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9 ways to drive more traffic to your website

by Darren

Here’s a list of 9 ways that you can get more traffic to your website today

1) Use PPC. Sure it costs a lot of money, but if you’re careful and do visitor analysis, the payoff might be well worth it. The big advantage of PPC is that the prospects come to your website immediatedly. You don’t need to wait around to get feedback. If nothing else, use PPC to test your website’s usability and conversion rate.

2) Acquire links from successful and related websites. Websites that are already number one in your niche are arguably the best source of traffic to your website. If you run a community style site, then people who already belong to another community are great sources of traffic. The easiest way to get a relative site to link to you? Some sort of financial inducement should be just the right ticket.

3) Purchase high quality backlinks and category sponsorships from successful web directories. The next best thing to a one-way link from a related website is a link from a strong related web page on a well-established directory. Most web directories make it very easy to get listed with a payment, so this will allow you to build backlinks quickly that will build SOME related traffic, and will also give you a big push in building link popularity and website reputation.

4) Do something newsworthy and issue a press release. Notice I didn’t tell you to just issue a press release. The most impact from a press release will come if the item is picked up by traditional media sources. This will only happen if there’s something worth reporting on. If you come up with something newsworthy, a press release can be a big boost to your traffic.

5) Advertise offline, but only if your ROI spports it. If you can, it’s sometimes worth paying for off-line advertising, especially in the form of printed materials which can be left out. But only go this path if your business model supports it. There’s no guarantee a coffee mug will really help sales, so track your expenditures carefully.

6) Word of mouth from existing visitors. A referral is a powerful tool to get more visitors to your website. A satisfied user of your website serves as a soldier in your marketing army. Give your users tools that make it easy to recommend your website to others. If the revenue supports it, you may offer inducements to loyal customers who refer others.

7) Give away something useful free. Obviously, it could be expensive to give away a durable good, but you can always invent a tool or write an ebook that can be given away freely. If you’re a good writer or programmer, you can make a decent presentation that actually DOES something for your users. The better the tool, the better the free publicity. If you can’t do the project on your own, you can always rent a coder of writer and have them do the work for you.

Encourage return visits to to your website. The people who already know who you are, are the most likely to be receptive to marketing messages from you. Contact the customers and give them a way to stay in touch with you. Make sure not to hassle anyone, and always follow the social mores and legal situation where you live. Make sure you use permission marketing only, and grow your list over time.

9) Write high quality content that is useful to visitors. If you do this frequently enough, your website will begin to get a ton of traffic from search engines. Considering how much traffic the big social bookmarking websites get, you can always add a blog, and update as much as possible. Clearly, adding a blog to an existing website can have huge marketing potential and has to be considered for any legitimate website owner.

All of these tips are extremely easy to implement (depending on your budget). If your budget is low, then eschew the advice that requires payments and go for the free option. The only thing limiting the amount of traffic to your website is determination, imagination, and desire. Good luck building traffic to your website.