Tips to get (mostly) FREE traffic to your website

sarbaraj101 Peon

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#1

Originally written by myself:
http://www.sarbaraj.com/tips-to-get-free-traffic-to-your-website/

Almost all professional webmasters in the world crave for traffic but most usually get stuck. Getting a high volume of traffic is quite a difficult task. Well, for an averagely successful site, Iâ€™d say it should be 25% from referrals (traffic from links on other sites, social bookmarking sites etc), 15% as direct traffic (traffic directly to your site - i.e. by entering the name of the site on the browser and surfing it), a whooping 55% from organic search engine traffic (traffic from search engine results) and rest 5% from others (e-mail, advertisements etc) but it could go up and down (think of reaching DIGGâ€™s main page).

Alright, letâ€™s first prepare your mind. Everything is done by the â€œself-willâ€. Actions emanate results. You need to act and wait before seeing the results. If one method isnâ€™t working well, donâ€™t leave it. Just give it less importance and try others. Before applying the tips, be careful that you arenâ€™t exhausted. In my humble opinion, it is very exhausting to try everything at once. A good time to apply these tips would be on Sunday, shortly after bathing. Just donâ€™t try everything at once. Go for it slowly. See the frequency recommended (mentioned in the parenthesis after the title).

You need a lot of passion (to get traffic) and some techniques that you need to IMPLEMENT. I mean that seriously. There are some lay-bums who think knowing will do everything. They are the ones who end up nowhere. You donâ€™t need to apply all of the techniques mentioned to get enough traffic, but it is recommended to implement all of them.

1. Write High Quality Content (to be followed for ever):
High quality content is the most important thing that youâ€™ll ever require. Plan for visitors first, search engines second. This helps you bring sustained, long term traffic. Search engines can bring you traffic but what is the use if they are bounce (i.e. they leave after looking the first page itself).To define high quality content, I would say it is something like a blend of good grammar, niche-targeted writing and enough information (Iâ€™d recommend articles of about 500 - 10,000+ words, depending one what you write on). Write as if you are talking to somebody. Make sure that content you have informs the user on almost everything that the user may ask you if you were his/her school-teacher. Remember, survival is of the fittest.

2. Search Engine Optimization (review it about once or twice a month) :
Search engine optimization is the process of making your page â€œsearch engine friendlyâ€ so that a spider can crawl the most out of it to give you a high enough SERP (Search Engine Ranking Position) for good traffic. If you get a #1 spot on any other major Search Engine like Google or Yahoo, it will bring you a huge amount of traffic. For basics of SEO, add your â€œkeywordsâ€ to the title of the page, in Meta tag and use it fairly in the content, describe images by using the â€œaltâ€ attribute, use h1 - h6 (heading) tags with your keywords etc. Also, unique and relevant content works wonder! Iâ€™ll write an article on SEO soon, so wait until then for more of SEO!

3. Update your site (often):
More you update the site, more frequent the web crawlers/spiders from search engines will visit your site. Updating quite frequently helps you reatin traffic. Search Engines also prefer updating sites. The world is dynamic so should be your website. Update in a rhythm. Choose either to update daily, twice weekly, weekly or semi-monthly and stick with it.

4. Choose a short and memorable domain name:
Look at these domain names: Yahoo, Google, Alexa, Amazon, Zapak, Liveâ€¦ and the list goes on. These domain names donâ€™t describe anything thatâ€™s inside, as the content. But, it is easy to remember these domain names. Just choose a memorable domain name so that a visitor will remember your domain name. Well, this may be a passive factor, but it helps a lot!

5. Buy misspelled domain name:
Get some misspelled domain names. Suppose for www.sarbaraj.com, I could get sarbaraja.com, sarabraj.com etc. and redirect them all to the real domain name. Some people often misspell the domain names. This will help you retain your traffic.

6. Social bookmark your site; all articles in it (as you add new pages):
Well, this brings in HEAVY traffic. You could get thousands of unique visitors a day through social bookmarking sites. Just submit your site with attractive descriptions. Use the keywords to your advantage. Give it a lucrative title. The social bookmarking sites even boost your PR, giving you double benefit! Add links on your site asking visitors to vote for you in the social networking sites. Submit your siteâ€™s pages to: DIGG
Delicious
Netscape
Reddit
Stumble Upon
Furl.NET

There are a lot more of them, just do a search on the web on â€œSocial Networkingâ€ and youâ€™ll get a cartload of links.

7. Use â€œaltâ€ on images and give images descriptive titles:
To cut long story short, this helps the bots identify what the image is about. If you have a picture of a white cat, its name should be something like white_cat.jpg and insert it this way Cute White Cat This will bring you a cartload of traffic from images.google.com and other image search engines.

8. Create and Update your sitemap.xml (as you add new pages):
Add all the links on your site on a sitemap.xml and submit it to major search engines like Google and Yahoo! Search. Upload the sitemap to your home directory. This will help the bots in easier searching of webpages on your site.

9. Submit articles to article directories (as you write them):
If you have articles which are well written, you can submit them to article directories. Submit partial articles and ask them to visit your site for the full article.

