Wednesday, November 12, 2008

How to Use a Newsletter to Generate Traffic

Right now, there are countless of ways to drive traffic to a site. But even though there are a lot of strategies, none of them can guarantee you results overnight. Driving traffic to a site is still the hardest job there is when it comes to maintaining a website. Traffic can be obtained by advertising and promotion. But do you know that you can get people to visit your website just by creating a newsletter?

People surf the internet for various reasons. But more than anything, they are online because they want to gain some information about something. Some people want to research more about a product before buying. Others are looking for suggestions from other users. And there are those who surf the internet just to gain knowledge.

Therefore, if your site has good content, the higher the chances that you'll amass a good number of unique visitors from time to time. But what if your website is not an information portal and is actually an e-commerce site? Adding too many articles to it may be a problem because you already have loads of pictures and images to put up.

Well, if that's the only concern that you have, the solution is quite simple. All you really have to do is to create a regular newsletter about your products and relevant information about them. Newsletters could provide you with both repeat and unique visitors on a regular basis. Just make sure that you got some juicy headlines and eye-catching offers included in your newsletters. And for sure, your visitors will visit you every now and then, check your new and old products, and stay until they are ready to buy your products.

To be successful in making newsletters drive traffic to your site, you have to maintain an active list of email addresses of people to whom you can send your newsletters. The list doesn't have to include thousands of email addresses at once, if you don't have that yet. What's more important is that you'll build your list slowly along the way. Besides, a targeted list is better than the lists you can buy from so-called online marketing gurus.

A functional mailing list is the moving factor behind making newsletters for traffic. And you can get the email addresses of your visitors right from your site. Make sure that you have some scripts installed that allow your visitor to subscribe to your newsletters and to receive exciting updates that you might offer. Try to include a script wherein they can invite their friends as well. This allows them to easily recruit visitors for you. Your visitor's friends could be an integral part of your daily traffic requirement.

The newsletters that you create regularly should be stored in one folder of your website. Always upload new newsletters promptly. You can use the actual web page to be sent to the people on your list.

Or you can simply send the link that will take them there. Between these two options, it is always better to send the page itself so that people will see your newsletters at once. This way, they can easily click on the live links included in the message if and when they find your articles and offers interesting enough. Now that's instant visitors for you.

So try to do the math. Imagine how many visitors you'll get if only around 10% of the 1,000 people would come and visit you. That's 100 unique visitors everyday. The number can't be that high, you might say. But then again, who's keeping you from sending your newsletters to millions of internet users? Just go ahead and keep updating your email database. Your traffic will definitely experience a spike in the days to come.

You can also keep an archive of your previously sent newsletters on a certain part your website for future reference. If you successfully create your newsletters to be both informative and exciting, then people will definitely go back and view them, even if it several months old. A database of newsletters could provide you with recurring traffic without too much effort on your part.

If you have yet to use newsletters as a strategy to drive traffic to your site, the right time is now. Don't be left behind by your competitors. Your website deserves to be seen, appreciated, and visited by hordes of traffic everyday. Start making that captivating newsletter today.

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