Some Ideas for Driving Traffic to Your Web Site - The Basics

Written on May 14, 2008 by Mang

Does it seem overwhelming to think about the vast amount of information and the rapidly increasing number of websites on the Internet today?  If you’re doing business on the Internet, developing a steady stream of web site traffic is very important.

There are many ways to promote your web site and develop traffic and this brief article will focus on some of the simplest and the most effective marketing techniques.  Search engine optimization for strong organic search engines positioning (within top 30 results) can be considered to be yet another marketing technique.  However, all of the strategies mentioned below ultimately overlap into an overall marketing strategy that will hold search engine optimization as a core objective.

Google Adwords (and other Pay-Per-Click)
Pay-Per-Click provides a simple way to purchase targeted text ads.  These are the highlighted ads at top of Google results pages and scattered in many various positions on any web site that subscribes to Google Adsense.   Adwords can be a very effective method for generating traffic to your web site and is the equivalent of advertising, where you pay only when you see the desired result (i.e., someone clicks through to your web site).

Google AdWords enables you to have complete control over your ad and how much you’d like to spend. You can open an account with a credit card and with no minimum deposit required. Once placed, your ad can begin running almost immediately.

AdWords has traditionally been considered a cost-effective advertising solution the recently, pay-per-click rates have been increasing steadily.  I’ll always recommend that clients consider only targeted keyword campaigns and avoid general keywords that will generate less desirable traffic that could become costly.

Internet Forums
Participating in forums that are related your business or your market can be another effective way to bring traffic to your web site.  Regardless of the type of business you’re promoting, chances are there are online forums and communities of people who share your interest.

Ideally, you should select forums that are well established, spam free, moderated, and have a lot of active members.  It is also useful to look the forms that have a signature line allows you to place your web site URL as a link.

Participating in forums has a number of benefits:

Writing and Publishing Articles
Writing and publishing articles in your area of expertise can be a very effective method for promoting your business online.  

The concept is simple.  Many webmasters are continually on the lookout for new content.  If you can provide some useful content for these web sites, you will often be rewarded with a link back to your own web site.

Writing and publishing articles has a number of benefits:

If you don’t have the time or if you aren’t confident in your ability to write your own articles, the copywriting staff at Web Design Edge will be pleased to assist you.

Online Magazine Advertising
Online Advertising can be an effective form of grants the advertising and can also be very inexpensive depending upon the size of the publication.

The key to using online magazine advertising effectively is to target your audience and track your response. You must test the effectiveness of both your ad and the publication in which you’re advertising. This will enable you to determine which ads are pulling the most response and which publications are providing you with a high response rate.

The Directory of Ezines (http://www.directoryofezines.com) provides a complete online searchable database of ezines that accept advertising. This directory contains the information you’ll need to know to effectively place your ads, for a small fee.   

This list of strategies is far from complete but should provide a good start for some ideas for obtaining additional traffic for your web site, even when it may seem like a daunting task.

Posted in Marketing, Search Engine SEO