Traffic Generation Strategies for Effective Green Marketing

Here are 20 strategies that I recommend to green marketing professionals. Many of them are covered in our free video training which we are providing until the end of July with our partners, Green Business Bureau, as part of our Double Your Leads campaign. Just click on the Orange Button to get access

1 Search Engine Optimization

Every site must be optimized for the most important 5-6 Keywords. This is the most important strategy for generating medium to long-term traffic. There is nothing better than being in the top 3 positions for your keywords. This will generate large amounts of free, quality traffic

2 Link Building

Build links with other sites. Make a list of 10 Target Sites you want to build reciprocal links with. And make sure all your communications and content has links back to your website page that you want visitors to go to.

3 Your own Email List

Make sure you have your website in the signature of your emails and, if you have an email list ask them for referrals in return for an incentive. Contests work well

4 Other Email Lists

You can rent lists but be careful to check that the addresses were acquired properly. Or even better find non-competing suppliers to your market and promote to each other’s lists

5 Video

Make a video and distribute it to the main video sites like You Tube. A great video can go viral and make sure you have a link to your website and a clear call to action to incent viewers to visit.

6 Articles

Write articles of around 500 words length, and publish them in article directories. Use your keywords in the articles and add a link to your site at the bottom, with an incentive to visit

7 Press Releases

Press releases work well for traffic if they have an interesting story or news item that captures people’s attention. They are also good for increasing your Google search ranking. There are several free press release submission websites where you can send them

8 Guest Blogging

Write a guest blog post for another blog that your target market reads, and ensure you have a link to your site. You can also add comments on logs and forums with links back – just make sure you are not too pushy! Always add quality comments

9 Facebook

Create a Facebook Fan Page for your Organization and then engage with your Fans. Every week you can encourage your fans to visit your website, and ideally you should drive traffic between your site and Facebook. Add a Facebook button to all your pages, and if you are B2B create a Linkedin profile and group too.

10 Twitter

Twitter is similar to Facebook in terms of its value for engaging with prospects. Most of your tweets should be non-sales, but ensure that 1 in 8 or so have a link to content on your website. When you post quality, interesting and relevant Tweets they will be “re-tweeted”.

11 Social Bookmarking

Set up your profile on major social bookmarking sites like Digg or Reddit and then add links. You should bookmark all content on your site, especially new pages and posts

12 Squidoo

Write a Lens on your business, product or keyword on Squidoo and then do the same on HubPage. Both site rank highly with Google and will get you traffic. Just make sure the content is well-written.

13 Affiliate Marketing

In the world of internet marketing the majority of products are sold through Affiliates, agents with websites that sell your products in return for a % of the sale. Make a list of websites that could promote your offer and contact them.

14 Joint Ventures

An alternative to affiliates is setting up joint ventures. So if you are a green marketing executive for  solar panels why not create a joint venture with an air conditioning contractor and promote each other’s products on your site and by email

15 Webinars

One of the best ways to generate leads is to hold a webinar where you give great advice and practical tips and strategies to your target market. If you joint venture with another organization you can invite their email list to get more traffic to your site. You can also interview experts who will bring their own list to your site too.

16 PPC

Pay per click is ideal if you have an advertising budget, and you should consider Google Adwords, Bing and Yahoo. Start small, see what works and then scale up when you have an Ad that drives traffic and converts to an email subscription for a qualified prospect. PPC is best to target people who are actively looking for your product or a solution to their problems

17 Facebook Advertising

Facebook is hot right now for advertising as it is so vast and you can target people very accurately on demographic and psychographics. I have found Facebook to be best for B2C and for campaigns with contests, games and events. Follow Facebook’s guidelines very carefully

18 Banner Ads

These are ads that have graphics or images, and are generally larger than text ads. I like Google’s Content Network where you can target your ads at websites where your audience visit. Banner Ads are will generally convert better than the text ads that appear when people search on Google.

19 Craigslist

Craigslist gets more than 50 million visitors a month so you should have an Ad there if your types of products are currently advertised there.  A well-produced Ad will also help you with your rankings

20 Offline

Internet Marketing works best with conventional green marketing , including offline lead generation strategies like telemarketing, direct mail (recycled paper please!) and events. Make sure all your packaging has a link to your website.