25 Ways to Get More Traffic To Your Website

By Brandon Cornett
© 2011. All rights reserved

Every business can benefit from an increase in website traffic. And that's exactly what we are going to discuss in this lesson. Specifically, I'm going to explain 25 techniques you can use to get more traffic to your website.

Let's start with a quick definition:

Targeted website traffic refers to people who are most likely to use your products or services. If I'm a software manufacturer, I want to attract more visitors who are researching the specific software products that my company sells. These people are more likely to become customers. So they are precisely the type of visitor I want to attract.

25 Strategies That Can Drive More Traffic To Your Website

Believe it or not, this article only scratches the surface of traffic-generation strategies. As you become actively involved with your Internet marketing program, you'll discover other ways to drive traffic to your website. In the meantime, use some of these!

1. Promote your website on LinkedIn. You can benefit from this technique directly and indirectly. You might be able to drive customers directly to your website through LinkedIn. You could also use it to promote your site to other publishers within your industry. Either way, it can help you get more traffic to your website. More: Company pages on LinkedIn
2. Promote your website through Twitter. Do you publish new information on a regular basis, such as product updates or industry news? If so, you can tell people about these updates through your Twitter page. People can follow your company through Twitter in a way that's similar to subscribing to a blog or newsletter. This gives you another way stay connected with your target audience, and to boost your site traffic. More: Using Twitter for business
3. Promote your website through Facebook. This is another way to use social networking to get more traffic to your website. Again, the goal here is to keep people informed about new developments, new products and new website content that is useful to them. You don't just say, "visit our website." You want to say, "visit our website to get your hands on these new resources we've just published!" Facebook is an easy way to do this on a large scale. More: Business pages on Facebook
4. Expand your website content. This is one of the easiest things you can do to increase your website traffic. Consider the difference between a site with 10 pages of content, and one that offers 100 or 200 pages of content. The larger site will pull in more targeted traffic through search engines because it has more information, more keywords and more pages. You can use keyword-research tools to ensure that the content you are publishing matches the search patterns of your target audience (more to follow on this).
5. Publish new content more often. You can keep people coming back to your website by publishing quality content on a regular basis. This will also increase your search engine performance, because the search engines favor websites that are frequently updated. This is one of the key benefits of using a blogging program. Blogs make it incredibly easy to publish new content on a regular basis. This is a great way to get more targeted traffic to your website.
6. Publish something newsworthy. If you publish timely content that is useful and relevant to your target audience, they will be more likely to visit your site. More importantly, they will come back more often. This will also help you attract links from other websites, which can boost your rankings in the major search engines. See #7 below for tips on creating newsworthy content.
7. Publish original research. The Internet is chock full of derivative articles. These are stories that just repeat what other people have already said. This kind of content doesn't do much to support your Internet marketing goals. But if you publish original research that is relevant to your key audience, you'll have an easier time getting their attention. This will also help you attract links from other bloggers and Internet publishers, which translates into more traffic for your website.
8. Proactively promote your web content. Have you worked hard to publish original research, insight and analysis? If so, you should be promoting it on a regular basis. You can promote your content in a number of ways. You can publish press releases (see #9 below). You can promote it through the social networking websites mentioned earlier. And you can also send targeted e-mails to specific publishers in your industry.
9. Publish a press release. You can get more traffic to your website by publishing relevant news in press release format. The key here is to start with something that is truly newsworthy. No one outside your company cares about the promotion of a certain employee. But if you have a new product or some original research to share, the press release might be a viable option for you. You can submit it online through websites such as PRWeb.com. You can also use some of the "old school" PR services, such as PR Newswire.
10. Optimize your content with SEO. You can also increase your web traffic with search engine optimization. The first step is to create plenty of keyword-rich content that caters to your specific audience. After that, you should actively promote the content to attract links from other publishers. This will boost your link popularity and your search engine traffic. More: SEO techniques explained
11. Publish guest articles on relevant websites. Make a list of other blogs and websites that cover your industry. Find out which ones are posting new articles on a regular basis. Chances are, some of these sites will allow articles from guest authors. If you publish useful articles on other websites, you could drive more targeted traffic to your own site. Just make sure you include an author's note at the end of the article, with a link to your site. And mention some of the specific resources you have online as well. This gives people an added incentive to visit.
12. Give something away. When used properly, this is a highly effective strategy that can help you get more targeted traffic. Create something of value and give it away for free on your website. You can use this strategy in conjunction with some of the other items on this list. For example, you could create a free e-book and promote it through social networking sites and press releases. You can see how some of these techniques and strategies overlap.
13. Use Tynt to acquire links to your website. Tynt is a free service that allows you to generate inbound links whenever someone copies and pastes your content onto another site. A lot of professional publishers and news websites use this tool, and with good reason. It can help you boost your link popularity, which leads to higher search engine rankings. So it's a way to get more traffic to your website over the long run. Visit www.Tynt.com to learn more about this service.
14. Use pay-per-click (PPC). Some of the techniques and strategies on this list are time-consuming. I'll admit to that. For example, it takes time to publish quality content and attract links from other websites. Pay-per-click gives you more immediate results. You can use this strategy to drive visitors to your site almost instantly. Depending on how you bid for certain keywords, your website could appear at the top of relevant Google searches almost immediately. It's a matter of cost versus speed. Some of the techniques on this list are free, but they take longer to put in place. Pay-per-click is faster, but it costs you money every time someone clicks through your add. More: Google AdWords
