Welcome to the very first edition of Traffic Tuesdays with Three Money Methods.

I am your host, Jonathan Kraft, and today we’re going to be talking about traffic!

That is what we’re going to be talking about every week with Traffic Tuesdays!

Today, talking about traffic, I want to talk not about specific kinds of traffic, although we’re going to get into that a little bit, but I want to talk about the “flow” of traffic.

Now, as you read from the Three Money Methods Report, the end goal of your website is to make money!

And you read in the Three Money Methods Report that the three ways to do that are to:
1.  Sell your Stuff;
2.  Sell someone else’s Stuff;
3.  Sell Ad Space

But again, the big goal here is to make money!

You can have a passion online but you won’t be able to do it really long unless you have some money coming in from what you’re doing; and ultimately, that’s the goal is to be making some money from what you’re doing.

So over the next weeks, we’re going to be talking about all the different ways you can get traffic; through Facebook, through Twitter, through Pay-per-Click advertising, through radio and TV and newspapers and what’s known as “traditional media.”

Through user-generated content sites, like Scribd and hub pages; through video sites, like YouTube and Metacafe and Revver; through SEO, which is Search Engine Optimization, getting listed in the natural search results of Google; through image search and a thousand other ways that may come up in the next weeks or months or years as you’re part of Three Money Methods. There’s always going to be a new way to get traffic.

We’ll be covering those on an on-going basis through Three Money Methods.

But here’s the philosophy and here’s the idea that I want you to think about because it’s really, really, really important.

Some people will say to me, “Hey Jonathan, you know I’ve got this great traffic thing going on through Twitter. You know I take Twitter and I sell other people’s stuff right through Twitter. Or I take my Facebook ads and I direct them right to a page where I get paid for the advertising that’s on that page.”

Lots of people are sending traffic directly to someone else’s website.

That’s a challenge.

The reason is because if their website goes down, or let’s say for whatever reason, Twitter isn’t working one day – this happened relatively recently. Let’s say Twitter isn’t working one day and suddenly your method of advertising, your method of talking to people is no longer available.

If that were to happen, what would you do – if that was your major source of getting traffic? If that was the only place you could control the traffic?

So what I want to talk to you about is a philosophy which says, you have to have some space online that you control.  A space where all of your stuff, all of the methods of traffic, go through this space.

I’m not talking about a hub page, or a Squidoo page or something like that – you do not control that page.

I’m talking about your own hosting account and at the very least, your own domain.

I’ve got some recommendations for who I use below the video here and if you sign-up through them, you’ll be signing up through my Affiliate Links and yes, I’ll make a little bit of money on that; and that’s fine if you don’t, go sign-up with somebody else if you don’t sign-up through my links, that’s fine.

But the philosophy is you have to control the space!

You have to control the traffic! And the way that the traffic is being directed, because if you don’t, let’s say one day, YouTube and Metacafe decide to stop accepting videos – they’ve got enough videos and they don’t accept them anymore; and that’s been your major source of traffic!

You’ve been directing traffic directly without sending them through some way to capture their name and email or at least building a brand that people know to come to get you, to get the things that you do. If you do not have a way to control where people are coming through, your business can die in a second!

I mean just like that – it can just be gone!

So I want to talk to you to make sure that you understand — if you don’t do this it’s ok, but …. it’s really not ok!

My recommendation is get a domain and get web hosting set up; you have to control the place that you’re driving the traffic back to. You have to own that domain and you have to have some level of hosting.

You can get hosting really cheap, $50 a year. You can get a domain really cheap, $10 a year. That’s an investment that you’ll need to make in your business. And I really, really, really recommend it!

So, we’re going to be back next week with another Traffic Tuesday to talk about:

– selling your stuff
– selling someone else’s stuff
– selling ad space.

We’re going to talk about all these different methods of getting traffic.

But really, philosophically, this is huge; get a domain and get hosting set up!

Do it this week, don’t wait! Get it done!

You then control the flow of the traffic in where the eyeballs go. So if any of these things shut down or if any of these things on this side change, at least you have something in the middle that you control.

I’ve been doing business online for eight years; I used to send traffic directly this way – it’s not a good idea for that to be your sole source of stuff!

Drive traffic through a page that you control and own.

Yes, it will mean you need to learn something.

But really, really go do it! Go do it this week, don’t wait.

And we will see you next week in the Three Money Methods Traffic Tuesdays which will be coming at you with some awesome free information about how to get free traffic to your website and make more money either by selling your stuff, selling someone else’s stuff or selling ad space.

We’ll look forward to seeing you next week back here at Three Money Methods Traffic Tuesdays.

Resources:

– your own hosting account through Powweb
– your own domain through GoDaddy