Starting out is overwhelming. If you are a small business owner looking to expand your marketing efforts online, you will easily find yourself at a loss when trying to cerate your to-do list.

Well, I’ve done that for you. Here are all the tools and resources to launch a successful website and see results pretty fast.

Source #1 – Email Traffic

Email marketing is the best. Many industries see open rates in the 20%+ range, and that is a major result when you pit it against other forms of marketing. It is a valuable tool for lead generation, whether those leads are in a sales industry, or in gaining readers within the content industry.

You should be trying to get everyone who visits your site to join your email subscription list. Some tactics for doing so include providing a simple sign up form at the end of each post where they can put in their email, and use it as a call to action; use a landing page pre-launch that asks for sign ups so they can be told of the opening of your site; offer exclusive content for sign ups, such as an ebook.

If you are starting out, you won’t have a huge email list, understandably. But there’s always an opportunity to partner with a niche big player to get featured in their email. In our industries, SEJ and SEL are two good examples of those lists to be featured in.

Toolbox:

• Both Sumome and Launch6 are two great tools to start collecting leads from your site from the very start.
• Both GetResponse and MavSocial can be used to manage those email lists to interact with your subscribers and drive them back to your site
• If you are into ecommerce or SaaS, you’ll also need a contact management solution to store and organize your leads properly. Salesmate is a good example

Resources:

• 8 Effective Email Marketing Strategies, Backed by Science
• 15 of the Best Email Marketing Campaign Examples You’ve Ever Seen

Source #2 – Social Traffic

Social media is a pretty standard platform, so you have almost certainly set up at least a Twitter account for your blog. Each site has its own strengths when it comes to building your site, so you should try and exploit them all as much as possible.

For direct engagement with influencers and others who might promote your site (including blogs you can guest on), Twitter is the best. The open nature of its design, the use of hashtags, the ease of search… it all combines to make it the ultimate one on one tool.

If you are aiming for a good advertising structure, Facebook is the way to go. Their ads will promote either specific pieces of content, or your site itself (you will want a mix of both), and they can be set on your own daily budget and how many views per day it can offer. Then you can set about interacting with the traffic that results, and sending it back to your site.

Settle on your goals and you will be able to make a social plan that fits your needs, and leads to a consistent traffic source.

Toolbox:

Both Drumup and Mavsocial are two great inexpensive options to manage your social media accounts across a number of social media channels. They handle multi-user and multi-channel posting, scheduling, re-sharing the same content several times and more.

Besides, you can try ad management platforms like Qwaya that simplifies and scale social media advertising as well as offers some advanced analytics thanks to Google Analytics integration.

Resources:

• Best Social Media Management Tools
• Twitter Ads Vs Facebook Promoted Stories Vs StumbleUpon Paid Discovery

Source #3 – Referral Traffic

Guest posting is a viable form of referral traffic. It is a chance to tap into an already established audience, increase your authority, and get people to your site for more content they will find valuable and entertaining.

If you manage to squeeze yourself onto a few websites with medium to high traffic flow, and contribute occasionally once you have made it, the benefits will be far greater than only posting on your own blog. If you are nervous about incoming links and how Google may react, simply nofollow them.

Being featured in group interviews or roundups, or being interviewed on a blog is another good way to win quick referral traffic.

Toolbox:

Try MyBlogU to find new opportunities to share your thoughts on a topic to be featured in articles or interviewed.

Resources:

• How to Get Interviewed by Popular Blogs (Even If You’re Not a Big Shot)
• The Definitive Guide to Guest Blogging

Get That Traffic Flowing

Traffic doesn’t come as easily as it once did, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of roads to bringing in those visitors. Diversifying your tactics will be the most beneficial move you can make, and the above three tips will get you there.

Have any advice for building traffic? Let us know in the comments below!