Are you having a hard time getting traffic to your new website?. “How do I get traffic?” is the most frequently asked question among website owners these days. With the Internet’s rapid growth, it’s definitely more difficult, but it’s not impossible!
There are TONS of ways to build up your traffic. Here are a few of the most popular approaches.
- Learn Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – This is the most important and difficult way to get traffic. Search engine traffic is highly targeted traffic from people looking for a specific item on the internet. You’re almost guaranteed a sale or at the very least a “bookmark for later” if they find your site after searching for it. a large number of e-books on the subject
- Exchange links with other websites – It’s critical to get the word out about your website.
So exchange links with a variety of other websites, including your competitors! People do look at those links pages, and they will come to your site from somewhere else. - Use message boards – When you use message boards with a lot of traffic, make sure to include a link to your site in your signature! This is a very effective form of marketing, especially if the message board you’re posting on is relevant to the content of your website.
- Include email signatures in your emails – Make it simple for your customers to contact you! When they write to you and ask for more information, make sure you use a signature that includes your site’s URL and name. It will be easier for them to retrieve it later if they don’t have to remember your URL or open a web browser.
- Sign up for Yahoo Groups – This is similar to message boards. Join groups that are relevant to your site’s content and promote your site there (but don’t spam!!).
- Advertise on free classifieds sites – Craig’s List and other free classifieds sites will accept your ad for no charge! Simply Google “free classifieds” and you’ll find a plethora of sites where you can promote your site!
- Purchase ad space – If your monthly budget permits, purchase ad space for your website. Find another site that has similar content to yours and inquire about their advertising rates.
- Run auctions – Ebay gets a lot of traffic every day, and while you can’t put your website URL in your auction listings, you can put it in your “about me” page. So consider selling some of your items as auctions and publicizing your website’s URL.
- Offline marketing – Create custom t-shirts, bumper stickers, car decals, and other items with your website URL on them. Then you’re passively advertising yourself whenever you’re out in public!
- Submit your site to directories – For example, if your site is about “fishing,” do a Google search for “fishing directories” to see how many directories exist that are relevant to your subject matter. The majority of these directories will accept submissions for free.
- Write articles – Another excellent way to get your site out there is to write articles about it. Simply write a 5- to 6-paragraph informative article and submit it to any site that accepts article submissions, making sure to include a link back to your site in your “author biography.”
- Send out press releases – Even if your site is a small work-from-home operation (such as “Susie’s Candles”), it is still newsworthy! Let’s say your candle shop just released a new “Vanilla Cream” candle. I’m serious, submit a press release about it!! https://www.prweb.com is a good place to start. You can also do a Google search for “submit press release” and find a slew of other websites.
- Provide excellent interactive content – If you provide interactive and dynamic content, visitors will bookmark your site. Have polls, message boards, interactive games, news items, guest books, a daily item, whatever you want! Simply make the site relevant and include SUBSTANCE in the content. Don’t clog it up with cheesy animated graphics, sounds, or other distractions. That just makes it appear as if you didn’t have anything else to put on your site besides this annoying stuff. Flash intros are only appropriate for children under the age of two who require the stimulation of flashing lights and colors. Most importantly, they are slow to load, and when people see Flash, they tend to click away.
