Top 5 ways to get TRAFFIC for your website.
There is absolutely no point in creating a website if no-one is going to visit. Do you need more traffic / more business from your website? Then read on….
5. Get Social
There is a million ways to get social on the internet but only the big three are worth contemplating – MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.
MySpace and Facebook allow you to create pages for your business from which you can derive traffic for your site. People can join as Fans and listen your “blogs” and converse with you. Why would you bother? If people can find you on a social network, surely they could find your real site. Build a blog and/or chat room into your business website instead.
Twitter is a different kind of beast. Using Twitter, you can establish yourself in networks that are actually interested in you (they “follow” you). By adding tweets that are relevant and link to your site, you could generate a small following for your business.
Be warned however that social media rarely leads to actual sales. A serious prospect would more likely find your business in a search engine or advertisement.
4. Pay for Traffic
The monolith we know as Google makes millions out of this every year. Website owners, just like you, pay Google AdWords for link placement on the right hand of the screen in relevant Google search results. This is known as Pay per Click. When potential visitors click on your Google AdWords, you pay Google a specified amount. If you choose this method to drive traffic to your site, be sure to limit your monthly expenditure or it could prove very costly. I personally ignore these AdWords so as a website owner; I tend to use other free methods instead.
3. Reciprocal Linkage
Links to your site from others are very important for two reasons. One, they get traffic for your site and two, they push up your Google PageRank (see my previous post for more information). Reciprocal links are very easy to set up – simply contact other webmasters in your industry or client base and offer to link to their site if they link to yours. Example: One of my clients, Bluewater Harbour Motel, is setting up a links page for accommodation around Australia and asking other sites to do the same. Not in the immediate area of course, that could be detrimental to business. Best of all, once the page has been set up, reciprocal linking is free!
2. Return Traffic
Give your site visitors something to return for. If you write quality articles in your blog regularly, you may encourage return visits. If you are a photography site, allow monthly calendars featuring your photos to be downloaded as desktop wallpapers. Conduct polls, forums, online meetings, anything to encourage people to return. Regular visitors will pass on your links to their contacts and you will benefit from the snowball effect.
1. Search Traffic
This is the best type of traffic to get. When you are found using a search engine, it means the visitor is genuinely seeking out your services and is a potential client. A good ranking in the search engines is hard to get if you have a lot of competition. To achieve a first page listing in a search engine, you will either need to learn about search engine optimization (SEO) or pay someone to optimize your site and check out the competitors. Front page on Google is achievable but not easy. Example: Using search phrase “Web Design Innisfail” it was fairly easy for Rusty Mango Design to achieve #1. I’ve set aside a fair bit of time in the coming weeks in order to conquer the search phrase “Web Design Cairns”. There is lot of competition therefore I need to look at what phrases are working and how I can optimize my site to grab that elusive market.
