Website traffic generation

Techniques to increase your
web traffic numbers

A website lives or dies by its traffic and an in-depth understanding of traffic generation techniques is vital to your success with online business.

There are many techniques that generate internet traffic and which ones will work best to drive visitors to your own site will depend on what type of web traffic you need.

The common techniques are

1. Search engine optimisation - this is where you write your web pages so that people searching for keywords related to your site's theme find your site ideally in the first few hits on whichever search engine they use.
   
   This technique can generate FREE website traffic but it can be very time-consuming. Furthermore, the process is highly complex and you can't guarantee success if you operate in a competitive area.
   
2. Pay per click advertising - this is where you pay for ads on other sites such as Google (AdWords) and get charged every time someone clicks on your ad. This technique can deliver almost instant results but if you want high volume website traffic, it will cost you a lot.
   
3. Viral marketing techniques - these are where you set up some form of system to promote your site.
   
4. Offline advertising - don't overlook this if your target audience can be accessed cheaply offline. Remember to give people a reason to visit your site in your advertising.
   
5. Ebook marketing. This can be highly effective and requires you to create an ebook which provides genuinely useful advice to people in which you include links to your own site. I have created one of these that tells you how to use the FreeViral system to force 1 million people to your site.
   
6. Email marketing. In every email you send out you can include a hyperlink to your site. Use this to promote your site but again, give people a reason to go there, don't just say "visit my website".
   
7. Forum marketing. Search the web for forums related to your website's theme, join as a member (this is usually a free process) and then start posting sensible and helpful comments about whatever it is you do. Make sure that you include in your "signature" a hyperlink back to your site and, again, give people a reason to go there.
   
8. Post testimonials on other people's websites. This is free advertising and is usually welcomed by the site's owner because everyone is always looking for high quality testimonials.
   
9. Run a newsletter. Send out a regular newsletter to people who have subscribed to your mailing list and include in it links to your site. If you make these links useful by providing new valuable content regularly, people will return again and again to your site.
   
10. Over deliver on content. This is in many ways the best way to get traffic. If you make sure your site is really interesting and useful, people will come back time and again simply to absorb more information. Over delivery of content serves you in two ways: people return (and might even put you in their Favorites folder) and you will find that your site natually floats to the top of the search engine rankings.

Building website traffic is a process and not a one-off event. One technique that is free and works well over time, is just to add more and more content to your site on a regular basis. One page a week will give you 50 more pages after a year, each one a potential traffic puller, especially if you target the content of each page at a particular keyword or phrase.