Many people doing business online have great websites but don’t seem to be selling anything. Their products or services are top-notch, and their looks both professional and unique. So why aren’t they making any money? The issue is that it really doesn’t matter how amazing your website is if no one ever sees it. Here are 45 ways you can increase your website traffic easily and affordably.
1. Create your site with search engines in mind. Most people who look up something on the internet do so by using a search engine. Use words and phrases related to your business throughout your site.
2. Blog about your site. Even if you don’t have a dedicated blog for your website, mention it in your personal blog. You might even make multiple blogs—a personal one, a business one, etc.
3. Update these blogs on a regular basis (at least once a week).
4. Tag your blogs on sites like http://del.icio.us and www.technorati.com.
5. Use social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook to advertise your website.
6. Put your website address in your email signature.
7. Put your website in the signature area of any forum you post on regularly, especially if the forum is related to your service or product.
8. Add an RSS feed to your website news section or your website blog.
9. Watch for any grammar/spelling errors on your website. No one will stick around your site if it has obvious (and avoidable) errors on it. Proofread!
10. Likewise, make certain all the links on your website work.
11. Look at what kind of navigation tools you are using on your site. Some may not work with every web browser.
12. Write good articles and press releases about your website. The goal here is to get keywords into the article that will send people to your site.
13. List your website at DMOZ (http://dmoz.org).
14. Review products on epinion.com and other review sites that are similar to yours.
15. Post comments on other blogs and websites that discuss products or services similar to yours. Be sure to include your website if there is space for a URL.
16. Put up business-related photos on sites like Flickr and tag them with your website address.
17. Make comments on blogs related to your website, and encourage people to comment on your blog.
18. If you sell products or services to multiple cities, make a separate entry page for each city. If you deliver flowers to locations in Dallas and Fort Worth, you might make three intro pages: one for Dallas, one for Fort Worth, and one for the Dallas/Fort Worth area. This way, no matter which term someone uses, your site should still come up.
19. Likewise, if you anticipate selling products internationally, translate your site into different languages and offer users the option of switching languages.
20. Include your website on your fliers, business cards, receipts, and other promotional materials.
21. You could even special order pens, pencils, t-shirts, or other unique marketing pieces that include your site URL.
22. Create a custom error page that links back to your main page. This way, even if users try to go to a page that you’ve moved, they will still get something useful.
23. Create a logo for your website and be consistent with the color and font for your company name on your site, blogs, and promotional material. This will create a visual identity for your site
24. Hold a contest for site visitors. This might be nothing more than having a drawing.
25. Create a mailing list, but don’t overuse it.
26. Look for websites that focus on stores in your area (like the chamber of commerce) and ask if they will link to your site.
27. Include a link to your website everywhere you possibly can, including online profiles and biographies.
28. Use alt tags for images that include keywords.
29. Create an easy to remember website name. People will recall www.boatsforsale.com much more easily than something like www.webhostname.com/user32.
30. If you have a little spare money in your budget, buy the .com, .net, and .biz versions of your domain name.
31. See where you’re getting most of your web traffic from (most web hosting services offer this information for free). This will give you an idea of which marketing strategies are working for you.
32. Try to get your site listed on directory sites or on sites that mention websites similar to yours.
33. Post blogs and forum messages that are informative and helpful.
34. Keep on top of the news, especially the news in your niche market. Blogging about relevant topics will get people reading your articles.
35. Create videos or podcasts and upload them to YouTube and other sites. Be sure to include the relevant keywords and links.
36. People are exposed to dozens (if not hundreds) of websites a day. They’ll remember yours if you do something a little off the wall and creative.
37. Create an account on Yahoo! Answers and answer some questions. This will help establish you as an authority in your market.
38. Start a group on Yahoo! or Google Groups related to your website.
39. Put an ad in the yellow pages that includes your website URL.
40. Make certain your web host offers enough bandwidth to handle your traffic.
41. Make your website engaging and informative.
42. Invite bloggers and other professionals to review your products and services. This will not only get your more traffic but also influence buyers.
43. Ask visitors to leave feedback on your site. Real life user testimonials about your products and services are worth much more than descriptions of what you offer.
44. Make it easy for your customers to purchase items and contact you. A great website that is simple and secure will result in word-of-mouth recommendations from your customers.
45. Buy advertising space on other sites.
20 responses so far ↓
1 Andy // Nov 9, 2008 at 2:00 am
Nice post. Very detailed. Even some ideas I wouldn’t consider.
Thanks!
2 Gerry - http://www.increaseweb-sitetraffic.com // Nov 9, 2008 at 4:42 am
Great Post. Thanks for the information.
From my experience, getting free traffic can be tough. It takes a lot of work. YOu might spend 2 or 3 hours building traffic and only get a few hits.
If you have no long term plan to capture those visitors it can be a total waste of time.
Once you find the traffic methods that work for you then it is ideal to apply them over and over until you see great results.
The key is to persist. It can be quite easy if you persist.
3 Gerry - http://www.increaseweb-sitetraffic.com // Nov 9, 2008 at 4:44 am
I forgot to say - here are another 10 tips.
Traffic Idea 1 – Exchange Links
Contact other webmasters direct and ask if they can exchange links with you. Target those in your niche for maximum results. A lot may not even answer you but you should persist. This is an effective way to get traffic.
