If there is one thing that every website needs, it’s consistent website traffic and at times, it is necessary for us to continue to get more and more traffic along the way. Although there certainly are a lot of different ways that you can do this, it often can bog you down if you’re trying to do it in too many different directions at one time.
I often find that by going after just a few of the beneficial ways of driving traffic to your website, you can usually get more accomplished in a day’s time and see more results for your efforts. Here are the different traffic generating methods that I always use and that anybody can use to drive more traffic to their website.
Basic Search Engine Optimization:
This should really be at the forefront of anybody’s efforts to get more traffic to their websites. If your webpage is not optimized for the search engines, you are leaving a lot of traffic laying behind in the dust. Every single piece of content that you put online should be done with the thought of optimization in mind. Here are some Best SEO Tools that can help you to boost your rankings in search engines and generate more sales for your business.
This can be done through a combination of keyword research, on-page optimization in order to make sure that your pages are recognized for those keywords and then gathering incoming links. This is an ongoing process that must be done regularly if you want to see results that are going to last for the long term.
Free Classifieds:
Placing free classified ads is also another great way to generate traffic to your website. One place to do this is on Craigslist. There are even software programs that you can purchase that will post hundreds of ads for you daily. It is best to dedicate one email address to this form of advertising as you will get lots of junk emails from people advertising their products or programs.
Seek assistance from complementary websites:
Present before the interconnected websites or business ventures and offer to include their links in your website in return for their inclusion of your webpage in their site. The higher the number of complementary links you have, the greater is the chances of enjoying numerous hits.
Creating Jump Pages:
This is somewhat similar to what I already talked about in search engine optimization but it is optimizing other websites for the search engines and then driving the traffic through them to your money site.
The benefit of creating these small websites that are optimized for the search engines is the fact that you do not have to rework your sales pages in order to be optimized. It is often a good idea if you optimize the sales pages so that they convert more to sales rather than converting more to incoming traffic. By putting a page in between the search engines in your webpage, you can accomplish this easily.
Using Social Media Marketing:
Something new that has really come to light is social media marketing and there are quite a few websites that you can make use of which will really drive a lot of qualified traffic to your web pages. Being able to use them effectively, however, could really fill volumes of books, but here’s a general rundown on it.
Each of these social marketing websites, such as Twitter and Facebook will allow you to create accounts and to run a small community that is interested in whatever it is that you are offering. By connecting with them on a social level, they will get comfortable with you and be more likely to purchase from you as a result.
Design optimization:
Optimizing your website is a primary challenge that you must address before concentrating on SEO activities. You need to identify its challenges and scopes for improvement as per the changed norms and work on fixing errors. An increasing number of web audiences now access websites on handheld devices and therefore, you must optimize your website design to become compatible on mobile devices. There may be a requirement to maintain two separate designs for web browsers and mobile browsers.
Upgrade and Enhance:
Once you have your website ready and launched, be sure to add something or the new to it almost every week or month. Of course, this may pose a problem to many webmasters, but the best way of countering this is by at least keeping something new or making something new for the homepage.
Using Online Videos:
Have you started video marketing on a regular basis? If you haven’t, you are really missing quite a bit of traffic and it is something that is going to stick around for the long term. If you are unsure about the popularity of online videos, simply check out the type of traffic that websites such as YouTube are getting and it will quickly change your mind.
Not only are videos an excellent way for you to convert people over to your website, but they also tend to rank rather well on the search engines themselves. Google understands that people love video just the same as you should understand it. That is why you’ll often see a couple of videos that are listed on the first page of Google for any given key phrase. Why isn’t your video there for your keyphrase?
Web 2.0 Marketing:
The Internet is constantly changing and things that worked several years ago or perhaps even several months ago are not necessarily going to be the things that work now. One of the things that the Internet is leaning towards is more of a community-type atmosphere and this can be seen in many of the Web 2.0 websites that are popping up all over the place.
These websites tend to have interesting names, such as Squidoo.com and hubpages.com. The interesting thing about these websites is that you can sign up for a free account and post your content directly on those sites. Since they are very popular in the eyes of Google, it is easy for you to rank well for keywords and to get some traffic to them. Simply send the traffic over your website, and you have another source of visitors.
Press Releases:
Hold the presses, press releases can get you a lot of traffic and they can do so very quickly. Although most of the press releases are no longer free to send out, it can be worth spending a little bit of money in order to get one out to the masses.
If your press release is only picked up by the usual channels, you can expect them to be listed in the search engines for your keywords and you can get some great links back to your website. If it is picked up and syndicated, the traffic that you get can be phenomenal. Do a search for press release companies. These are companies that will send your message off to their list. To get this free offer something in exchange. Maybe a link on your website back to them, or send out an email to your list. Just figure out a good traffic swap so you don’t have to spend any money.
