Increasing Traffic to Your Website

It's not enough to build a website, you need to have traffic for get people to see it! Whether you are selling products or just offering information, you need visitors! Adding your site to search engines is one way of generating traffic, but there are many other ways to attract visitors. Here are some possibilities to try.

1. Offer a contest or sweepstakes with free entry. The prize that they win should be something that would interest your target market. For example, don't offer a free filet mignon if you are targeting vegetarians! The prize could be a product or service that you offer, or it could be a related item that is not direct competition. You can also boost traffic by using another company's product and asking them to let *their* customers know about your free giveaway!

2. Offer free content. This content could be articles, e-books, directories, etc. Don't just add any content, make sure it is related to your visitor demographic. Keep this content up to date and fresh. Not only will lots of fresh, targeted content make your website more relevant in search engines, but will offer your prospective customers extra information. They are likely to visit your site more often. You can also offer the option to let them reprint information (such as articles or reviews), with a link back to your site.

3. Create a message forum. Forums allow a free flow of ideas, and your target visitors share at least one common interest - your site! An active message board can bring lots of new visitors. If you have satisfied customers posting on your message board, this is free advertising for your business! You may also choose to offer advertising on your message board. If you are not selling a product, set up an advertising package for banners or other site ads which are related to the interests of your visitors. You can find free message board software at www.vbulletin.com or www.phpbb.com. These sites also offer online help to set up the message boards on your site.

4. Offer an E-zine. People love information, especially if it's free! Offer a free subsription to your online newsletter or e-zine. You can either offer a PDF file of your newsletter, or provide an email link to the information online. Either way works well, although you would need to have Adobe Acrobat software to write the PDF files. Keep the content of the e-zine relevant to your target audience. You may also offer advertising in the e-zine itself. A great place to advertise your e-zine is http://www.ezine-dir.com/

5. Offer online classes or seminars. If you love to teach, this is a wonderful traffic building tool. Whether or not you choose to charge for these is up to you. You could do a free introductory seminar, and then offer other detailed classes for a fee. You can do this on your own website, or you can set it up through a site such as http://www.universalclass.com/
With UniversalClass, they host your class for you and you are assigned an individual online classroom. You must prepare an online syllabus and your course will be reviewed. UniversalClass will advertise your course for you, and you will get a portion of the course fees.

A combination of fresh content, free services, free information and exchange of ideas can result in a lot of new visitors to your website. Being creative is what will set your site apart from all the others!