Traffic Idea 2 - Network
Live in a large city or town? If so go to your local Internet Marketing event or seminar if there is one. Meet others and create a small network of friends and colleagues who you can rely on.
Traffic Idea 3 – Thank You Pages
Advertise on other product’s “thank you” pages
Traffic Idea 4 – Product Review
Send a free copy of your product to other site owners in exchange for a product review.
Traffic Idea 5 – Joint Ventures
Find joint venture partners that will send you traffic.
Traffic Idea 6 – Hire Pros
When not sure, hire professionals Though it may seem costly, but it is a lot less expensive than spending your money on a website which no one visits.
Traffic Idea 7 - Other People’s Lists
Purchase advertising in other people’s mailing lists and newsletters.
Traffic Idea 8 – Email Other Bloggers
Write something great about your niche and email other bloggers to let them know - there’s a good chance they’ll link to you.
Traffic Idea 9 – Review Someone Else
Review a product or company - if your review is positive email the company and ask to be featured in their press section (this has worked really well for me).
Traffic Idea 10 – Group Effort
Do a group feature where you get other website owners in your niche to participate - maybe asking them all an opinion on something
4 john brook // Nov 9, 2008 at 9:12 pm
thankyou for putting together the above ideas list great job
5 Mark // Nov 11, 2008 at 1:45 am
Whilst I would agree with the main of the article I would definately disagree with your first point in recommending people create sites for search engines as this is amongst the list of “how to get sandboxed” very quickly. We see all too often now thousands of useless sites with a string of keywords across the top of the pages in plain text or which offer nothing to the reader and are there purely for the purposes of keyword recognition, but as we know this rarely works. Websites should be created with the reader in mind, not the search engines - SEO efforts should take care of them!
6 Peter // Nov 11, 2008 at 1:52 am
Thanks for this free information, this really makes a difference not just for a business but also in ourlives.
More success.
7 GiorgosK // Nov 11, 2008 at 2:02 am
Mark
you are right !!
The way I have written the first point it could easily be misunderstood. What I really meant is:
Think of your readers but think about the search engines as well … in order for visitors to come search engines have to find appropriate phrases in your site, appropriately placed.
Therefore, a writer knowing the principles of on page optimization will have more chances of getting the attention of the search engines …
On page optimization is the minimal a site should have in order to stand a chance the SEO competition …
Hope that makes it a little clearer.
8 Mark // Nov 11, 2008 at 2:14 am
I would 100% agree that we have to consider the “needs” of the search engines when preparing our sites, I do this myself but not in such a way as to be obvious to either the reader or the search engine but I know there are those out there “less initiated” than some and would take such a statement literally. Great article though
9 Ron // Nov 11, 2008 at 5:44 am
Listing your website at DMOZ (http://dmoz.org),is a good Idea but almost impossible,to get listed. my sites been up for 3 years in its present form and longer before. still no listing I even asked a professional company who owed me a favour about 18 months ago to submit my site but still nothing.Most of your other Ideas are very good with A few that I had not heard off.
10 Honey Monster // Nov 11, 2008 at 9:43 am
Looking at the comments to this very helpful article I am stuck by the thought that like all good business ideas the ideas that the only way to success is hard work. With respect to DMOZ, I know that it can takes forever but the value is noticeable. On the basis that 25% of optimisation comes from on-page effort and 75% from off-page work I think that this si ahelpful list Giorgios.
11 Mark // Nov 11, 2008 at 10:55 am
Would agree with Honey Monster (can’t believe I’m quoting a Honey Monster!) - I’ve been up and running with freewarebb.com now for just over a year and it’s very much a 24/7 blood, sweat and snotters affair taking on the big boys of freeware who seem to have cornered the niche (if we can actually call it a ‘niche’) but I started the site after being fed up with the amount of popups on other similar sites so I guess another good tip is to grab a niche, even if it’s already being done, and make improvements to it (like in my case, no popups!)
12 Balaji // Nov 27, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Good article i learned a bunch here though can any one help me how to get good traffic and seo in article in my blog i have written a article no
“How to use twitter effectively?”
you can get it up at
9beta.blogspot.com
can any one say how the name of my blog is…
13 Leonardo // Nov 30, 2008 at 9:59 am
interesting site it really learns me a lot.
14 randy // Dec 9, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Hi,
Nice post. Your article contains lots of info on how to gain more traffic to the web site.
15 karir // Dec 10, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Good post, other thing I Have a collection of 150+ social bookmaking you also could use to increase your traffic,
thanks
16 Sanjay Saxena // Dec 22, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I think TITLE of website should be very very attrective, which give feeling to see your site.
Kindly have a look on the tile of my website.
travelinformationsindia.com
17 bilecem // Jan 7, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Great tips. As i see i think that the most important thing that can increase the hits of our site is backlinks. Because only idexing by the search engines is not enough but we should incrase the google pagerank. Thank you for tips.
18 Balaji J H @ www.guidetotech.com // Jan 14, 2009 at 2:53 am
Yeah another brillant ideas from you…
Thanks a lot brother…
19 fornls // Mar 9, 2009 at 8:24 pm
All are cool tips with more information than I found elsewhere. The 18th one is also the reason why wikipedia has become so popular. For many popular topic searches wikipedia comes somewhere in the top 10 results because it has content about all topics.
20 juan // Mar 12, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Great post full of information for us newbies
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