michael, May 22, 2007

Today, I want to share with you a method I have used to double my traffic and my sales. If this method will work for you I don’t know.But it is very simple and worth a try.

Traffic Duplication Strategy

In a nutshell it comes down to this: duplicate what already works.

Step 1: Find out which referring sites are most valuable

Step 2: Investigate the referring site.

Step 3: Find 5 sites that are just like the referrer

Step 4: Try to get a link on these new sites

In more detail, this is how you can use Logaholic to get the information you need.

Step 1: Find out which referring sites are most valuable

Open up your Logaholic and go to the “Referrer Conversion” report. Select the appropriate target file (your ‘Key Performance Indicator’) and choose a date range. You may want to make the date range quite big, say 3 months, to get an accurate picture of the Referrer conversion rates over time.

When the result appears, sort the table by the Converted Visitors column to see which site sent you the most customers. Observe the conversion rates for each site.If you have multiple target files, you may want to run this report for each one and compare the results.

Now, if most of your traffic is from Google, that is going to be hard to duplicate. You can try working on Yahoo and MSN and try get more search traffic from there.

More interesting are other sites that link to you, either through advertising or a natual link. Note down the top 5 sites (or whatever number you want) that sent you the most customers with the highest converting traffic.

Step 2: Investigate the referring site.

Next, visit those top sites and try to find your link. See if you can find a way to improve it’s exposure on the site.
You can contact the webmaster thanking them for the link to get a conversation going if you don’t already have contact with these sites. The point is that you already know this site sends you quality traffic, so you want to try to get them to send you as much traffic as possible.

While you visit these sites, note down a few keywords you think this site should be found on in google. Or, check the page source to see the META keywords they are using. Once you’ve done that for your top converting link partners, it’s time to duplicate it.

Step 3: Find 5 sites that are just like the referrer

For each top converting site, try to find 5 website that are essentially the same. Most of the time, whatever site is linking to you – there are more sites like it out there. They may not be as good and they may not have as much traffic to send you, but they will still have some.

You may even hit the jackpot and find out that an unpopular site is sending you a little bit of good traffic and that
there is a similar site that can send you great traffic, and lots more of it.

Good ways to find ‘similar’ sites is by using Alexa Related Links feature.
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/related_links?q=&url=www.yetterco.com
(above link has a random chosen example for farming equipment, just to prove my point)

Also, use the keywords you collected from Step 2 and do some searches on google. Check out the top results to see if there are any other sites that could link to you.

Step 4: Try to get a link on these new sites

Once you have made a list of potential link partners, it’s time to contact them – PERSONALLY. Don’t use a template, don’t use a standard text. Send them a real personal email and simply ask for the link.

You are in a great position to do so, because you can say “site thisandthat.com” also links to you. Since they operate in the same space, chances are they know about this site.

Of course, there may be something expected in return, money, a link or whatever the situation is your case. But Logaholic
has given you a sense of the return you could expect – you’re in a good position to negotiate.

Depending on what you find and how successful you are at extending your links onto these new sites, this strategy can make a huge difference in your traffic and sales levels.

Beware of ‘link building’ software. They can be effective, but they are very time consuming. Using the information you get from Logaholic, you are targeting link partners with laser precision and it will take you much less time to actually get some new links!

The best part is, after a while, you can do it all over again. I have successfully applied this technique on Logaholic.com 3x times now and have grown in traffic by 700% – the rest is my secret 😉

That’s it. Very simple and you could start doing this today!