5 Creative Ways to Build Links & Traffic

Sorry, but I was in the mood to write.. Hope you enjoy!

1) Purposely under-price an item on your website and brag about it on Slickdeals, FatWallet, etc. This works wonders in industries with terribly high markups. Sell those $200 Adidas predator soccer cleats for 100 bucks a pair and eat the lost profit. Meanwhile, enjoy dozens of links, great “accidental” marketing and a long dedicated list of new customers, all for “free”. I’ve done this before with guitars and made a killing with the add-ons: picks, straps, tuners, effects etc. I recommend a letter to customers explaining the mishap on the homepage, explaining that you will, in fact, make good on the mistake and purchase. (Unlike Amazon.com who cancels the transactions! I should have known Season II of The Wire for $4.40 was too good to be true!)

2) Pretend you’re a customer. Think of an appealing offer. 20% off any purchase at Bed, Bath & Beyond comes to mind. Make something up and post it on some of the hundreds of coupon sites out there. If it’s good, the other sites will pick it up. Great deals spread like wildfire online. Coupon Mountain currently offers two free coupon postings. (See? This idea in action) When people find a good deal or discount, they go out of their way to use it. For instance, did I really need a trillion pack of batteries from Home Depot last week? No, but I certainly couldn’t let a “$20 OFF a $75” purchase go to waste… By the way, ‘Free Shipping’ won’t cut it!

3) Pretend to be a curious customer. Post on craigslist.com or even your favorite forums asking about your own website. You need a good headline here. I’ve had hundreds of hits from “Anyone been to this site?” Not sure what is so enticing about that one specifically, but it works. Ask something like, “I’ve heard great things about this site from some friends; but before I buy, can anyone vouch for it?” Heard of it or not, people will check it and offer uneducated comments about why “it looks okay to me”. Either way, you will get traffic and maybe some conversion. Just another step to get on the radar.

4) Depending on what you offer, Ebay may be a great option for you. I have a buddy who, unbelievably to me, has had surprisingly descent success selling links on Ebay. Pretty creative actually. He’s sold ten PR8 links for $199 over the last year. This is a bad example, but hopefully you get the point. You need to put up an auction at the perfect time. Case and point, I sold one of my two signed Pearl Jam telecaster guitars for a solid $327 a few years back to help pay for a vacation. When the band announced their 2006 tour out of the blue, I sold the identical guitar for $799 on a Buy it Now for god sakes! World Cup Soccer key chains and tees sell like hot cakes every 4 years too. Take advantage of what’s hot, especially on Ebay! There is a huge audience of auctionees 35 cents away from you, who not only watch auctions, but visits the websites of the auctioners.

5) And now for my favorite and most fun, MySpace! Being that I am fairly fresh out of college where MySpace flourishes, I’ve made quite a few clams creating “corporate profiles” with that youth edge that old folks simply can’t capture (as hard as they might try). Back before Tila Tequlia was one of the most 50 important people on the web, I enjoyed 88 unique visits to an mp3 site just for posting on her MySpace page. Mind you, my post lasted on her homepage for all of about 8 hours, but it still helped. Not a bad return on 2 minutes’ time. This girl has had over a million posts since then! That’s a hard stat to comprehend, but it’s downright incredible. Today, if you are lucky, you will last on her page for a hot minute! Not kidding. Point is, MySpace is a great tool for sneaky marketing. You just pretend you are endorsing the person’s page you are posting on. So, on Tila’s page, you’d write “Download Tia Tequlia songs here!” Hi traffic! Hi $! The ideas on MySpace are endless. I can point you in the right direction if you can't think outside the box. For the record, Facebook works great for this too, but for whatever reason, it’s much harder to build “friends”. People are more selective of their friends and more careful of who they choose to associate with. God forbid, someone vouches for the nerdy kid by accepting his virtual friend invitation.

Finally, two easy obvious ones, absolute freebies. Delicious and Digg! Now, go post!

Thanks for reading, good luck, take care and have fun!
-Maximum Tadpole