Ask Barry: "How Do I Drive The Right Traffic To My Web Site?"

Today I'll share another question that came in through the "ASK BARRY" service. If you don't already know about it, this is a free service where anyone can post a question to a MLM Heavy-Hitter and get a personal response. Either click on the link in this paragraph or in the "Ask Barry" box in the right column.

Here's today's question:

"I recently joined [name of mlm company]. This is the first time I've been involved in anything like this online. My question is, how do I drive the right traffic to my website and convert them to buyers?

I've been using traffic exchanges, bought leads (thousands) and have only signed up 2 reps. Meanwhile people like [heavy-hitter name 1] and [heavy-hitter name 2] are raking in new members daily.

Please advise."

Thank you for your question.

There is a lot of hype about Internet marketing and how "easy" it is because people make a lot of money selling this information. Be very careful!

The truth is, for a person new to Internet marketing, there is no easy answer. Many people struggle to drive traffic to their site, and most fail miserably.

I'd start by contacting [heavy-hitter 1] and [heavy-hitter 2] and ask them what they do, since they're in your company. A warning though: They may not tell you the truth since a lot of what heavy-hitters do online is not duplicable, but they don't want to discourage you. This is not to say anything bad about the heavy-hitters personally since I don't know them.

My experience has been that people who are doing well marketing on the Internet either:

1. Have a TON of money they're investing into it every week.

2. Had an established online email mailing list and vehicle for driving traffic before they started with their MLM company.

You probably don't have either one of those things, so what do YOU do?

Not knowing the details of your background or what you're offering, it's difficult for me to give you specific help. However, here are some very important factors:

1. If you have a replicating web site you're at a big disadvantage because the search engines will penalize you. That means you have to pay for traffic.
2. Buying email leads is almost always a waste of money.
3. Traffic exchanges, FFA, ... all that stuff is mostly a waste of time, and again, can actually hurt you in the search engines.
4. Using Pay-Per-Click through Google AdWords and also Yahoo can work very well and is what a lot of heavy-hitters, including myself, are doing. However, you must know the inside secrets of how to do it. If you don't, then it will probably very, very expensive and ultimately a waste of money. It's certain there are other people in your same company with bigger budgets than you and you'll be competing against them. This drives up the cost per lead and makes it a very expensive way to drive traffic to most any MLM site.
5. The way to succeed online is to do something DIFFERENT! Create your own site that focuses on one unique aspect of your product so that you can establish a niche that isn't so competitive with other people in your company. Then you can win at the organic search engine game and also the pay-per-click game.

Bottom line - Internet marketing is a business unto itself and requires a learning curve.

If you're new to network marketing, then you're trying to learn 2 businesses at the same time, and that's tough to do.

That's the reality.

You may be dazzled by others who are successful, but remember: there's always a story behind the story. If they're successful now, it just means they paid their dues earlier.

Here are more resources to help take you to the next level:

1. "How to Generate Your Own Top-Quality Leads Online." A Special Report I wrote.
   
2. How to establish a unique niche within your MLM company to market. Free article.
   
3. The Definitive Guide To Google AdWords. Best book in the business from the guy who was my mentor.
   

If you decide to pursue this you have a bit of a learning curve ahead. On the other hand, it's definitely worth it as the Internet is a very exciting and profitable place to market once you learn how.

To your success,

Barry Burns