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5_Ways_to_Increase_Your_Website_Traffic
| 5 Ways to Increase Your Website Traffic
I don't know about you, but when I first entered the world of
internet marketing I thought I could just submit my newly
finished website to a few search engines, then sit back as the
visitors flocked to my site.
I imagined that people would arrive on my website, as if by
magic, purchase goods, and perhaps come back again for more.
A week or so later I came down to earth with a big bump.
I realised that it would take a bit of time and effort to see
the results that I was dreaming about!
Since my reality check, I have learned all about the weird and
wonderful ways of internet marketing.
In this article I will tell you about my top 5 free ways of
increasing website traffic. All these methods are completely
free and if you spend some time on them you will find that they
work consistently.
(1)Writing Articles
Writing an article on a subject related to your website and
getting that article published has two major benefits:
- People who are interested in your article will read it and
often click on the URL in your resource box find out more. This
gets you another free targeted visitor. Targeted, because that
reader wants to find out more on the subject of your article,
which is hopefully related to the subject of your website.
- Every publisher of your article must also publish your
"resource box". Adding a resource box with your URL to all of
your articles will increase the number of links leading back to
your website, which in turn helps to increase your search engine
position
You will find a list
of article directories to submit your articles to here.
(2)Forum Networking There are many discussion forums on the
internet, on every topic you could possibly imagine.
Most discussion boards allow posters to attach a "Signature"
with their post containing additional information about
themselves, such as their name, URL and sometimes even an
advertisement.
By visiting a few forums regularly and participating in the
discussions, asking and answering questions, you can build up
trust with other forum members, whilst at the same time getting
free exposure for your website.
Just try to make a useful contribution to the forum - be sure to
read the forum rules and don't spam!
(3)Reciprocal Linking
Reciprocal linking has two main benefits for you.
Firstly, the more links that you exchange, the more chance there
is that someone will follow a link from another site and land on
your website.
Secondly, your website will be perceived more importantly by
search engines.
The more links you have from other sites, the greater your
chance of getter ranked more highly by all the search engines.
Here are some Dos and Don'ts to help you get more out of your
link exchanges.
- Do link with sites that will be of interest to your visitors.
- Don't link with pages that have unorganised link directories
with hundreds of links on each page. This won't benefit you with
increased traffic or search engine rankings.
- Do link with sites that have a clearly labelled "Link
Directory" from their main page. You aren't likely to get much
traffic from a hidden or hard to find link directory.
- Don't use link farms or FFA pages. You are unlikely to get
extra traffic using these methods and the search engines may
penalise you.
- Do use link directories to help you find link partners.
- Do stay organised. Use link exchange software, or a
spreadsheet to keep track of the link exchanges you have
requested and the contact details of the webmasters.
(4) Email Signatures
This is a very simple, but often forgotten way of increasing
your website visitors.
Most of us are sending lots of emails a day, but many of us just
sign them with just our name, or perhaps nothing at all.
Instead, why not end your emails with a short signature
containing your name, a bit about your website along with the
URL?
Keep the signature short (4 lines), to the point and avoid hype
or SHOUTING.
You may be surprised at the extra visitors you receive through
doing this. It's amazing how curiosity will lead the recipients
of your email to click on your link!
(5)Using Traffic Exchanges
Finally, this is one easy way to guarantee instant hits to your
website. You can build up credits for free by surfing or
building up a downline to surf for you.
The downside of this method is that the visitors you receive
from traffic exchanges are not as targeted as the visitors that
you will receive via the other methods that I have described.
The reason for this is that people surf traffic exchanges for
one reason - to earn as many credits as possible in as short a
space of time as possible!
This gives you a challenge - how do you attract the attention of
someone who is looking at your web page for 20 seconds or less?
Here are two tips -
- Know your market - spend some time surfing on the exchange
that you are advertising on and pay attention to the types of
web pages being advertised. Make sure that the pages you
advertise are going to interest your target market.
- Use a short, simple attention grabbing page that can be read
in a few seconds - there is no point advertising a huge page of
text that takes 5 minutes to read. The chances are, your visitor
will get bored and click on the "next" button without giving
your page a fair chance.
Regularly invest some time in each of these 5 traffic generating
methods and you will see your web statistics moving in the
upwards direction before you know it.
About the author:
Suzanne Morrison is the webmaster and owner of How to Start an Internet
Business. To learn more about how to promote your
website for free visit her Be
ginner's Guide to Internet Marketing.
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