Hi Everyone! I just wanted to start a new thread on how/what everyone uses to get traffic to their websites... I know I know... there's information scattered right throughout this forum but don't you think it would be nice to consolidate ideas? Obviously you have the search engines/lists: Google, Yahoo, dmoz (who knows how long the waiting list is for yahoo and dmoz?) You can buy traffic too? Does anyone still read newsgroups these days? worth participating there? Is it worth buying an opt-in list and send emails?? Thanks!
successful steps in increasing website traffic the steps that helped me most during all the past years 0. interesting content 1. max SEO for every page 2. each page SEO'd individually 3. active blog 4. 3 RSS feeds 5. submission to the largest few dozen directories and SE with regular re-submission where needed - using www.selfpromotion.com semi automated individualized services since many years thanks to SEO every single G update has resulted in a sudden and lasting increase in traffic ... see http://www.kriyayoga.com/god/current_year/last_12_months.html the last G update apparently started around April 4th/5th and has resulted in lasting 20+ UP from one day to the other the greatest single effect in traffic increase have been the early 2 ( now 3 ) RSS feeds submitted to all known RSS directories and ping services ( Y ) in the mean time the blog with RSS feed is traffic creator #1 as i use blog to cover some of the main topics of the site's content with linking to various chapters with the by far greatest percentage of all traffic coming from direct referrals presently some 17.50% - (Direct Request) - it is difficult to "guess" the real origin of such traffic - bookmarks from regular repeat visitors, newsletters, increasing number of free eCards sent from my site with each eCard having links to important sections of the site ... it all is a small site - but steadily traffic is going UP - finally i would say that steady traffic increase is a result of all a.m. combined efforts to use all traditional a.m. methods simultaneousely. i neither participate in link farming nor in link exchange nor do i purchase traffic or links
provider a service that is needed and everything will take care of itself... seriously that is the big secret.
thanks hans! I will follow it step by step... from what i read previously google updates its link to you depending on how often your page changes? am i correct? BTW... im just starting out. I've read the earnings thread... is this really worth doing? I mean isn't the market just so saturated? people setting up so many meso sites just to get the clicks?
Save up some money and purchase stickys on popular forums. You can also add your links to your signiture.
I have found a few ways to promote my site. These are alternatives to getting listed in Google -- I'm in the Google 'holding bay" or whatever it's called, so my site is ranked low just because it's brand new. Without help from Google, these alternatives seem to work: First, Google adwords. It's a great way to get right up in the search listings, even if your site otherwise wouldn't rank at all. I get about 20 visitors a day from Google, which only costs about $90/month. What's good is that about half those people click on Google ads that are on MY site, which makes me about $50/month. So I end up only losing a couple twenties. Not too awful. The other thing that helps is to post in relevant forums, always including a good sig with links back to your site. But you have to be on target. For example, I have a site for writers & artists. Posting here with a sig won't get me a lot of good traffic (it'll generate some so-so traffic). However, posting on forums for writers nets me some real visitors who are really interested in my site. If you want numbers, I'd guess that a good post to a lukewarm topic (only a page or two of posts) gets me 5 to 10 visitors (that's total, not per day). So if I post 20 times and they are all pretty good posts, I can expect to get maybe 100 to 200 visitors to my site. That's on a normal sized forum, with 1000 to 6000 members. Also, something nobody has mentioned is that posting comments to relevant blogs always gains you a few curious onlookers. I have bookmarked about 10 blogs for writers that have decent-sized readership (5 to 100 comments posted per blog entry). I try to post good, insightful comments, and each one gets me anywhere from 1 to 35 new visitors. I also tried issuing a press release via PRWeb. However, that just started today (Monday, April 25th) and it's only 1 AM. So I have no idea how that will go. The last thing that appears to work is simply to offer money or prizes. Now this can generate a lot of junk traffic. I used to work for Actuate. They make reporting tools (charts, graphs), and they used to raffle away Palm Organizers to people who would give them a business card. We generated tens of thousands of "potential leads" that way. But it only boiled down to a few hundred good, qualified leads. Most people didn't care that we sold reporting tools. Still, a few hundred good leads is OK. However, if you can target your audience better, those contests have a great impact. If you have a technology site, giving away a tech gadget is right on target. I have a writing site, and in a couple weeks I'll be paying a bounty to anyone who can add magazines to my database of "markets for writers." I expect that will not only bulk up my database, but bring in some enthusiastic writers, too.
