23 August 2010 ~ 25 Comments

FA006 – Six Free Traffic Sources For Audience Building

Audio

By Popular Demand:

We have gotten comments and emails asking for traffic generating strategies and tactics. So we decided to not wait any longer. Today’s show is Part 1 in our Traffic Source series and covers 6 of our favorite traffic tactics for building a following. (Izzy wanted to cover 5 and I made him throw in a bonus.)

Why just 6 in this show? Well, we wanted to give you some depth on each source instead of just making a quick list of traffic ideas.

In Part 2 (coming out Thursday), we cover another 6 great free traffic building tactics.

Listen in and enjoy our Traffic Source Series.

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As always, you can find all the past editions here.

  • http://www.WordpressTrainingHub.com Jeff Long

    I’ve loved the shows and the live episode on Ustream last week. Amazing stuff. I’m also working on my high quality FREE giveaway… as recommended by Izzy in a recent podcast. Great advice from 2 knowledgeable people. Thank you so much.

    Keep up the good work.

    Jeff
    WordpressTrainingHub.com

  • Oscar Wright

    Hi guys, your show is great…I just started a new blog on tango history following your advise and it is starting to grow very well….I mean in only 8 days http://todayintango.wordpress.com/

  • Michaelaivaliotis

    You can also visit discussion forums on your topic and answer questions. In your signature, add a link to your website. A simple link with your website name (no images) should suffice. If you consistently provide solid answers to questions, people will trust you and click on your signature link.

  • http://www.thewoodhaven.co.uk HavenTom

    Hows this for a constructive comment: I love the music intro to the podcast so much I keep coming back and playing it ad nauseum…. Don’t worry, I also worry why my wife hasn’t left me yet!

    Great Podcast guys, this one does help me as I do have a non-money generating website which could do with more traffic.

  • http://www.izzyvideo.com IzzyVideo

    Oh that’s too funny! LOL! :-)

  • Helena

    related to great content is engaging personality that will make peopel come back for more – and this is true in relation to the earlie comment about leaving useful comments on other forums.

    case in point – I listened to your first blogs primarily because I really enjoy Izzy’s personality on digi roundtable – I have (had) a theoretical interest in creating online business. I started to listen because I enjoy listening to Izzy and thought he’s have interesting things to say and the first show was interesting so I listened to the 2nd etc.

    Now I’ve become enthused about online business and have been working on an idea to start up a site in an area I’m passioante about, know a lot about and know there is little good stuff available online – watch this space .

  • http://www.izzyvideo.com IzzyVideo

    That’s very good feedback and a good point. And thanks for the kind words…
    :-)

    One thing I want to add is that everyone is interesting to someone. For
    example, while you might think I have an engaging personality, there are
    MANY people who think otherwise. They find other types of personalities
    engaging.

    When someone says they don’t have an engaging personality for writing,
    recording audio, or video, I can’t help but disagree. Everyone is
    interesting to someone else. It’s a big, big world and the internet can
    connect you with an audience of people who like your specific personality.

    You make a great point, and hopefully mine will add to it.

    And I’m looking forward to hearing more about what you create! :-)

    All the best,

    Izzy

  • http://www.izzyvideo.com IzzyVideo

    Michael — You nailed one of the items from Thursday’s show! Forums can be a great way to get traffic — although this isn’t something I’ve personally spent much time doing.

  • joy

    I’m not your mother — but I ENJOYED this and am going to implement your ideas to help traffic on my blog. Thank you – I think you are giving away AWESOME and helpful content and look forward to long term, consistent content!

  • http://www.izzyvideo.com IzzyVideo

    Joy!

    So happy to hear that you enjoyed it and found it helpful… And yes, we’re
    aware that by talking about these things, we’re also setting expectations
    that we’ll do them. :)

    That’s good though, because if we take our own medicine, we should see great
    results, right? I think so! We’ll see what the future holds, but so far so
    good…

    All the best,

    Izzy

  • Studiounforgettable

    Enjoyed this show! Thanks for sharing free ways to build traffic to your site. I recently purchased my domain name from godaddy and was wondering do you have websites separate from your blogs and if so are they linked to one another or do you let your blog function as your website. I have used Blogger in the past but I know you use WordPress. I actually like the look of WordPress better because I think it has a cleaner look. I haven’t chosen a host for my website yet because I’m not sure how they work. Can I use a host other than godaddy? Lastly, what were the two companies you mentioned your websites are hosted at. Thanks for everything!

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    My preferred hosting is Hostgator. I buy my domain names from Godaddy, but use Hostgator for my WordPress installations.

    It’s relatively easy to get your hosting set up and then to use Fantastico Deluxe inside the hosting control panel to use WordPress as your website.

    I’m planning to do a training webinar on how to set up hosting and install WordPress very soon. I’ll send out an email to all our subscribers to let them know when.

    t

  • Sprspr132

    You forgot one free means of advertising, spamming a popular website. Go to ecoecon.webs.com

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    We didn’t forget about spamming. It isn’t an effective strategy. Most people delete or prevent spammy comments from showing. And if for some reason they make it through, very few people click on the embedded link.

