Ten Ways To Promote Your Site And Increase Traffic

Website promotion is a vital area in internet marketing that you should learn to master immediately. Your website is your HQ on the web, and as such, should be made prominent at the soonest possible time. The more people who would know about your website, the more visitors you would have.

Increased web site traffic would mean more potential sales and an expanded customer base. Here are ten useful ways to increase the volume of traffic of your site:

1. Get Your Own Domain Name.

People will never forget catchy domain names. Getting your own domain name will provide familiarity and recall. Be sure to choose a short and easy to remember domain name that is appropriate to your business.

2. Upload New, Original and Useful Content.

Blatant ads such as banners and pop-ups only irritate visitors. Give them information they can't find anywhere else, and give it to them for free. Always think benefits when posting a new article or feature. Thinking of ways to get your visitor what they want will establish respect and more importantly trust.

3. Submit Your Site to Search Engines.

Search engines bring more than 75% of traffic to most web sites. Search engine submissions means serious work. This involves search engine positioning and meta tag placements. It doesn’t end there because you need to test this with a number of search engine tools. This process involves constant monitoring of website competitors, and continuous
editing of pages.

4. Pay For Top Spots.

The best way to get website traffic without trying too hard would be through paid advertisements. These advertisements would be posted on prime locations or banners of websites. Popular websites like leading newspapers and search engines would provide immediate recognition and visibility to their customers. Of course this entails some substantial
advertising budget, but it is a good recourse for those who could afford it.

5. Form an Online Community.

An online community can be a message board, email groups, discussion list, and even a chat forum. Actively participate in these on-line groups by posting answers to other people’s questions and post appropriate information. Be visible and include your signature at the end of your postings. Maximize these special interest groups because people in online
communities get involved easily and are ready to communicate with others.

6. Start Your Own Mailing List.

It is the best way to keep in touch with your prospects and your customers. This is the best way to build the credibility needed to close a sale to your target market.

7. Start an E-Zine for Your Website.

An E-zine is an extension of your site, but this will highlight new information and features of your site. People will be reminded of your website as they read each issue. If they find they issue interesting or worth sharing, they can easily and instantly pass this on to the people within their network.

8. Submit Articles.

Write your own article and submit it to e-zines, websites and magazines that accept article submissions. Be sure to include your business and contact information and website address in the resource box.

9. Exchange Ads.

Create ads that will promote your business and website. Submit this to e-zines or other websites in exchange for free ad space in your own electronic publication. Your presence to other site or publications is very important in getting the increased traffic that you want. This is usually
facilitated with either simple links or flashy banners.

10. Update Your Website.

Your website should always be up and running. It is to your advantage if you maintain your website with new articles and updated features. Maintain a clean layout and check for broken links, images and pages. If they always find what they want and need, they will surely be coming back each time. Additionally, search engine spiders love a site with
changing content!

Get More Website Traffic

If you’re an online marketer and own a website, you know the key to making sales is getting more traffic to your website. You also know all web site traffic is not created equal. You not only need lots of web traffic, you need lots of targeted traffic. That’s the key and once you have it, your sales will increase exponentially.

The best way to get targeted website traffic is to use Pay-per-Click (PPC) services such as Google AdWords, or Yahoo or a host of other pay services. You also need to know what you’re doing or you could find yourself spending lots of money, getting poor results and losing money very quickly. Also, when you’re first starting out, you have a limited budget, and starting with PPC campaigns may not even be an option for you at this point in time.

That’s where free traffic exchanges come in. Free traffic exchanges can be a great way to get traffic to your website. You should also know there’s really no such thing as free because you must spend your time surfing through other websites to earn credits. Free traffic exchanges are a great way to get lots of visitors to your site however, so spending an hour a day surfing, is not a lot to ask if you’re making sales from your efforts. And isn’t this why your in this business to begin with?

Free traffic exchanges are a great marketing tool for a many reasons. The best reason is that you get lots of people looking, and hopefully clicking on your website or promotional pages. But there are hidden benefits to free traffic exchanges you may not have even considered.

