Quality traffic --- how do I even start?

I have read many posts on how to get traffic. As a complete and utter idiot on the subject, where should I begin?

Thanks!

 

I'm a newbie to all of this, but I hear it's vital you have good, fresh, updated content on your website. You gotta give something worth coming for.

I wish I could be more helpful. I look forward to reading other's responses on the subject. I'm trying to eat up lots of information right now.

Cheers.

 

that is the same boat i am in. i bet my skills have improved 1000% since joining DP. I just want to use best practices.

I am a teacher. I teach chemistry and I try to eplain things in the simplest way possible. So I am looking very much forward to the replies.

 

When they say "quality traffic" they really mean "targeted traffic" -- that is, visitors who want to visit your page, and are more inclined to click on your ads because, if your ads are relevant, they will be serving ads that should, in theory, be to the visitor's liking.

How to get it? That's a good question. PPC is one option, but that's only if you have money.

If not, then go the usual route: link exchanges with like-minded sites (if their visitor likes their site, and their site is the same as yours, then by reason the visitor should like your site, too); buying cheap advertising on like-minded sites (the vast majority of sites, I've found, have no idea what to charge, and will usually give you very low rates); post on forums in your niche, with your signature at the bottom.

These are all very "guerilla" routes to take if you have no money for real advertising, but they do yield very quality traffic.

 

Link exchanges are the only way to get good quality traffic iv found......That includes directories. I get most if not all my traffic from search engines and have found this to be the best traffic. Probably because they have chosen to search for things that are related to your site so by the time they get there you should have exactly what they are looking for.

 

Hi Jack,

I'm in the same boat with bjraines and just wanted to say I appreciate your posts, you seem to always reply with helpful information from an experienced standpoint - I like reading what you have to say.

That said, are there any good PPC programs that you've found that seem to be profitable in general? I know much of it depends on the niche your site is in, and the Click value/CTR of the site, but I was just curious if there's any programs you've personally found/would recommend that seem to be high quality.

Also, how much traffic does putting your site in your forum sig. on different forums yield - is it worth the time registering/posting on other forums for the amount of traffic a site would receive as a result, on average?

thanks

 

Do people really use directories? I mean why not just type what you are looking for in Google.

What exactly is link exchange?

 

link exchange is just when you link to someone elses site and they link to yours. You get free advertising but you also have to give it out. I found link exchanges worked great for me.

 

Using PPC to drive traffic to your site (via Adwords or some other program) is very expensive, and takes a lot of tweaking. I personally don't recommend this unless you already have a site stuff with high-paying ads, and can afford to only convert 1-5% of the traffic you're buying. (Remember that even if they're targeted, only a small percentage ever clicks on an ad.) Otherwise, I do recommend buying campaigns on popular sites in your niche. It's a lot cheaper.

It's not worth your time to post on every forum, just go for the high-traffic, popular ones. Maximize your time, effort, and visibility. And of course, don't come across as a spammer. Make sure your posts have purpose.

 

link ecxhange a good way to recieve a good traffic

 

Here are some suggestions I've always given to newbies starting out down this exciting path to riches-

1) Get oneway links from authoritative sites. Email the webmaster directly and ask for a link, and expect to do a link exchange if they won't give you a 1 way.

2) Submit articles relevant to your website to article directories. 2 things are accomplished when you do this. One, you gain a new backlink when/if your article is published. My company is currently submitting to 210 article directories. Let's say you submit over the course of a month 10 articles. If all 10 are published, that's 2100 new backlinks. Now, by and large, not all of your articles will be accepted. But the ones that are accepted, have a chance to be used by another webmaster, sometimes on a high pr site. This is the traffic you hope to get.

3) Website Directory Submissions- Hire someone to submit your site to 100+ directories. Again, your aim is to generate backlinks.

4) Post your website into your signature on message forums. I've gotten some traffic off of that.

5) Provide content on your site that will keep your visitors coming back

6) Optimize your site to get a good position on MSN to start (of course google is your goal, but often times it's MUCH easier to get listed on a good page in MSN). Include the keywords your targetting in your webpage title, meta description, on page content and other metatags.

 

then you should be starting a website that teaches chemistry, using english that's easy to understand, and entertaining as well... or is entertaining an oxymoron when it comes to chemistry?

seriously, the key to a quality website is to build a site that's based on your interests and expertise... since you care about the subject matter, you'll take pride in what you do.

my first site went live 10 years ago, and i've never used link exchanges, articles, paid traffic, or any of that... but i dominate the search engines in my categories, based on good content and quality, white-hat seo... if you put good content online, people will find it sooner or later, and start linking back to it.

one way to kick-start that is to go to the directories forum of this site, and submit your sites to the best quality directories that people are posting out there... it's an easy way to get decent links, but it won't drive much traffic.

i personally will never engage in any kind of link exchange.

the landscape of search engines has changed drastically since i started doing it, but these days the next frontier is in picture searches and rich media searches... you can get top rankings in google and yahoo for pictures, with very little effort... put up big, quality pics, and name 'em using keywords that you want people to find 'em under.

in the case of chemistry, for instance, an image search for "molecule" in google brings up 82,500 results, but it brings up 67,100,000 results when you use the web search... do you have any 3-d software for creating molecule pics with?

people will put up links to your molecule pics, but unfortunately they will also be using 'em for backgrounds on myspace, so get some cheap bandwidth and be very sure to embed your url in the pic, in an obvious manner.

 

Yes. (This coming from a guy who haaaaaaaaaated chemistry with a passion. ) Anyways, danimal makes a very good point. If your skill is in chemistry, why not combine it with your website endeavors, and do a site based around learning chemistry? You basically plan lessons every day for class, right? Do likewise for your site. Teach a new lesson every week or so (every day would take too much time). You can use a lesson you taught in the weekday and spend a lazy Sunday morning turning it into another "online lesson". You could become something of an authority site within a year if you keep at it.

 

that is a good idea. i have been working on such a site for a while but can't really decide on what type of layout i want to use. it will come to me. also there is a weee bit of PHP stuff i need done some people can ask me directly..

thanks for the encouragement.

speaking of link directories....which ones are good?

 

myspace is definitely a good place to start.

 

I think (from my experience) the quality traffic comes from Search engine because they found your website with relevant keywords

and also the 'right' web directory.

From my stats the most clicks come from these sources.

The best one right now for me is MSN search. 11% clicks
and one web directory about 5% clicks
google and yahoo about 3% clicks

 

PPC campaigns (specifically, Adwords and Overture) are the best source of INSTANT quality traffic. You'll have to spend some money initially, while you work on other methods like link building, writing articles, etc. Good luck!

 

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Try out linkbaiting- it works like nuclear chain reaction

 

What's linkbaiting btw?

 

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http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-linkbait-and-linkbaiting/