You have probably seen countless articles that talk about the importance of generating website traffic. In fact it is nearly impossible to operate a profitable internet business without traffic. The importance of traffic generation cannot be overstated. So, we can all agree that traffic is an essential element for any internet based business. How do we turbo charge our website traffic?
If you already have a site you might be wondering how to get noticed on the web. Perhaps you are selling the same product as hundreds of other aspiring entrepreneurs, but just can't seem to find a way to get your share of the traffic. You need to critically examine your traffic generation strategy. These seven proven techniques should help you turbo charge your website traffic.
1) Invest in Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Google Adwords and Yahoo Overture are advertising programs that can provide vast amounts of targeted traffic to your website. Although with this proven technique can deliver tons of traffic they do so at a cost. Every time a prospect clicks on your ad you incur a fee. It doesn't matter if they purchase anything on your website. One of the advantages of pay-per-click advertising is that you can be very specific about how much you want to spend on a per click and per day basis. You can also target specific keywords to ensure that your visitors will be interested in your products and services. This technique can be expensive, but if used effectively it can literally flood your site with traffic.
2) Reciprocal Linking With Other Websites
When exchanging links with other sites, both sites can benefit. Now certainly not all sites are created equally. Linking to high traffic sites will help you with the search engines. It will also allow you to get traffic directly from the connection. This strategy takes more time than pay-per-click advertising, but can be very powerful.
3) Use Viral Marketing
Viral marketing allows you to spread the word about your company's products and services with minimal cost. This method takes a bit more time to develop, but can help generate traffic for an extended period of time. The basic strategy is to somehow attach your company name, website address, affiliate link, etc. into an item that you can give away to your visitors. An example might be a funny video. If people like the video they will probably keep a copy and pass it along to others. As the funny video spreads around the internet your company name, website address, affiliate link, etc. spreads with it. Viral marketing could be thought of as an electronic form of word of mouth marketing. Viral marketing can be used with a wide variety of products such as articles, cartoons, software, screen savers, music, and eBooks. The point is that you need to embed your information into products that people want and will share. Viral should not be confused with virus. It is a very powerful low cost approach to traffic generation.
4) Use Proper Keywords On Your Site
Having the proper keyword or phrase is an important factor in ranking well in the search engines. Once you identify your sites keywords, you need to optimize your site for those keywords.
5) Write Articles To Lead Traffic To Your Site
Submit original articles to article directories to generate links to your site. These links will help your site to rank well with the search engines. Well written articles will help bring interested readers to your website.
6) Join And Post On Forums
Show your expertise by posting on forums. Most forums allow participants to include a link below their signature. Not only will you establish trust and credibility on the forum, you will generate additional links to your site.
7) Offer newsletters.
Share your expertise with readers by publishing a newsletter. If you can peak your readers curiosity they will reward you with traffic.
If you are competing online you must strive to stay a step ahead of you competition. Some of these tactics will require time, others can literally generate traffic with the flip of a switch. In order to ensure a steady stream of traffic you will need to utilize a combination of these tactics.