How Do I Get Internet Traffic?

A few folks have asked me where Internet Traffic (users / readers / eyeballs) come from.

Here's a list in no particular order:

1) Directories
Directories are website listings. The trick is to find a directory which receives huge volumes of traffic itself. Start by applying for listings in Yahoo, DMOZ and Looksmart. While these may not be the best directories, it's a start. Getting listed isn’t easy but once achieved you will see a significant lift in your website traffic. Look at other directories but make sure they have a good traffic rating (use Alexa).

2) Reciprocal Links
This is the oldest form of web traffic and is still one of the most effective. Simply having your website listed on other websites and listing websites on your own is a great way to receive traffic. By swapping links, webmasters hope that people will click on their link in other websites thereby generating website traffic. It also is highly rated by search engines. The only trick here is to ensure that you're links are all relevant and active.

3) Article Writing.
Write an article on any topic which interests you, optimize it for keywords and be sure to include your website URL in the bio line at the bottom of the article. Then submit it to blogs, ezines, directories on the web. This will generate website traffic and create backlinks to your site, which in turn helps with search engine rankings.

4) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Make sure your website is search engine friendly. Ensure all the meta and alt tags are completed, optimize the text for your chosen keywords, ensure there is an H1 header, update your robots.txt, update your google sitemap. Punch your website in here to simulate how a Search Engine will see your page http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/spider-simulator/

5) Blogs
Blogs are a lot of work and if you're not prepared to put in the time required to regularly create compelling written content than skip this step. If you are going to updtate a blog with compelling content ensure your blog is hosted on your site, that it links to your important pages and that you ping each time your blog is updated. A regularly updated blog will attract readers which in turn builds website traffic.

6) Social Networks, Forums & Blog Comments
Becoming a member of online communities such as forms and blogs will encourage high quality traffic. Leaving your URL in forums will generate website traffic in two ways. First, people who read your post are likely to click the link to checkout your site. Secondly search engines will generally accept the link a counting towards your link popularity. The "nofollow" search engine command is usually employed by siteowners to distract from blatent spamming. Become an active good member of online communities and this will work well.

7) Viral Advertising
If you have a message and you tell 10 people and they each tell 10 people and so on, by the time the message goes through 10 levels it has been passed on to a million people. This is a comon tactic on sites such as Youtube. Many progressive online busienss owners know that creating interesting content that can be easily shared is an important part of success.

8) Traffic Exchanges
Traffic that is productive on one site may not be productive on another. If you can identify this traffic and re-route it either on your own site or to another (in exchange for some of theirs), you'll be further ahead. Google does this - if you preform a Google search from the U.K., the first page of results will usually be U.K. related. Ad Networks also commonly do this - if their algorithm says that they don't have any relevant ads to serve, they'll retrieve one from their "partner" ad networks to display instead.

9) Classifies Ads
Do a search for “classified ads” and you will find many sites, which accept classified advertisements. Make sure you place your ad in a site complimentary to your product. Generally sites at the top of Google/Yahoo searches will perform better than those lower down. Just remember not to be spammy and ensure that the words you use sound (and are) legit.

10) Purchased Traffic & Pay Per Click Advertising
Programs like Google's Adwords will deliver pre-qualified targeted website traffic to your site. There are also a plethora of different ways to buy traffic from various different sources. On some online industries (adult for example), purchasing traffic can be the best, easiest way to increase revenue. However, many online businesses have found that purchasing traffic doesn't work. Often there is a surge is traffic, but not a surge in sales. Between hosting costs, resource consumption, etc buying traffic can easily cost you more than the upfront fee if not done with care.

Posted via web from Rob Brown