Improve Website Traffic

OK, you've got that nifty website up and running, but how are you going to get traffic? After all, traffic is the lifeblood of a website, and to succeed you need to continually increase the traffic to your website. Here are some ideas to get you started.

First of all, I'd suggest buying a simple straightforward guide to search engine optimization, so that as you design or update your pages, you are paying attention to the major factors that influence your search engine ranking. If you're buried down at number 5000 on the list of pages that come up for a particular search engine, nobody will ever find you. But if you pay attention to the content and design of your pages, you could find yourself with one or more highly ranked pages, which will definitely increase traffic to your website.

Next, I'd investigate Pay Per Click strategies and tactics. This will cost you something on a regular basis, and, if done wrong, can get very expensive. On the other hand, correctly implemented, a PPC strategy can bring significant amounts of targeted traffic to your website. This is the kind of traffic you need - people who are interested in what you are selling or promoting.

Another great technique for attracting more traffic is to write some articles for publication in various newsletters. Newsletter editors are often hungry for content, and if you can write a short, concise article on a topic of interest to their readers, chances are you'll get it published a few places, with resulting links back to your site via the resource box you place at the end of the article. Not only do you get the link, but you get some traffic along with it.

A related idea is to start and publicize your own newsletter. Merely listing your newsletter on the various announcement sites gives you links back to your site, which can improve your search engine rankings and generate some traffic and subscribers. Once you have those subscribers, your chances for bringing them to your site as potential customers greatly improves as they begin to consider you a source of credible, even expert, information.

Personally, I don't use this one, but I've often seen it suggested that you join and regularly post on some discussion boards and news groups. You have to be careful, as many boards will ban you for blatant advertising or self-promotion, but if you can be subtle about it, there are ways to tastefully mention that you have a website.

Use a signature line or resource box in all of your emails, personal and business. This is a way of passively advertising your URL to those you correspond with, and you never know when one or more of those people will visit and like your site.

Giving away free reports and encouraging people to pass them around to their friends is a form of "viral advertising" you can use. If you stick several references to your site or the products you promote into the body of the report, as links, chances are that people will click through to see what your site is about, especially if they like the free information you gave them.

Depending upon the nature of your business or opportunity, and your budget, you may want to consider purchasing leads from one of the major "lead brokers", and then doing some email advertising. You need to be very careful about the source of your leads, and be sure that your emails comply with the "Can Spam" laws, but this can be an effective technique, especially if you promote something unique, or want to build up a list of newsletter subscribers fast.

Finally, a few words on what not to do. Don't post your link on FFA pages or other "link farms". The FFA links expire quickly anyway, and the incoming links from "link farms" can have a deadly effect on your rankings with the major search engines. Pay attention to both the quality and the quantity of the incoming links to your site. Irrelevant links will bring little, if any, traffic, and may get your pages mis-identified by the search engines. Don't buy so-called "safelists" unless you are very sure of the quality of the source of these "leads". Getting a spam complaint can be a major headache, especially with the new laws in effect as of 2004.

Good luck in your endeavors!