  • kimon inglessis

    How do I manage and create a email list? I’ve looked for an app, but there are so many it overwhelming. I have more content than marketing on a photography website mainly doing sports and models. Much traffic comes from a local sports website I work with.
    I would like to be able to send out a email linking new photos on my site, since currently its very hard to know new content has been added.
    http://amsterdamman.com/
    hope this isnt a double post, thats a tricky post window!
    Thanks for the helpful information.

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    Kimon,

    Izzy and I prefer aweber for email management. For price and functionality, it is hard to beat. There is a service called mailchimp that has a free version of their service. I’ve checked out your site and I would recommend switching to wordpress and using a portfolio style theme to really show off your work.

    Maybe the next time I come to Amsterdam, you can show me things tourists don’t see.

  • Anonymous

    I am enjoying these podcasts, like Helene I’m a fan of Izzy’s from the Paperclipping Roundtable.

    I’ve not worked out what I’ll do for a business, but enjoying storing up the ideas!
    I do like the informal style, but perhaps it’s a little tooo informal at times lol. I still get lots of brain food from what you are saying. Keep it coming guys! :)

  • http://www.silverphoenixllc.com Kevin J Railsback

    I am debating on which membership software to go with. I have aMember for a site that I hope to launch in the next month or so.

    Talked to someone about doing another show with them last night and it looks very promising. We listened to a couple of your podcasts to show her the help we will be getting on guiding us through the business landmines.

    Anyway, I know aMember but Wishlist looks pretty good and is quite a bit cheaper. Should I stick with aMember since I know it or give Wishlist a try?

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    Kevin,

    Izzy and I are evaluating wishlist now and may (or may not) be able to recommend it soon. We’ll keep everyone updated about the tools we use. I’m planning a resource page for FA to help answer questions like yours.

  • http://www.MathDad.com Adrian

    If it’s at all possible, when making your training webinar, please include how to modify the code in WordPress to allow uploads greater than 7 MB. It’s hard to have a video podcast if you can’t upload the video and don’t know code. Thanks for all you’re doing. I feel like I’m part of a team.

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    That’s a great idea, Adrian. There are several ways to handle it so I guess I should make sure they are all covered.

  • Vickilou

    Thanks guys! Izzy I benefited from your FCExpress video. You are a great teacher. My new venture went live 13 months ago and we have spent the last 9 months building the infrastructure and product. http://www.myarttutor.com. Our trailers will be released in the next 4 weeks and your information is very timely!

  • mande

    I love your podcast episodes as always. Does everything Izzy touch turn to gold?
    Well, I have been touting your Foolish Adventure podcasts to friends who are trying to start businesses of their own but with little success, so I really hope they’ll take a listen because I know they will get hooked immediately. I also wrote a review of a few of my favorite podcasts (amongst other things) on my blog and of course, I included this one.
    I think the ideas you are setting forth are great, and I want to try some of them to get more traffic to my blog. I am a little unclear about how RSS feeds work because I was one of those people who had trouble setting that up, not only for myself to keep up with all the blogs I like, but also because I somehow messed up some settings and it no longer feeds properly for people who follow my blog. This caused problems for me starting last fall when suddenly my comments dropped to nearly zero. Hasn’t picked up much since, and I think this is the main reason. My close friends and family members automatically check my blog, but others seemed to be waiting until they saw it pop up on their Google Readers, but since it doesn’t anymore, they stopped coming. I am really sad about that, but I don’t understand enough about my settings and RSS feeds to really know how to fix this.
    This brings to my point. Can you give us some more basic information like the following:
    Your recommended web site hosting companies
    How to set things up
    What categories to have on our site and what purpose they serve
    How or where to get a logo made
    What is the difference between a really well-designed blog and a web site?
    How are proper newsletters made? (not just emails, but like cool-looking newsletters)?
    How to choose a good web site address?
    How to make our web site easily searchable?
    How much should we be paying per month for site maintenance, hosting, and all the rest that running a web business will need?

    There are a lot of questions here, but perhaps you can address some of them throughout future episodes.

    Also, can you try to provide the links of any blogs/web sites you talk about during your cast? It would be helpful to go and look at them later rather than try to remember exactly what you said.

    Thanks so much, guys! You are doing a real service for the human race!
    Mande

  • http://twitter.com/nicxjustice nic justice

    hey guys I have just found your podcast from RT from twitter. been enjoying it but I also have a question for an upcoming topic and it suppose it can be seen as driving traffic.

    I know you fans of the membership sties but I think it is also important to have a quick way to login via facebook,twitter or disqus for comments on free content and things like that. What are your thoughts?
    (I’m coming from thinking music band sites and such)

  • http://www.videotools.com.br Jener

    Well, this is pretty obvious but always worth mentioning: the domain.

    If you get a good domain…one that says it all, it can help a lot.

    I have a network for brazilian video producers and the domain doesnt help much because it’s in english: videotools.

    So what I did was I created a separate blog with a domain which spells one of our main focus : after effects tutorials (in portuguese in my case, obviously)

    So the blog hit Google’s second page in about two weeks…and from there I drive new members to the newtork. And the network itself has got to the third page…no ads whatsoever…no ad campaings (so far).

    Cheers.

    ps: getting a domain nowadays is hard…it seems they are all taken. :(