Do you have a website but no traffic? Could you do with hundreds or even thousands more unique visitors?
If so, then read on. These 7 tips will help you improve traffic to your site for years to come. And traffic is the lifeblood of every website. If your site has no visitors, then you’ll have nobody to do business with.
Many new website owners spend much time, effort and money on the look and layout of their site, on selecting great products and creating easy-to-use shopping carts. All important activities, but without traffic all your hard work is for nothing. But if you plan in traffic generation from the beginning you’re laughing!
And what if you already have a website? Despair not. Implement these 7 tips and traffic to your site will soon pick up.
1Â Â Â Content, Content, Content!
Most website traffic these days is generated by search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN or Ask. These engines spend all their days crawling websites, reading their content and matching it to queries from surfers.
And what do surfers look for? Information.
Provide that information and the search engines will send traffic to your site.
Provide information that your visitors love and they’ll come back.
And when the engines notice that your site is popular with its visitors, that it gives them what they look for, then they will rank you higher and send you even more traffic.
So look at your site and ask yourself: do I provide enough interesting, topical content for my visitors? And if you’re not – then write some!
2Â Â Â Links Rule!
Imagine the delicate web of a spider: threads linked to other threads linked to other threads … making the whole construction stronger than each thread will be alone.
And that’s exactly how search engines view websites. Standalone websites, with no connection to any of the other 100 million sites on the web, will hardly be valued and ranked highly.
So as part of your traffic generation action plan, you must develop links with other sites, with directories, with forums, with good blogs in your field.
Exchange links with other good sites in your field. Encourage visitors to link to your site or to bookmark it.
But always be aware that search engines judge your site on the quality and relevancy of its links! Don’t just link to anyone for the sake of having links. This will hurt you in the long term.
3Â Â Â Go Viral!
Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, Furl … the list of social bookmarking communities grows almost daily, as does the number of people using them.
These communities are an excellent way to spread the word about your site and your products. Millions of people are already participating in social networking and – like a virus – information spreads between them at an astonishing rate.
So join in, share your enthusiasm for your field or your product and see your traffic rocket!
4Â Â Â Share your Knowledge!
You’re passionate about your product and your field. You know how it will benefit people, how it can improve their lives or save them money.
Sharing your passion, knowledge and experience is a simple, effective way to increase traffic to your site. Why? Because surfers look for information. And who could provide this better than the expert in the field!
So become an expert and build credibility for yourself and your site or product. Join forums and discussion groups in your field, offer help, answer questions. The more pro-active you are, the more people will respond to you and recommend your site or product to others.
5Â Â Â Update, Update, Update!
If you don’t feed and water your plants, they’ll die. Visitors are just the same. If you offer them the same old information week in week out, they won’t come back.
But there’s much you can do to keep your visitors interested in your site and your products. And the same effort will also bring in new visitors.
Keep your site fresh by adding new content.
Write a blog and offer RSS feeds.
Write short articles about your topic and submit these to article directories.
Write press releases.
And – often overlooked – keep your existing customers informed by publishing a newsletter. Add interesting tidbits and special offers. Add a link to your subscription page at the bottom and don’t forget to ask readers to pass the newsletter on to people with similar interests!
If your website suffers from low visitor numbers, there is no need to despair. With but a little effort and imagination, your visitor numbers can soar. And there’s no need to spend a fortune on advertising, either. The internet is a natural traffic building tool – just use it and reap the rewards.