15. Acquire links from other websites. I've mentioned this concept repeatedly through the lesson. But it warrants a place of its own on this list. If you want to improve your website's ranking in Google, Yahoo and Bing, you need to acquire links from other blogs and websites. This is one of the key factors the search engines use to rank and evaluate different sites. Many of the techniques covered in this article will also help you improve your link popularity. For example, other publishers may link to the free e-book we mentioned earlier. You can also get links by promoting your quality content with press releases. Again, many of these strategies overlap to help you get more traffic to your website. More: Link-building strategies for SEO
16. Put your website's URL everywhere. This might seem obvious, but some business owners forget how important it is to list the company's website on other marketing materials. Your website's URL should appear on business cards, e-mail signature blocks, promotional signage, company vehicles, social networking sites, and anywhere else your company is promoted.
17. Use keyword-research tools to create relevant content. Earlier, we touched on the importance of growing your website with quality content that serves your audience. Before you start writing this information, you should spend some time using a keyword-research tool. These tools will help you identify phrases and topics that are most popular among your key audience. If you build your content around these types of phrases, you'll be able to get more traffic to the website. There are several of these tools available online. Personally, I prefer to use the Google AdWords keyword tool, because it makes other suggestions outside of the specific phrase you start with. So it's also good for brainstorming.
18. Include "long tail" keyword phrases. When you think about the types of phrases people type into Google when researching your products or services, you probably only come up with a handful of phrases. But you would be surprised by how many different ways people can find your website through search engines. This is why it's so important to use a keyword-research tool when developing your website content. Start with the obvious phrases that relate to your products and services. The tool will then generate a list of related (and not-so-obvious) phrases that include your primary keywords. Some of the longer phrases may result in less traffic, but they may also have less competition from other websites. These are referred to as long-tail keywords. You should build website content around these phrases as well, as it can help you increase your traffic.
19. Get listed on relevant lists. Some Internet publishers like to create lists that are relevant to a certain product or industry. For example, a blogger might create a list of companies that provide a certain service that's relevant to his readers. You can seek out these types of lists and request to have your website added to them. Start by doing a Google search for such phrases as "list of companies that provide [blank]" ... obviously you will fill in the blank with a product or service that you provide. If you can get your company included on some popular lists that exist on high-profile websites, you could drive more targeted traffic to your website.
20. Get listed in relevant directories. This is similar to the previous strategy. But instead of looking for lists, you are now looking for web directories relevant to your industry. A web directory is basically a website that lists lots of other sites based on categories and subcategories. You may have to pay a listing fee to be included in such a directory. But if it's a high-visibility site, it might be worth the listing fee. Again, you can use Google to find these types of directories. Just do a search for them in conjunction with certain keywords relating to your industry.
21. Participate in online forums. Regardless of what kind of industry you are in, I can guarantee there is at least one Internet forum that caters to your industry. Sign up for an account with one or more of these forms, and become an active participant. Many of them will allow you to include a signature link with your name and website. If you post helpful information on the forum, some people will be inclined to visit your website to learn more about you. Thus, it's another way to get more traffic to your website.
22. Offer tools and resources. Earlier, we talked about how you might give something away for free on your website, in order to attract more visitors. This is a variation on that theme. If you can create useful tools on your website that help people accomplish certain goals, you will increase your traffic over time. This happens in several ways. For one thing, other publishers will be more inclined to link to your useful tools and resources. This will boost your link popularity and your search engine performance. Your visitors will also be more inclined to come back to your website repeatedly, in order to use those tools and resources. So it can help you generate new traffic and repeat visits at the same time. An example of this would be a mortgage calculator on a real estate website, or a keyword-research tool on an Internet marketing website. Both of these tools would help publishers get more traffic to their sites.
23. Examine your website analytics. Do you have a web analytics program installed on your site? You should. These programs can give you some valuable insight into your visitors. Your analytics program will tell you which pages on your site are the most and least popular. You can also find out what keywords people are using in search engines to locate your site. You can see which other websites are sending traffic to your site (these are usually referred to as "referring sites"). All of this information can be used when developing new content for your site. It helps you publish the kind of information people want the most. Successful Internet publishers understand the importance of analytics. They review their site data on a regular basis to improve the reader's experience. This kind of analysis will help you get more targeted traffic to your website over time.
24. Use affiliate marketing. This technique may not apply to your business. It will largely depend on your marketing goals and the types of products or services you provide. But it's certainly worth considering. In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is when you pay someone a fee or commission for driving users to your website. The commission is usually based on the completion of a certain act. For example, you might pay the affiliate a certain amount for every qualified lead they deliver. Or you might establish a commission program based on actual sales. If you decide to use this marketing strategy, you should join a reputable affiliate network such as Commission Junction.
25. Schedule a consultation call. If you have questions about any of the traffic-generating techniques mentioned in this article, I encourage you to schedule a consultation call. We offer consulting services for small business owners who want to use the Internet to attract more customers. I can advise you on search engine optimization, website content, blogging, and many of the other strategies discussed in this article.

This article explains how to get more traffic to your website or blog. If you would like to learn more about the subject, I recommend reading this article on search engine optimization. Feel free to contact me with any questions you have about this topic.

About the Author
This article was written by Brandon Cornett. Brandon is a full-time Internet publisher and marketing consultant. He is one of the most widely published authorities on search engine optimization and Internet marketing. He specializes in helping small business owners attract more customers online.