10. Submit articles to targeted forums (as you write them):
As with submission to article directories, post the articles in forum. Submit partial articles and ask them to visit your site for the full articles. Keep updating the thread where you post and ask for recommendations.

11. Have lucrative titles (as you add content):
Lucrative title helps attract many visitors from Search Engines, Social Networking sites and it also retains the traffic. Give them quality and grab their attention!

12. Remove broken links (monthly):
Remove broken links; they are junk. They drop your SERP and PR. They just downgrade the performance of the list. You can have a broken link checker software to report those to you. Alternatively, you can use Link Alarm to check for broken links.

13. Have a custom 404 error page:
Most people get scared by the default message of the 404 error message. The best tip is to call for the site template and the text â€œThis area is experiencing difficulties or you might have entered the wrong url. Please check.â€ or something similar should be written.

14. Submit to directories:
If your site is indexed by many directories, you SERP (search engine ranking position) will become better. You can also get traffic from the directories. Submit to them to increase your PR also! Here is a small list of some directories:Here are some FREE directories where you should try to get your site into (I have compacted this list for more space for articles):

ODP/DMOZ PR8 | Librarianâ€™s Internet Index PR 8 | World Hot PR 6 | Spheri.com PR 5 | Web central PR 5 | T Section PR 5 | Submit Url Here PR 5 | Shoula.com PR 5 | SGT Search PR 5 | Search Warp PR 5 | Search the Web PR 5 | Resource Help PR 5 | Poddys.com PR 5 | Search Sight PR 5 | Illumirate.com PR 5

And, here is a list of PAID directories:
Yahoo! Business Directory PR7 ($299/year)
Business Directory PR7 ($199/year)
BOTW PR7 ($69.95/year)
Dir Journal PR7 ($34.95 - one time)
E Zilon PR6 ($69.00 - one time)
X Web Directory PR6 ($24.95 - one time)
The Red Tree PR6 ($8.00 - one time)

15. Publish a newsletter (weekly; semi-weekly preferred):
Publishing a newsletter can help people remember your site. Newsletters will persuade the people to return to your site. Iâ€™d recommend signing up for Aweber.

16. Use forum signatures:
Add you websites to the signature area of the forums you participate in, and where they allow it. Basically, its like the more you post, the more links you get after that and more links means more exposure.

17. Write press releases (monthly or so):
Write press releases and submit them to press release directories (thatâ€™s what I call them) like PR Web, URLwire etc. They can give you a burst of traffic in a short time and who knows; a journalist might call you for an interview!

18. Analyze and boost your traffic:
Use Google Analytics to analyze your traffic. See where your traffic is coming from and plan for more traffic. See your keywords, review them. See your referring sites.

19. Use online classifieds:
Submit your site to online classifieds, just donâ€™t SPAM them. This can bring you a lot of traffic. A popular one is Yahoo! Classifieds.

20. Use offline advertising:
Advertise on TV and newspapers. They can surely bring you hefty amount of traffic.
Click to expand...

sarbaraj101, Nov 10, 2007 IP

tarponkeith likes this.

sumit270 Active Member

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#2

prefect article
thank you

sumit270, Nov 10, 2007 IP

sarbaraj101 Peon

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#3

Welcome. I think I'll add more tips and convert it into an e-book.

sarbaraj101, Nov 10, 2007 IP

santhana Active Member

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#4

fantastic my dear friend. I like it !

santhana, Nov 10, 2007 IP

cool_78 Guest

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#5

Nice tips! My favorite free method of getting trafic is submitting to social bookmarking sites.

cool_78, Nov 10, 2007 IP

gadiez Active Member

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#6

thanks for info, I do it

gadiez, Nov 10, 2007 IP

sarbaraj101 Peon

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#7

You are all welcome. For more tips, visit the original article.

sarbaraj101, Nov 10, 2007 IP

willyboy104 Active Member

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#8

Really good thanks

willyboy104, Nov 10, 2007 IP

sarbaraj101 Peon

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#9

Welcome, a +rep would be highly appreciated if you find the info useful.

sarbaraj101, Nov 10, 2007 IP

Games master Well-Known Member

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#10

Good tips. Anyways, i know all of them. Make the article a little short..it takes so much time to read that it makes me bored..

Games master, Nov 10, 2007 IP

just laughs Peon

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#11

thanks just what i am looking for

just laughs, Nov 10, 2007 IP

tarponkeith Well-Known Member

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#12

Nice article; thanks

+REP

tarponkeith, Nov 10, 2007 IP

sarbaraj101 Peon

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#13

welcome.
Thanks for the rep.

sarbaraj101, Nov 10, 2007 IP

CourageTheCowardlyDog Well-Known Member

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#14

Good article man

CourageTheCowardlyDog, Nov 10, 2007 IP

DirectEbook Peon

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#15

Great Article. I liked the 404 error pafe tip. I am going to try this out. Thanks

DirectEbook, Nov 10, 2007 IP

cybershadowX Peon

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#16

Thanks man~! I liked it!

cybershadowX, Nov 10, 2007 IP

sarbaraj101 Peon

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#17

Welcome, lol.
Most useful posts @ www.sarbaraj.com

sarbaraj101, Nov 10, 2007 IP

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