31 Jan 14 3:09 am
Hi Andrew, and welcome!
Yes that's right. You pay $2 per click. That is a pretty darn expensive way to get traffic, and I don't think I'd recommend it for your very first site!
Most new affiliates start out trying to get free traffic through the search engines through search engine optimization (SEO). How to do this when every other man and his dog is trying to do the same thing is the tricky part, and if I were to explain every little trick and theory, we could be here all day.
I really strongly recommend that if you're brand new to affiliate marketing, you grab an introduction course like our
AffiloBlueprint, and pay particular attention to the first section (Market Research and Keywords), and then sections 5, 6, 7 and 8 -- which all focus on different ways to get traffic to your website. There's a lot on SEO, but also a lot of other strategies.
Hopefully the market research section will tell you things you already know, and you won't need to make any changes to your website. But the worst thing I see is when affiliates plunge into building a site without really knowing their market or "where the money is", and then spend months trying to get visitors to something that will never actually make them money!
Hopefully that's not the case with your site, but it's good to check before you start investing time (or money). That section also helps feed into the search engine optimization section, because you want to make sure you're optimizing your site for the kinds of words and visitors who will actually make you money as well.
Those other sections -- are basically the answer to your question here. All the different ways of getting visitors to your website. (And getting the RIGHT visitors -- the ones who will buy things!). There's also a lot about how to get more money out of your visitors by creating a newsletter list. This is a real biggie.
If AffiloBlueprint (or some other course like it) is out of your price range... you can probably find a lot of information for free around the internet. Search for "SEO basics" or "introduction to SEO" or something, and you'll quickly see that there's a bit you have to learn. It can get a little confusing and overwhelming (particularly since the rules change quite often, and some of the advice on the web can be out of date), which is why a structured course is a good idea.
That said, some other ideas are...
* Create videos, post them to YouTube, include your website URL
* Post on forums and blogs related to your topic, include your URL in your signature
* Submit your site to StumbleUpon
* Write guest posts for related websites (if you've got something good to say!)
* Talk up your site on Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites
* Look into buying advertising space on other popular websites, eg
http://buysellads.com/* Create a Kindle ebook to sell on Amazon, include your website link in it
* Answer questions on Yahoo Answers
.... the list goes on. Good luck!
(Anyone else got a favourite (inexpensive) method for getting traffic?)
