Why viral traffic is the best traffic.
February 7, 2007
Viral traffic is better than search engine traffic, and it's better than pay-per-click traffic. Why do I say this?
Let's compare viral traffic against the other two:
Viral vs. Search
Viral traffic is better than search engine traffic for 3 reasons:
- It's easier to get.
- It takes less time for results.
- It's less work to maintain.
Yes, viral traffic is better than search engine traffic because it takes a lot less work to make it happen. Search engines require huge amounts of work in link building and site design to rank well for competitive keywords. Viral traffic requires only an email to your list or a hot forum topic to kick-start it.
Viral traffic is also better because, once it gets started, it results in a flood of traffic (and sales). Unlike with search engines, which can take weeks or months (or even up to a year with Google) to start sending you traffic, viral traffic starts immediately. The people who receive your viral product will usually turn right around and tell their lists about it, or post it to their blog or web site, and then those persons will tell their lists, post on their blogs, and so on. If done right, you can literally see results in minutes or hours.
Also, search engine algorithms change all the time, and your site's ranking will often change with it. It's a constant fight to keep up with those changes. However, with viral traffic, as long as the product remains solid and useful, you will continue to enjoy steady traffic.
For example, with my $7 Secrets viral report, I went from zero to almost 50,000 unique visitors in 7 days. Try getting results like that from the search engines!
Snapshot of my 7 day traffic report for $7 Secrets
Viral vs. Pay-Per-Click
Viral traffic is better than pay-per-click traffic for two reasons:
- It's cheaper.
- There's less competition.
Yes, viral traffic is much cheaper than pay-per-click traffic. In fact, it's free! People send you visitors because they want to make a sale. Especially with AdWords sending click prices through their roof lately, you stand to earn a lot more faster with viral traffic.
Competition isn't really a factor with viral traffic either. With PPC, you're fighting against everyone else who's bidding on the same keywords. That means your potential exposure is much less than with viral traffic, where everyone is sending you traffic directly.
Viral Converts Better
One last, huge point that makes viral better than both search and PPC traffic is that it converts much better. Why is that?
Viral traffic converts better because it's usually generated by people recommending your report or product to their list, or on their blog or web site. A personal recommendation holds a lot more weight for most people than a good ranking in the search engines or having the top spot for your PPC keywords.
After all, who do you trust more when making a decision on medication: your doctor, or the pharmaceutical company? It's obvious. You would trust your doctor's recommendation over a commercial telling you that some company's medicine is the best because you have a personal relationship with the doctor, and you've learned to trust him or her.
There is no better traffic than word of mouth traffic–and that's essentially what viral traffic is!
Summing it Up
It has been my experience that viral traffic is by far the best traffic you can have. It's cheap, it gets almost instantaneous results, it's less work to maintain and it converts better. That's an equation for success that no other form of traffic can touch.
Comments
40 Responses to “Why viral traffic is the best traffic.”
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Jonathan Leger has been earning his living online full-time since the fall of 2004. He regularly posts advice about search engine optimization (his current passion), AdSense and Internet Marketing. He is the creator of a suite of popular software tools, including: Jonathan L Leger 
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Hi Jonathan,
Again you have explained another point in your own style. Very informative and valuable info you have provided.
As usual, you provide the best info and products. Thanks for the 7 dollar secrets.
I'm trying it out on some of my own products and do some "viral" marketing.
thanks again
Matt
Really interesting post and easier to understand than by reading an entire ebook about the subject
I have free report on my site and get 1 signup per 100 visitors. I get best results from blog postings, video posting and article postings.
Hi Jon,
I agreed with you but how are those people going to create the viral report if they do not had the knowledge to create one that has viral effect. Can you list down some points that makes a report viral. I hope this questions and benefits many people.
Thanks
John
Hi Jon,
I read and heard some good things about viral traffic and may consider using it very soon for my website if I have enough information. Can you indicate which viral traffic to use and how reliable is it? Any list and ranking available? I agree with fellow readers that further information is needed for our informed decision.
Cheers!
Jesucita
Excellent point, Jonathan, and something I feel many marketers overlook. Your $7 Secrets packages is yet another fantastic product. Keep up the great work!
hi jon,
wow, your result rocks! But bottomline is how many partners are promoting this report and who you know in this industry that have the power to deliver to their subscribers.
Also, same strategy when used by different people produces different result. The key is can you show us the "behind the scene".
Reports can be created easily, to sell or get it viral, believe me it's not easy if you're not doing the right thing.
;p
Jon
You provide pertinent information in a manor in which any one can understand.
We all watched your video on Sunday. I hope you are feeling better. It made us feel better because
we have the script up and running now
Thank you
Rik
Hi Jon,
You're absolutely spot on. One of my gambling-related niche websites contains completely free information that is better than what most other people are selling, and gets about 400 hits a day mainly due to people bringing up my site in forums and message boards. I don't have to market the site at all. I just cash the cheques from well-positioned affiliate links.
