5 Web Site Traffic Tips

I was recently asked “If a new site owner wanted to know how to start increasing traffic to their site, what would be first 5 things you would advise them to do?” Hmmm… As far as I’m concerned it is tough to limit to 5 things because their are literally hundreds of things you can do. Let’s start with the the basics below as a new site starting point for increasing visibility and therefore ROI:

1. Make sure you get listed with the major portals and search engines and then monitor and track your listings to ensure you can react to any changes or drops in positioning. This can take up 6-9 months or more for new sites. Getting listed is one thing; then attaining the top page positions is another that requires various other criteria be met, updated and improved upon continually. It’s called a long term plan. Have a written strategy and follow-up program in place.
   
2. Request reciprocal links or also called “smart linking” with complimentary sites. Don’t fall for linking schemes or link farms — those will do more harm than good. Many of the top engines use an algorithm that gives your site a popularity boost if you have sites linking TO you. And they can detect linking “programs” in place purely to manipulate search engine rankings. Avoid getting penalized by working on your site as one way links TO your site because of all the valuable information you offer is what is best! A properly executed linking campaign should be part of your marketing strategy.
   
3. Advertise your dot com in local newspapers if you are seeking a local market. Advertise in industry publications or topic specific magazines if you are going for a wider audience. Off-line advertising is imperative to building awareness with folks who may be interested in your site but may not have thought to look for you. This becomes critical if you do not keep up with your Search Engine rankings. By the way, relying on Search Engine free/organic listings as your sole venue of exposure is no longer considered a viable business methodology.
   
4. Offer a content rich valuable newsletter each month and daily postings on your Blog that folks can sign up for and also recommend to their friends. This type of viral marketing has proven to be extremely effective in building awareness for your site. Be careful though, your newsletter and Blog must contain needed, unique and valuable information and not be a hard sell of what you want to commercially gain from. No hypey sales pitchy stuff!
   
5. Invest the time and the money necessary to reach your goals. This could include a budget for Pay Per Click Campaigns while your site is new and not yet indexed by search engines. (This depends on your market — I’m no longer an across the board fan of PPC services as of late.) Getting found online doesn’t just happen by osmosis and in actuality is getting more complicated each day — and it isn’t free. Ignore the hype out there that makes getting found sound as though all you have to do is have a dot com, stuff in some keywords and millions of Netizens will contact you. Keep in mind there are literally billions of pages online and you have to continually, consistently work at getting exposure - for perpetuity moving forward.

These 5 tips, when integrated properly, can help to produce increased visibility for your program and should be applied with a long term point of view. They are not the end-all-be-all but should be at the nucleolus of any online businesses core strategies. Most importantly realize that online marketing is a never ending effort!

At your service,
Judith