...and I don't have any problem walking.
This post is a follow-up to Ana’s great piece on diversified traffic generation strategies.
As you read that article, you may get overwhelmed with the suggested number of techniques and amount of work. You may wonder, how can you even keep all of that in your head?
My answer is you don’t have to.
I suggest that you plan it once, set some goals, implement minimal performance tracking, and then just follow your checklist. This may take half an hour to set up, but this will save you days you could lose to disorganized thoughts and procrastination.
I tried a similar structured approach with my link building guest post at Search Engine Journal, and that worked great for me. So I will take the table template from there, and adapt it to this new task.
Click the image to enlarge
You can see several methods of generating traffic (3 in this case, you have to start somewhere). For each method, you can see 3 weekly figures:
- Ideas. This is how many new actions you can find in a week. These may be article ideas, potential link partners, scheduled events, or something else depending on the method.
- Actions. This is the number of actions that you actually manage to perform in a week, given limited time and resources.
- Visitors. This is the resulting number of visitors, as tracked with Google Analytics or other tools.
I also added two columns for weekly total visitors and conversions. These will keep you informed of your overall progress.
You can also notice one more method labeled “Something new”. I believe it is essential to try some new ways of building traffic on a regular basis. Then, when you discover something effective, you can add it as a new column to your regular plan.
Having to update this table once a week will give you some motivation to stick to your plan. It will also give you some data to review and analyze.
You’ll be able to easily identify where you are lagging behind, and where you are especially productive. Depending on the reasons, you may want to catch up with some lagging techniques, or get rid of them.
What traffic generation techniques you can start with?
The ones presented in the picture above are good to start.
Also, have a look at my Top 10 Link Building Techniques – you are generating traffic with every link you build, some as direct clicks, and some as a long-term SEO effect.
Rebuttal from Ana: Sorry, Val, but I have to step in here and offer a different opinion on link building and what works and what doesn’t.
I’d highly suggest to my readers to read both your post linked above and my post titled Link Building: What’s Naughty, What’s Nice? and let us know what you think in comments.
Just remember, there are many approaches to link building and Val’s approach will work best for niche site or static sites with little competition. My approach is best for blogs like mine. Either way, let us know what you think.
However, traffic generation is not limited to link building.
For example, Twitter and Facebook are more valuable for traffic generation than for link building.
Also, you can use multiple offline, word-of-mouth and viral promotion methods that may not produce traceable links, but may give you a lot of traffic. Here are just a few ideas:
- publishing free e-books
- attending industry conferences
- handing out souvenirs
- appearing in press
- speaking on local radio
- launching an affiliate program
- becoming a columnist
Be creative and try to track each traffic source.
For example, use unique URLs in your free e-books. Maybe even register a separate domain name for print ads. Master the methods which work well for you, and get rid of the rest.
Marketing Takeaway from Ana
Val definitely has a valid point (no pun intended 
).
If you don’t know what results a particular traffic method brings, then what’s the point of working your you-know-what working on it?
If tracking of any kind scares the heck out of you, then a simple table as Val suggested above is perfect for you. Minimum time investment with maximum returns - how can you go wrong with that?
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