Hi
I agree viral traffic is easier to get. I started a free auto responder site and posted this ona few freebie sites and immediately I got people signing.
Regards
Paul
Hello Jonathan.
Adwin is making some good points, which need to be added to the equation. John also makes a viable statement - as not everyone understands the concept of 'viral' and how to do it in the right way for maximum results. Next book topic perhaps - what say you Jon?
Whatever the reason behind the massive surge in unique visitors (says she while drooling) the $7Ss is a grand starting point for those that didn't have the inclination or even the foggiest idea of where to begin.
Jonathans report has very likely got a lot of creative juices flowing and probably we'll see a lot more people venturing into similar projects on their own. And I do so hope that their projects will have equal success.
Thanks Jonathan for sowing the idea seeds, hopefully they will grow for many and not only that; also for bringing back some forgotten, good ways of doing honest, ethical business. — Sus –
Hey guys,
As Jonathan can (and I am sure will
tell you, the key ingrediant to making any piece purposely viral is a really good and easy answer to "What's in it for me". This is not the only factor but it is one of the key ingrediants often missing in many viral attempts.
If the primary material is targeted to the initial audience and they have what is perceived to be an easy and desirable benefit from passing the material on then it has a much greater potential to go "Viral".
Likewise, the initial material being offered must have a great enough perceived value that people feel it is a "no-brainer" to pick it up or sign up, whether free or paid.
If the perceived value of the main product paired with what one gets in return for "spreading the word" is great enough then it is possible to have a truly viral effect where the growth continues to grow over time as opposed to trailing off after an initial period of excitement.
This takes the right buzz, great copy and the right what's in it for me (WIIFM). That said, if the copy, the product and the WIIFM are right… it can be done without big partner buzz.
Now, it's not possible to go into all of the mechanics behind doing this in a single blog post. I hope this brief explanation of the theory helps a little though.
Onward & Upward!
Sam Knoll
Hey Bro…
I agree with you about viral traffic. I think it would be a great read if you wrote about the different ways to generate viral traffic.
Jonathan:
Your post today is 100% on the mark. I authored an eBook about how to plan a After-Prom party for teens. This is a highly targeted niche, even though there are more than 30,000 high schools and millions of parents of teenagers. Also, the eBook is a ClickBank product paying 50% commissions. Even with a potential market size of millions, the book was slow to get rolling. We had a new website, few links and fewer affiliates. What to do?
To help spread the word, we developed a second site called "Life Saving Virus". The idea was to get a few people telling a few people about prom night being such a dangerous time for teenagers - kids die every year as a result. The viral effect was almost instantaneous. Traffic to the site increased immediately, book sales skyrocketed and Google indexed the entire site and gave it a PR-4 almost overnight.
Thanks
Hi Jon,
This is a great concept for those of us who need to grow our mailing list. I've just completed one ( a JonLeg 7.00 Special!) covering cPanel secrets that Internet Marketers should know about. Let's see what happens. Check it out.
OK! I'll concede it IS better. Now how do I use it?
I dont have a verified PayPal account. How can I get the $7. book?
Thanks, Bob Hill
How do you get things to go viral?
What would be my starting point for my website
Hi folks,
I fully agree that this $7 script is a great script.
Previously, I was trying to market a uniquely written product (you can check my link above) that had a popular following to the original product. By leveraging on the craze of that product, I was able to generate sales to my product.
And now, by implementing the viral concept in my elusive guide, backend sales have been coming in as well
Thanks for your genius marketing ideas Jonathan.
When I read the comments here it seams to be a concern about how to get started when you don’t have a list and you don’t have much traffic to your website. How can you spread the word?
The concept seams to be ideal for traffic exchanges provided you have a very high converting landing page. You see a lot of MLM advertising on the traffic exchanges and I don’t think they can be successful, especially since you see the same MLM advertised 50 times within an hour on the same exchange. My experience is that list building is among the few areas where you can be successful with traffic exchanges.
If you want to help newbie’s maybe you should explain how to produce high converting landing pages for traffic exchanges.
Thanks for showing us the statistics, Jon! Great going!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but those numbers look like they beat the Death Of Adsense viral marketing numbers.
To the questioners: Jon actually gave us a live demonstration of how it's done with that ebook he talks about. And he was kind enough to let us all be part of the experiment, and earn from it as well! The answers to your questions are inside the ebook. Perhaps you didn't participate. I think it's still not too late. Grab that ebook quick!
To Michael W Rogers: Your sales page has the main picture missing. The path to the graphic file goes to your PC.