SEO + SEM mainly. With the SEM part being AdWords & Overture PPC. Just started doing PR releases. We used to do TV shows actually back when we had exclusive right to an interesting product. But that only gets you traffic for the 2 hours after the show... TV viewers are lazy and can't remember the URL no matter how easy. More hassle than it's worth in the end. Sometimes do some promo's / link deals with other sites.
I'd recommend staying away from marketing/internet related stuff. Focus on consumer type sites. Sites that the average internet user is interested in. The problem with marketing/seo/internet related type sites is that your audience is likely to bypass your affiliate links, go to the sources themselves, get all the information they need and run. I made the mistake of owning several marketing type sites and found out that only my consumer sites were producing "decent" money. But that's my personal experience. I don't speak for everyone else, obviously. On the other hand, yes, if you created an average consumer type site targetting the general non-techie public, you're likely to make a lot of money. I learned this the hard way. I usually go to alexa and see the top 500 sites. Then I ask myself: Why are these sites getting 1,000,000 visitors a month? Obviously they offer something the people want. Then you go to a "how to make 1 million on the internet while scratching your navel at home" type sites, and they have, at best, 10,000-100,000 uniques a month and focus on selling ebooks and recruting. Nothing wrong with that, just way too saturated on overlabeled.
Don't forget to make sure your exisiting visitors to come back again or help you get new ones. This is how I do / have done it on my site: 1. "Bookmark" graphic on every page allowing the user to add the site to bookmarks with one click. 2. "Tell a friend" - Automates sending my site info by email to up to 3 friends. 3. "Put the translator on your site" - The visitor grabs the html code here and puts it on his / her own site. Two benefits for me: (1) It funnels visitors directly into my site from this other person's site / blog. (2) It has two small built-in links to my site that have the anchor text of my two top key phrases. So this increases my position in the SERPs (or will when I am out of the sandbox) indirectly increasing visitor numbers. Even if you have nothing like this, you should at least provide html code and banners for people to gratuitously link to you. 4. "Blog us and get ????? free!" - Did this for the first month we were open. Offered an image of the person's name in kanji to anyone who blogged a short review of my site. Got a number of good links and visitors as a result and cost me nothing. Interestingly, only one person "scammed" me by creating a free blog just to get her kanji name image. (I was surprised because I thought that would be a bigger problem. I guess that is more a reflection on me!)
I get all my traffic from Google. I am heavily involved in product launches and Article Marketing is enough to bring me to the top 5 positions in Google for the product's name almost everytime. Actually, I really think webmasters should worry more about increasing their conversion rates than about increasing traffic to their site. "Optimize what you got before trying to get more" should be in everybody's mind.
I usually generate traffice through following ways 1. commenting on other blogs 2.Being helpful in forums 3.Article marketing--Ezine,goarticles.com,squidoo.com,hubpages.com 4.Guest posts 5.Link Exchanging 6.Social Media, etc Those above traffic strategy I mainly use to generate traffice. I am still trying to find other strategy, if anyone have better ideas, please share with us, thanks Jacky
I think the best, IF YOU HAVE A GOOD AND INTERESTING PRODUCT(S), is to make ads. I know it will cost you money but.. if you have a good website.. people will talk about your website.. and they will do the propagation for you!
Hai,Driving traffic to your site is both a science and an art, and the way it is achieved differ from person to person, according to one's preferences, taste and financial muscle! Whatever route one follows, perseverance is the key word to achieve success! Cheers