Search engines love free traffic exchanges because of all the incoming and outgoing links they generate. Plus the rapidly changing content is another reason the search engines love traffic exchanges. Exchanges that have more content also generate a higher page rank, and therefore more traffic, and increased memberships. The key is to find exchanges that are very active and have lots of members. The more members they have, the more potential customers you get looking at your offer and your chances for sales conversions are that much better. But bigger isn’t always better.

Some free traffic exchanges may do very well for one marketer, and be a complete waste of time for another. If everyone were promoting the same website or affiliate program in the same traffic exchange for example, then chances are you would not make many sales. Even if you were promoting the best product or service on the internet, if everyone promoted the same thing, your chances of someone purchasing through your website or links, are slim to none. Also, when people see the same ad over and over again, they get desensitized to it. Don't fall into this trap. It's one thing to try and sell a very popular product/service/ebook etc, but it's another thing when a million other people are trying to do it too. Competition is a good thing, because it validates your market, but too much competition is tough and it's time to move on to something else.

We all know clicking on ads in a free traffic exchange can be very boring, monotonous and can take a lot of time. That's why you need to make the best of your opportunity or you will just be wasting a lot of your time and effort on something that just isn't working. If you have your own niche website, then you already differentiated yourself from the pack. If you are an affiliate marketer, then you need to find products/services that everyone else isn't promoting, especially within that particular traffic exchange.

One way to use free traffic exchanges to your advantage is to join a few at first, and see if your sales pick up. If your sales aren’t doing well, then test out a few more. When you do find a few traffic exchanges that appear to be generating sales for you, then narrow those down until you find the one, or two that are working. Now concentrate your efforts on those because they’re the ones you want. At least for now anyway. Things may change, so keep an eye on your campaigns and if sales seem to be falling off, then it might be time to change your offer or find another traffic exchange that could pick your profits up again.

As I mentioned, your individual promotion is everything. If you're trying to promote something everyone else is, I don't care what traffic exchange service you're using, your sales conversions are going to be very low, or nothing at all. You cannot always blame the exchange. Sometimes you have to look at yourself and think if you're doing all you can to make sales.

If you're going to use multiple free traffic exchanges, and I recommend that you do, you should get yourself a multi-tab web browser. Many of these browsers are free and run on PCs and MACs. The tabs feature allows you to have one web browser open with multiple tabs each going to a separate website. You could easily put 5 or 6 of your free exchange sites in these tabs, and earn credits for all of them at the same time. So instead of surfing for 1/2 an hour or an hour earning 200 hits for one exchange, you could earn 200 hits for 5 exchanges in the same amount of time. This is a huge time saver and multiplies your earned hits by 5X or 6X.

Getting free traffic to your website can be a lot of work. If you don’t have the money to spend on full blown PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns like Google AdWords or Yahoo, free traffic exchanges are a great way to get the traffic you need, for Free!

The Most Effective Free Advertising

After a few months of advertising my online business opportunities’ website, I have learned a valuable, but true advertising fact. The best way to advertise an affiliate program is through writing articles and submitting them to syndicated sites for others to use, thereby creating links to your own website.

If you are new to website promotion, you may need to know how this works. First, you need to read, and then you write about what you have learned. I have found that there is definitely no shortage of information on the web. Take the information and put into your own words, your thoughts and feelings regarding what you have learned through your reading, and experiences and knowledge of your own. Sit down and write from 350 to 700 words about what you think or have learned in this process. When submitting them to article publishing sites for approval, make sure to add your website links in the author’s note, to link your website to other websites. Then when other website owners need valuable content to post on their website, you have gained the opportunity to put your link on someone else’s website. They go to the article publishing sites to find good content, and if they like yours, you get a free link. Easy, and free. You can join a power linking forum and get a complete list of article syndication sites to submit your articles to, or do a search of your own. You then can either submit your articles manually, or pay an article submission site to submit them for you for approval. Since I want mine free, and have the time, I do my own submissions manually. Please take the time to correct grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure before submitting your articles, and be sure to read each sites rules for submission to insure your articles are considered for publishing. Some of them have some strict rules and guidelines, especially regarding where your links can be placed in the article. Most will only allow links in the author’s note box.

