Are you looking for ideas for driving traffic to a website?
Search the internet and you will find that most of the advice is around Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
Whilst this is certainly a great way to increase your website traffic it can take some time to get your website to the top of the search engine lists and it's only then that the traffic will start to really flow to your website.
So what you need is a list of ideas to get the traffic in quickly whilst your SEO efforts start to kick in. Even after your SEO efforts have been rewarded, these tips will still continue to bring in visitors to your site and you can never have too much traffic can you?
So here are some ideas to really get that traffic driving to your website. (As an added bonus, most of these ideas will also get you extra links back to your website and so they will help your SEO profile as well!)
1) Put your web address on everything!
Sounds Obvious doesn't it but you would be amazed at how many emails I get from businesses that do not have their website address.
Setting up a signature with your web address for your emails is simple and once you have done it you can relax knowing that all your emails are going out with your web address included.
Apart from your emails, you should add your web address to every single piece of paper that leaves your office. Business cards, letters, brochures, even invoices. It costs nothing to add your email address to all these items and they are all capable of bringing in visitors.
I'd even go as far as to stamp my web address on the outside of envelopes as well
2) Write articles
A well written article with your web address attached to it is a great way to bring in the web traffic. If you make the article very relevant to your business then the traffic is likely to be very targeted to your business.
For example, if you sell Wedding items that an article called "10 steps to the perfect Wedding day" is likely to bring in potential customers.
Once you have some articles, the best way to get them distributed is through the article distribution websites. I tend to use ezinearticles and articlemarketer but there are many others as well.
3) Use Press Releases
The press are always looking for interesting and engaging stories. A relevant press release about your business can generate a lot of interest, especially if it is topical
There are a number of web services that will distribute your press releases for you and give it some great exposure. PRWeb is a good example.
4) Use the Newsgroups
Be active on various newsgroups and forums that are relevant to your business. Make sure you include your website address in your profile signature. Most forums will let you do this. Some might require you to make a number of posts first just to make sure that you are going to be a relevant contributor
Once you have your signature set up, start to read other peoples posts and reply to them where you can. If your post helpful and informative posts you will quite often find that people will follow the link in your signature back to your website.
Also most forums have their pages indexed by the search engines so you might find that your posts are picked up by people searching and they may then also follow the link back to your website.
5) Use Pay Per Click
Pay per Click is a great way to instantly bring in targetted traffic to your website. Google and Yahoo both have very good Pay per Click services. I tend to prefer Google Adwords as it has a far better coverage and the traffic seems to be better targetted.
One word of advice. If you don't know what you are doing you can quickly spend a lot of money for very little benefit. I have a free beginners guide to Adwords that I would suggest anyone new to Adwords reading. Even experienced users might find a tip or two that saves them some money.
Social Bookmarking
Sites like Dig, StumbleUpon and Del.icio.us are great at generating traffic.
They all work in a similar way. Their users can tag (or bookmark) pages that they like whilst they are surfing the web
They can then share these tags with their friends. Some of the networks of friends can be huge and suddenly your tagged page is getting a lot of tags and traffic.
You can help yourself by making it easy for people to tag your site by including a tag button. You'll see mine at the top right of every page on my website.
Need any more ideas?
I'll keep updating this page with news ideas. There are many more ways to increase your web traffic. So why not bookmark me now for future reference!
Link Building - Forums and Newsgroups
Forums and newgroups can be a great place to attract traffic to your website. Not just because you can use them to build link popularity but also because the other members may also follow the links to see what your site has to offer.
Not only that but getting involved in forums and newsgroups in your own particular field of business can be highly rewarding. They can provide lots of help, guidance and networking opportunities.
However there is a certain etiquette to follow that is not only good manners but it also makes business sense.
How to get links from the Forums and Newsgroups
There are two types of links you can get from the forums and newsgroups.
Signature Links
Firstly you can make use of your signature in our user profile.
Most forums and newsgroups ask you to register before they will allow you to post. When you register, one of the options you will usually be given is to enter a signature that will be posted at the bottom of all your posts. It's very similar to the signature you put in your emails.