Article Marketing:
One of the best ways to get free and targeted traffic into your website is to write informative articles and submit them to article submission sites online. This online marketing strategy is often free of charge as you seem only to be having an exchange. You provide free content and these sites will help increase traffic to your website.
Each week, you should be writing at least 1 article about the service or product you are promoting. It does not have to be a 100-word essay like those you see in newspapers and magazines, 300-500 words is ample. If your article is too long, your reader might never get to your resource box.
Although I saved article marketing for last, it is by no means the smallest of the ways that you can get traffic to your website. Some people base their entire business around article marketing, simply because it works so well.
Write your articles around keywords that are easy to rank for and are specific to your niche. Submit them to various article directories with a link back to your website included and a compelling call to action. You would be surprised with how much traffic you can receive from just a few well-written articles. Just like the video, write something of value and then ask for the user to click on the link and get your free product.
Social Networking Sites:
Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been popular these days and you can actually use them as means to get good traffic to your site. In fact, you can also make your own business page on these social networking sites which allows you to attract those who are interested in your niche and not just gain traffic that cannot be converted into potential sales. Twitter is also a good tool to share your link and website stories and help you get a good surge of traffic as well especially if you are providing valuable information and especially if you are providing updated information.
Organic Local Search Listings:
Start off with letting all the search engines know you have a new website. Head over to Digg.com and submit your new website link. Over the years I have found Digg to be the fastest way to get your new website noticed by the search engine spiders. Digg is the first place search engines look at new content. As your website gets noticed you will see it start to rank higher and then get tons of free traffic sent from people searching for stuff online.
Blogging:
Post every article that you write on your WordPress blog. It is the most powerful, easy-to-use content management software in the world to post your news, collect subscribers, article posting, and increase traffic to your landing page or to your affiliate merchant. After you have created your blog and added your first post, go to Technorati.com and register an account to claim your blog. Whenever you have posted an article, go to technorati.com/ping/ and insert your new blog post URL to announce to the Technorati community that you have a new post. This process can be automated by adding a Technorati widget. You will start to see many visitors coming to your blog to read about your new post.
Podcasts:
This may sound high tech but it’s very simple. iTunes is a free product that is offered by Apple. Anyone can talk into their computer and create a podcast. Then upload this podcast to the iTunes store and it’s another free traffic generation tool.
Newsletters:
As you are building your traffic list, introduce a newsletter to them. This can be weekly or monthly, just keeping them up to date with your current activities and key events. This is also a great opportunity to offer free products to them to keep them loyal. There are lots of sites that offer free products but make sure it is relevant to what you are eventually trying to sell.
Develop a widget:
A good widget will go viral and get you tons of traffic for free. Some popular widgets are weather, calculator, calendar, pregnancy widgets, etc. If you do not have the programming capability, outsource it to a freelancer at a reasonable rate. You can get freelancers at places like RentACode and Elance.
Forums:
Another way to increase traffic to your website for free is to sign in and register in forums, help others who are in need of information, and establish yourself as an expert on the field which should also be the niche of your website. Once you have established yourself in online forums, you can also easily allow other forum members to visit your site and find more information on it. Getting other people’s trust often works if you want to influence others as well. The concept of forum marketing is very simple. You act as if you are not promoting or selling anything. All you are doing is providing useful information and content that helps other people solve their problems. All you are doing is to talk to the people in the forums that might be interested in the product you are promoting and have the potential to buy when they click on your link. Your offer is shown on your signature whenever you make a forum post, like the resource box when submitting articles to article directories.
If you do a search for “Keyword Forum” you can find highly targeted communities. An example would be “MLM Forum”, this will show you a list in the search engines of like-minded people all wanting to know more information about MLM. Signup for the forum and start to answer questions. Be active and create valuable content for the forum user. Once you have established yourself, place a small link leading back to your website in the signature. Each time you post something new your signature will offer more value for each user to click and find out.
Joint Venture:
Get to know someone else who has a very large list of emails and try and get them to send out an email about your new website. This can be tricky because you have to find something to offer the list owner. If you don’t know them, build up a relationship first before you ask for a joint venture. After you build up a relationship it will be easier to ask them to send out a mailing for you. Let them know you want to mail out something to your list or put a link on your website.
Conclusion:
There are a number of other ways that you can get traffic to your website, but these seven should keep you busy for a considerable amount of time. If you work on these regularly, you will get a steady stream of traffic that is coming from multiple areas. All you need to do at that point is convert them into customers. All these free traffic generation techniques require no money, but they do require your time. Time is all you have when you’re first starting out, use it to the fullest. Once your free traffic takes off then start to add in some paid advertising.
About the Author
Hey, I am Shubham Chopra, founder of Marketing Savior and an exuberant content creator with a great zest for providing insightful reviews about digital products that will help startups & SMEs penetrate into the online world easily.
