 10:37 am

    If it sounds to good….you know what I mean. Always check Alexa rank of a traffic website before buying. If the site that selling the traffic has a poor ranking…well that’s a warning sign.

    Megaadonline is a site that I thing will be real good for low budget advertising, read some stuff about this site and I’m impressed.

    http://www.megaadonline.com Check the free nuggets on the bottom of the site “Free text ads”

    Rate this:
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  20. no imageBetty (Check me out!) on March 3rd, 2008 1:56 pm

    I never buy ebooks that promise to crash my server. I know that won’t happen. If it did work so well that genius wouldn’t sell it for 10 bucks.

    Rate this:
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  21. no imageLiving Infinitely (Check me out!) on March 8th, 2008 12:53 pm

    Great post. I would say with anything in life, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is! Traffic building can only be done through quality content, time, and effort.

    Living Infinitely’s last blog post..Why You Should Turn Your Cell Phone Off For 1 Hour per Day

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  22. no imageJim Cerne(google me) (Check me out!) on March 13th, 2008 6:21 pm

    Excellent article, I apparently need to learn about “plugs”, submitting and article submission, in general. Oh, yes, what is this is this RS feed?

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  23. no imageWhistler Snow Report (Check me out!) on March 27th, 2008 9:05 pm

    I have tried a few of those ‘get traffic to your site’ programs, and none worked for me.
    My website is still young, but I am sticking to my topic, and slowly the traffic is picking up. Unfortunately the winter ski season is coming to an end, so I presume the traffic will dry up until next season.
    I recently started another site Whistler Ski Rentals that is doing nicely, but still struggles to get traffic. Any ideas would be much appreciated (besides from buying traffic)
    Keep up the nice blog

    Whistler Snow Report’s last blog post..Contender for best day of the season

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  24. no imageHiking Backpacks (Check me out!) on April 25th, 2008 8:54 am

    I had been under the impression that Myspace was on the way out. Most of us as individuals moved over to Facebook, since it is more personal and not over run with spammers.

    Rate this:
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  25. buy targeted traffic on May 23rd, 2008 12:26 am

    buy targeted traffic…

    …



  26. no imageWebsite Hosting (Check me out!) on June 7th, 2008 4:40 am

    It honestly makes me sick to my stomach thinking about all of the “killer” ebooks I’ve purchased over the years…seems the prices have gone down a bit in general, but still, usually too expensive!

    If I only knew then what I know now…I’d have a heck of a lot more money in the bank!!

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  27. no imageSubmit to Chinese Search Engines (Check me out!) on June 9th, 2008 2:42 pm

    Why buy marketing magazines, E-books etc. when you can get them for free:

    http://www.megaadonline.com/html/sales_marketing.html

    Don’t forget the Asian Market, there’s a lot of traffic there.

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