Driving Internet Traffic - How to Survive in an Ocean Full of Websites

The most essential thing that a business needs to drive sales is web traffic. This is a known fact by everyone in the industry; however, getting the quality traffic that you desire is not. Prior to even attempting to get traffic to your site, it is of the utmost importance that your website is able to convert visitors (not covered here). Your site needs to be attractive and make those who visit want to explore further into your site. Once your site is ready to convert visitors, you need to get people to your site. Here are some of the surefire ways that can help:

1. Social Media

It has been said that businesses are ruining social media as they are clouding up the communications with advertisements. I am here to say that marketing your product or service via social media is a must. One of the top rules in business is to go where your customers are. Guess what? In the United States alone, there are over 142,000,000 people using social media. Do you still have questions about where your customers are?

If you need help with getting started with social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), you can do it alone or get assistance from someone who is experienced with social media marketing.

2. Link Building

Link building is the art of linking your site from other notable sites. Search engines such as Google and Bing take into account how many different, unique, and popular sites link to yours. This tells the search engines that you have notable content and will help you get ranked near the top of the search engines. There are many ways to build links including link exchanges (not popular), purchasing links (not recommended), and good old fashion manual link building. You can start by leaving comments on blogs and forums with your link. Be careful not to spam. You can also check your link stats on Alexa.com.

3. Blogging and Forum Posting

We know that you love to do this anyway, so why not talk about your site. You will need to go to blogs and forums that talk about your niche (e.g., coupon forums are good if you have a site about extreme coupons or coupon codes). Join the forum and put a link to your site in your signature if the forum allows. Make useful comments and slowly gain a following. You will start to generate traffic from those who read your posts. Also, every comment that you leave will create a backlink to your site through your signature.

4. Newsletters and Email Lists

The money is in your list. You must start and maintain a good email list of opt-in customers. There are a couple of services out there that can help you (Constant Contact is one of them) as there are a number of legalities involved with emailing people that most just don't have the time to pay attention to. Make sure to create effective newsletters and keep customers informed about what is going on with your site. Cherish your list…..they need to be looked after and taken care of like your pets (if you fail to feed them……..they die).

5. Use Search Engine Marketing

You can also use services like Google and Bing to pay for advertising. Both have pay per click ("PPC") advertising where you can run ads on the search engine results page relative to the keywords for which people are searching. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad. Be careful and use this wisely as you are paying for each click, regardless of conversion rates. Both Google and Bing will work with you as a newbie to help create effective ads. Plus both will usually offer you free advertising up to a certain amount (usually $50 or $100 worth). This way you can test the waters with PPC advertising without using your own money.

6. Article Writing

Writing articles with information that people need or enjoy will surely bring traffic to your site. There are millions of useless articles out there so make sure that you offer information that is genuine, well researched, and useful to readers. If not, they will simply pass by and not give you any attention. When writing articles, it is important to use keywords that relate to your site. Link these words to your site so that readers know where to find more information. In addition, it will also build you another valuable backlink.

7. Paid SEO Services

For those who do not have time to run their own traffic building strategies, I suggest going with a paid SEO service. Make sure to go with a reputable service as they will be able to do everything for you that is listed in this article…..and more.