The next thing you need to do is set up a blog. This, too, is free and lots of fun! There, you can even post your very own personal journal. I have chosen to make mine about online business promotion, and post only articles about online businesses. Do a search for free blogs to find the one that is right for you. Post your articles on your blog. It’s easy and fun to do, with copying and pasting from a word document. You can also post your photos on your blog. To build your traffic, make sure you include a link to your main website near the top of your blog. The more content your blog has, the better the search engines love you. If you need more content than you can possibly write in the beginning, you can use articles others have written on the subject you are creating for your blog. Article publishing sites are full of good quality articles on just about any subject you may want to choose. But you must always include the author’s note at the bottom, to give the author credit and the opportunity to have his or her link displayed on your site. After you have given your blog valuable content, you need to “ping” your blogsite, so search engine spiders will find you. This helps to build your traffic to your blog. Then due to your link on your blog to your main webpage site, you increase your main website traffic. I use “Ping-O-Matic” for mine. It gets submitted to many different sites at once, and very simple to do.
Next, you can link your blog to other blogs by joining a bloglinking site. You get lots of free traffic, and other bloggers leave comments on your blogspot, leaving a link, and you can link on their blogs the same way. Free, Free, Free, Traffic!

3 Ways To Swarm Your Website With Highly Targeted Traffic For FREE!

Targeted website traffic is the lifeblood of any website looking to generate revenue. While FREE traffic from the search engines seems the most logical way to go, actually staying ahead of the game can be tough. Here are my top 3 ways to send your traffic counter spinning without the headaches.

1. Trading Links With Other Webmasters:

By mutually agreeing with another webmaster to trade link exposure on each others site, you're expanding your market reach significantly. Not only does this generate instant traffic from the link partner, but you'll also BOOST your Google PR and link ranking with other search engines as a bonus.

This helps you rank better in the listings, generating even more FREE traffic, without doing any complicated SEO.

There are some great tools to help you get started trading links. Some of them are even free. I don't recommend them personally because annoying banners or other types of ads compete for the same space, doesn't look very professional.

Alternatives to FREE software worth checking out are...

The ALMIGHTY Zeus - The one I use. Tough to get used to, but an excellent piece of kit. The darn thing learns and just keeps getting smarter the more you use it. (And a FREE trial so you can become a master before you buy)
http://www.cyber-robotics.com

Reciprocal Link Manager - Not as sophisticated as Zeus but much easier to learn if you're pressed for time.
http://reciprocal-manager.com/

Axandra's Arelis - Lots of great reviews for this one and more in the Zeus mould.
http://www.axandra-link-popularity-tool.com/index.htm


2. Writing Articles to Publish Online:

This technique is a very close second to my favourite one which I'll share in just a moment. The amount of exposure you can get from writing a simple article is astounding.

After you've written it up, you submit to the major article directories, then just sit back and watch the traffic stream in.

As an added bonus you start to gain more respect within your industry. Articles have this uncanny knack to create an aura of expertise around the writer.

You also benefit yet again with search engine ranking, as other webmasters with mailing lists publish your article on their site. Creating yet another link back to you.

Articles are a VERY effective pre-selling technique too.

How much more targeted would a prospect be arriving at your website after reading one of your articles in an email or on another site?

Not only did you get the recommendation from the publisher, but if they enjoy reading your article and get some value from it, you've already broken down one of the main barriers of selling...

TRUST!

Here are some cool resources to get stuck into:

Editorial guidelines:
http://ezinearticles.com/editorial-guidelines.html

Some great "How To" advice:
http://www.promotewitharticles.com/howto.html

And a nice BIG list of directories and announcement lists:
http://www.marketingchick.com/howto/article-marketing.shtml


3. Viral Marketing:

Viral Marketing is defined as “Any advertising that propagates itself the way viruses do”; E.g. When Hotmail users send e-mails, they “infect” the recipients with the tagline at the bottom of their messages.

If you UNLEASH a 'Viral Marketing' campaign, it will just keep on multiplying, spreading your message around the web like wildfire. I absolutely LOVE this method of sending quality traffic to my website for FREE.

Generating free traffic with 'Viral Marketing' is easily the most rewarding use of your time. Taking good steps to craft the right offer and layout of your 'Viral Marketing' message is essential. But get it right, and not only will a truck-load of qualified visitors come to your website, but an air of respect and expertise is generated around you and your business.