By putting a link into your signature back to your website you will be generating a link every time you post to the forum. Make sure you use the keywords in the link text for the page you are linking back to.
However, don't just put a link in your signature. Include a compelling statement that will entice anyone who reads the post to click on the link.
Post Links
Once you start posting you might find that a page on your website offers some valuable information that is relevant to the thread you are posting to. In this case it is acceptable to put a link in your post back to your page.
Be careful here though. Don't try to twist your post just so that you have an excuse to post a link. People will soon get tired of that. They will stop following links back to your website and you might also find yourself in trouble with the administrators.
Warning - Avoid Spammy posts.
One of the most annoying and counter productive activities I see on many forums are people posting just for the sake of getting the signature link into as many posts as they can.
The classic example of this is the Introduction Forum. Most of these sites will have one and it's where new members can post there first post and say hello.
If you've seen these posts, you will notice that some posters seem to reply to every new person with the same post. It's usually something like "Welcome to the Forum" or "Please to meet you" etc. They post these same words every time. Basically they go around every forum just copying in these words to every intro post they can find.
Now you might think that's a good idea because they are getting a link every time. However it's not. For one thing it really cheese off most other members (as well as the administrators).
In addition I'm almost willing to bet that Google will soon pick up on this practice. If it hasn't already. Google is getting very clever and they not only read links but they will also read the words around a link. So if they are starting to see the same words time and time again around a link, they will know this is just link spammers. A Google slap will be on the cards soon!
So keep your own posts useful, informative and of value to the other members.
Not only that but getting involved in forums and newsgroups in your own particular field of business can be highly rewarding. They can provide lots of help, guidance and networking opportunities.
However there is a certain etiquette to follow that is not only good manners but it also makes business sense.
How to get links from the Forums and Newsgroups
There are two types of links you can get from the forums and newsgroups.
Signature Links
Firstly you can make use of your signature in our user profile.
Most forums and newsgroups ask you to register before they will allow you to post. When you register, one of the options you will usually be given is to enter a signature that will be posted at the bottom of all your posts. It's very similar to the signature you put in your emails.
By putting a link into your signature back to your website you will be generating a link every time you post to the forum. Make sure you use the keywords in the link text for the page you are linking back to.
However, don't just put a link in your signature. Include a compelling statement that will entice anyone who reads the post to click on the link.
Post Links
Once you start posting you might find that a page on your website offers some valuable information that is relevant to the thread you are posting to. In this case it is acceptable to put a link in your post back to your page.
Be careful here though. Don't try to twist your post just so that you have an excuse to post a link. People will soon get tired of that. They will stop following links back to your website and you might also find yourself in trouble with the administrators.
Warning - Avoid Spammy posts.
One of the most annoying and counter productive activities I see on many forums are people posting just for the sake of getting the signature link into as many posts as they can.
The classic example of this is the Introduction Forum. Most of these sites will have one and it's where new members can post there first post and say hello.
If you've seen these posts, you will notice that some posters seem to reply to every new person with the same post. It's usually something like "Welcome to the Forum" or "Please to meet you" etc. They post these same words every time. Basically they go around every forum just copying in these words to every intro post they can find.
Now you might think that's a good idea because they are getting a link every time. However it's not. For one thing it really cheese off most other members (as well as the administrators).
In addition I'm almost willing to bet that Google will soon pick up on this practice. If it hasn't already. Google is getting very clever and they not only read links but they will also read the words around a link. So if they are starting to see the same words time and time again around a link, they will know this is just link spammers. A Google slap will be on the cards soon!
So keep your own posts useful, informative and of value to the other members.
Link Building through Articles
Articles are a great way to build inbound, one way links to your website.
Website and Blog owners are always looking for new content and they frequently check out the article submission sites to pick up new and interesting content for their websites. In return for your article they will provide a link back to your site. So one really great article can generate literally thousands of inbound one way links.
So how is it done?
Firstly, you obviously need some articles. It's best to write articles that are relevant to your website. The types of articles that do really well are the "Top Tips" or the "How to" types of article. For example: Five Top Tips to buying a New Car or How to Design your Website.