Hello all,
it's the idea of using a low-cost product, like an eBook or an email course, and setting it up with the right, simple lil script which makes $7 Secret viral …
Francesco di Jedlesee
Jon,
Thanks for the great info! I just wanted to ask your advise on how to go viral with a direct sale site not related to biz ops or affiliate stuff? I realize this is where your expertise is, but do you have any ideas how I can get a buzz to my site? We have great products and super prices but my efforts seem to be coming up short.
Any input would be greatly appreciated!!
Thanks,
Neil
Hi Pat,
Got it fixed now I believe. I gotta get some sleep! LOL
Go try this link: [*snipped*]
I already got 4 sales this morning from that link just posting here and using the free script! Amazing thing was how bad the page loaded before as compared to now. (My fault not the script.) It's even more friendly for my Apple Mac Safari visitors.
Thanks to all for giving me the heads up. And a special 'hat tip' to you Jonathan!
Michael:
No links in your comments, please. Keep your link to your name. Thanks!
Jon
Hey, nice tips, Jon. I'm currently involved in a viral campaign at my website. Using your script, of course. Any suggestions as to how to spread your viral effect?
Based on your sales page and the comments in this post yourreport looks solid so I will be getting it. Talk about a no bainer.
One question though Jonathon .
Can you suggest a good keyword or two to use addwords to sell the report or do you cover that in the book?
It would need to be long tail or such because you wouldn't want to spend more than say $5 per buying customer.
Unless of course you were just in list building mode and were happy to sell at $7 and have a cost per acquisition of $7. In other words a break even way to build the list.
I'd always want a little profit thrown into the mix though
Nothing against the author of this site - it was just a conincidence that I came here and thought I should atleast tell what I feel.
Anyone with a list of affiliates and a personal mailing list will theoratically make money regardless of what the product is.
It is not a meassure of your brilliance or your dedication, it is purely a marketing tactic in telling the world - hey dude look at me - see how much I've made in 2hrs or how much I've made since tuesday and on and on. Ofcourse the so called naive NEWBE doesn't have a clue in the world what really goes on. He would take out his credit card and head for the merchant account in a jiffy to bite the bate.
Tactics and tricks are all what it is. Try making the same ammount of money without any affiliates or a mailing list in the same time - yeh right! Not possible.
Anyone being flooded recently with so many emails about the Day Job Killer? What a hype - the biggest ever hype in the world so far and thousands flock to buy it - you know why - it's being hammered into you - look here stupid see what the figures tell you - if the figures show it you should buy it - yeh right. This is how the propagandist work in the political world.
The bottom line is if you have lots of
Lists + Affiliate Joint ventures = $$$$$$$
No other way to make the ridiculous ammounts of money in a very short time.
Cheers.
John
Hello Jon,
Another feather to the cap. Let me get the 7 secrets and viral market my niche theory test site.
Thanks!
Tom
Jonthan,
Good Post.
Simple and easy to understand.
Jane.
Jon, could you explain how Viral report can be used by a non-intermarketing niche adsense sites. If it cannot be used, can I conclude that Viral marketing can only be used in the Internet Marketing area and you must own the product and its affiliate program.
thanks.
ch leng:
The only difference between an IM report and a none IM report is how you recruit the affiliates. I still STRONGLY suggest you present each customer with the opportunity to sell the report, since many of them will send their friends and associates to it to get some fast cash.
But to recruit sites with related information or products, see this post
read your column and and couldn't agree with you more. my biz was slow at first and the second day here came the hits. now on this site i depend completely on viral traffic now.this is like that old saying "telephone-tell a friend-tell a woman -now the whole world knows" great article thanks Anthony
Well I used the scripts just last night to hit my small relatively unresponsive list in a totally unrelated market with a general offer.
Everything worked fine and I made some sales.
If you have a list in the automotive or 'saving money' sectors it would be very appropriate. Feel free to make some money from my offer.
Eric
Jonathan,
Great comments on the use of viral traffic.
Keep in mind that one of the most leveraged skills you can learn on the internet is list building, and that the best use of your viral traffic could be to capture the names, email addresses, and other necessary information.
With that, you can continue to follow up with and contact all of the viral traffic that came to your site.
Brian T. Edmondson
www.ListProfitAcademy.com
Hi Jonathan,
I agree with you 100% that viral traffic is easier and quicker to complete over search engine placement.
A good forum or blog can lead to traffic.
do not think to money verry much
Hey Jonathan
Great content, and so true. I started applying your recommendations for viral marketing versus the search engines.
Google is not playing ball with me, so your advice was a win win situation.
Mt traffic has shot up 40% !
My pages are indexed faster because of viral marketing.
Thank you Jonathan, the advice has put spring back in my step.
Sincerely
John Adams
Great suggestions Jonathan. Thank you.
I cannot help agreeing with a couple of the posts that you certainly will get more viral if you already have a list, but alos point out that going viral will help to build that list for you. Your first effort may take longer, but as time goes by, you will make money quicker and quicker, as your list grows every time.
Keep up the good work.