Nov 15, 2009

My website needed more targeted traffic. Guess where I found it?



by: Brian McGregor
There’s nothing new about using joint ventures (JV's) to get traffic to websites. And good information is freely available from many internet marketing sites on how to set up JVs. 
 
This article is for the 97% of webmasters who aren’t aware of a particularly powerful JV partner who already exists, and is willing to work with you. 
 
Before I reveal all, let me just check...
Like me, I would image you’d be happy if:
* Your JV partner’s site gets huge traffic.
* The vast majority of page views are by targeted traffic.
* You can create links wherever YOU like from their site.
* You can start now. There’s no delay in setting up the JV.
* The JV continues as long as you want.
* It costs you pennies to set up and run. 
 
Does that sound like it’s what you’re looking for in a JV?
If so, welcome to eBay. You’re new joint venture partner. 
 
But I Thought...
"eBay?" I hear you ask, "Isn’t eBay just an auction site?"
Well, it certainly started as an auction site. Today, eBay is an ecommerce phenomenon.
* eBay’s 1.5 billion page views puts it in sixth place on Alexa traffic rankings. Ahead of Amazon, AOL and CNN.
* eBay members make 79 million targeted searches for items each day.
* There are 35,000 categories within which to place items for sale.
* There are eBay auction sites in 27 countries.
* eBay has 125 million registered users.
* 40,000 new members join eBay each day. 
 
What we have here is a hugely successful internet business with massive traffic. And, thanks to eBay’s sophisticated categorization and searching mechanisms, the traffic is totally targeted. 
 
More importantly, there are several smart ways to drive eBay’s targeted traffic to your own website. All of these clever methods add up to what I call the eBay Traffic Funnel. 
 
Does it work? Well, I sell a communications product from my website. I run 5 simple auctions in the appropriate categories using the principles of the eBay Traffic Funnel. Each auction costs me 30 cents and runs for a week. I get around 300 targeted leads from these auctions to my website every week. Not bad for one dollar fifty! 
 
Let me show you just one of the ways to get hold of that targeted traffic... 
 
Sell, Sell, Sell 
 
First of all, you make eBay part of your marketing mix. You start selling your products on eBay.
Why do I say this? Well, eBay isn’t just for mom and pop businesses anymore. IBM, Disney, Motorola, Xerox and Dell, are just a few of the major corporates that now use eBay as an additional sales and lead generation channel. 
 
Creating eBay auctions is easy. Anyone can do it - literally. But if you don’t want to learn, you can use a Trading Assistant. These are eBay experts who will create, run and manage auctions on behalf of others for a percentage of sales or a small fee. 
 
When you set up your auction one of the decisions you make is in which category to place your item. This is important. Visitors to your auction page - just by being there - have self qualified themselves as being in the market to buy products in that category. This is targeting in real time. 
 
But merely creating the auction isn’t the trick. Here’s the key tip. In your auction page, make sure you tell your viewers that if they’ve any questions about your auction, your products or your policies, they should email you. And encourage them to do this by having a live email link in your auction, like this one brian@more-auction-sales.com 
 
As soon as they make contact with you, you’ve acquired a targeted lead you wouldn’t have got any other way. You can start building a relationship. You can get them on your list, direct them to your website and start selling to them. 
 
Pieces of Eight 
 
I’ve only the space to show you one way in which you can direct your share of eBay’s targeted traffic to your website. There are eight ways in total. If you want to know the other seven, you’ll find them in my free ebook ‘The eBay Traffic Funnel’. You can get this here: http://www.more-auction-sales.com/websites 
 
Setting up a JV with eBay can produce significant results. There isn’t another business on the web that gives you access to the targeted traffic eBay supplies for the price of a few pennies. Best of all, 97% of webmasters have yet to realize the power of this. The opportunity for you and your website is there for the taking. 
 
About the author:
Brian McGregor specializes in showing website owners how to make more money from their sites by applying inventive and original use of eBay. For free information on how to use the power of eBay to make more money with your website, visit http://www.more-auction-sales.com/websites
Posted by at