I'm sure you can write a few of these types of articles for your type of business.
The next thing you will need is what's called the About the Author text. This is the one or two paragraphs that appear at the end of articles telling you something about the author and their website. This will contain the link back to your website.
I tend to create a few articles, usually in Notepad, and my About the Author before I start to go to the article submission sites. It's easier to cut and paste your article than to keep typing it in every time! Also you might want to avoid using Microsoft Word to produce your articles because the can introduce some formatting code that the article sites cannot process and you articles will get rejected.
Once you have your articles ready to go it's now time to submit them for distribution.
There are many sites that offer this service. My advice is to look around and see which is best for you. maybe there is one that specialises in your line of business.
Make sure the site you choose allows you to put in html links back to your website. Also make sure that they allow you to edit the article after you have submitted it. I made a mistake in one of my first articles and it still keeps appearing on sites even after all this time.
What are Meta Tags?
Meta tags are html code that you can insert into your web pages.
Generally speaking they are used by search engines to help index your pages properly.
There is a lot of information freely available on the web about the importance of meta tags and to use them to get a high page ranking. However most of it is out of date and some is just plainly wrong.
Basically there are only two meta tags that you should concern yourself with. These are the Title tag and the Description meta tag.
Both of these tags are definitely used by most of the search engines. They are certainly used by Google and that accounts for a very large proportion of searches on the web these days.
These tags are placed at the top of your html code in the head section as per the example below.
Both of these meta tags are important from an SEO point of view as you will see if you read my two articles Optimizing Title Tags and Optimizing description meta tags
However they are also extremely important in getting people to click and visit your site once the search engines list your page in their search results.
Why?
Your Title tag and your Description meta tag are displayed when you web page is listed by the search engines. Take a look at the example Google search result below.
The top line of the search result is the Title tag. The next line is taken from the Description meta tag.
So now you can see that making the Title and Description tags compelling will help increase the number of clicks you get when you are listed. Please don't fall into the trap of using Title tags like "Home Page"
Related Reading
SEO TIPS
In today's competitive web business we all need ever bit of help we can get to make sure our website gets noticed.
So here are six top SEO tips that will give your website a much needed lift.
Don't delay. Implement them today!
Get those Tags working for you.
Make sure all of your pages have a unique title and description meta tags. It is also very important to ensure that your keywords for the page are used in both of these tags. Just getting this one right can make a significant difference to your search engine placement.
Link your own pages using your keywords
Use consistent keyword focused links between your own web pages. Make sure any links between your web pages use the keywords for the page you are linking to. Using the Title of the page you are linking to is great if you can manage it. If you feel tempted to use words like "Click here" then try putting that phrase into Google and see what competition you are up against!
When Linking. It's Quality not Quantity
Go for quality links to your website. Avoid the temptation to list your site on every directory you can find. Put your efforts into getting links from quality sites that already have a good standing with the search engines. Also avoid link farms or link partnering schemes. The value of these links is usually very poor and the search engines may look badly upon your website for having so many poor links.
Become a Writer!
Write some articles about your type of business and submit then to the article submission sites. Make sure you include your website address in the "About the Author" section of your article. People are always looking for content for their websites, so your article (if it's interesting and relevant) will get picked up and published on other sites ensuring you links back to your site.
You might like to look at my Article Link Building Guide.
Get active on the Forums.
Join newsgroups and forums for your business community. If you participate actively in these groups and offer valuable input people will soon see you as an authority and it's not unusual for them to then link to your website form their site or blog. Also If you include your website address in your signature text for your posts then you will also get links from all your posts. That said these are not highly ranked these days by the likes of Google. However they can bring traffic even if they don't bring rank.
If it's broken Fix it!
Check your site frequently for broken links. The search engines hate sites with broken links. Not only can they not index your site properly but it also suggests that the website is not being cared for. There is lots of software on the market for checking your site. I use some free software called Xenu. Just Google it and you will find it. Also Google's Webmaster free service will tell you if it finds any broken links.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)