If you want to increase traffic to your website, and lets face it, who doesn’t, then you have to widen your horizons and experiment a little. All website owners want more traffic, enough is never enough, we always want that little bit more, and for good reason, because the more visitors, the more potential sales.
How to increase a website traffic can seem like a never ending search, and we all want to know how those millionaire marketers get so much of it, they make it look so easy, when we know that it is a hard slog. So how do the traffic wealthy seem to get it so easily?
Lessons In Traffic
There are many ways to get traffic to your website and most techniques that we have learnt do work, but it can take time and patience. We are told about many different ways including the following ..
Blog Commenting
This can be effective in generating traffic to your site, but it is time consuming and not all your work will produce results. It is a simple process, just visit another website, read a post and then leave a comment. In the comment area there is a space to add your website link, which once your comment has been approved and published gives you a backlink to your site.
This works the best when you are commenting on well established websites that are relevant to your own niche. I use this technique and it does bring some traffic to my sites, so it does work and is a good habit to establish.
Social Media
We all know how social media has exploded over the last several years and it is a standard requirement for any business to have accounts at least with the big guns of the social media scene. The aim is to get as many friends and followers as possible and then post regular content on your pages and timelines with links back to your website.
This can produce a fair amount of traffic, as long as your content is appealing enough to click through to your site, otherwise it can be time lost and your content moves ever further along the timeline out of sight. The more you use and interact with your audience on social media, the more traffic you can generate for your website.
The Search Engines
One of the best ways to get a good constant flow of traffic is by getting your website ranked high in the search engines, preferably on the first page, and even more preferably in the number one position. This is where keywords come into play, but they have to be The Right Keywords because not all keywords are created equal.
It is no good getting into the number one position on the first page of Google if your keyword is one that nobody uses, because that means zero traffic. If no one uses that keyword in their searches, then no one will see your website, even if it is in the number one spot.
The other end of the spectrum is trying to rank with keywords that are too competitive, like “Make Money Online“, the competition is so fierce that if you do actually rank for it, then it will probably be on page two million and four, and no one is going to scroll through that many pages and find your website.
The trick is to find keywords that are being used a lot as search terms, but being used very little by other website owners, which means ‘high search volume and low competition’. This is where a good Keyword Tool Comes into play because trying to find these search terms manually will take forever, let the tool do the work.
Picking the right keywords can have a massive effect on your traffic flow, so this is a must when it comes to traffic generation.
Another part of getting good rankings in the search engines is your actual content, it needs to be original, good quality, good in length and regular. The search engines are getting more and more sophisticated and they will not tolerate poor quality content. If your search engine of choice were to serve up websites with poor quality content and not relevant to what you were searching, then you would change to a different one.
So your content is important and does have a bearing on you getting high rankings in the search engines, get it right and you will have a steady stream of traffic to your site. The more good content you add, the more traffic you will enjoy.
Free Website Traffic
The methods I have shown above are all popular ways of generating visitors to your site and they do work. They also fall under the term “Free Traffic“, however are they really free?
As I mentioned earlier, time and patience are the keywords when it comes to these methods, and time is money, right! So although they are an essential part of online business, and should be part of your everyday work, there is a cost involved.
Serious Traffic
There are times when someone starts online and builds a website and it goes viral as it were, but that is not the norm. As amazing as it would be, the majority of us do not see that kind of success in a short space of time using the methods I have mentioned above on their own.
To get a serious amount of traffic to your website will take some cash, and most of those that are enjoying a lot of success online buy traffic for their website. Even multi million dollar companies with big brands buy traffic, that is how they make more money.
Just as there are many ways to generate free traffic, there are also many ways to buy traffic, here are just a few ..
Buy From Search Engines
This is a method where you can jump to the top of the search engine results for those competitive keywords you may not normally rank for, and enjoy the traffic it provides. You will pay per impression, or per click and it is a great way of getting targeted traffic to your website.
It does have a learning curve though, and you can lose a whole lot of cash without little or no results if you are not careful. Do not just jump in on this type of paid traffic, get some Good Quality Training before you even think about it.
With this method you need to know what you are doing.
Rent A List
This method is also known as solo ads, you are basically renting another marketers email list, the bigger the list, the bigger the fee. This can work well, although I think it is getting less effective than it use to be, probably because there are some that just build a list for this purpose. These lists get bombarded with constant offers, which is why I think they are less responsive than they use to be.
This method does not always produce a responsive audience.
Website Ads
This can be very effective, you buy advertising space on another popular website, that has a good amount of traffic. The point to bear in mind is that, the more popular the site, the more you will pay for advertising. It works by providing a banner advert to the site owner, who then places it on their site, usually in the side bar or another prominent position. You pay for the amount of time it is on the site, normally a fixed price per month.
This method will cost a fortune to get on a popular site.
Buy Direct Traffic
There are some websites that place adverts all over the net using different niche keywords and then sell the traffic, it is done by redirection. We are talking volume here, and they generate massive amounts of traffic with the sole purpose of selling that traffic.
It works by purchasing a certain amount of clicks (visitors), providing the keywords you would like to target and your destination link. Traffic coming in from those keywords is then directed straight to your destination link, until you either pause your campaign or your clicks run out.
You control the traffic and guaranteed clicks.
These are all methods that will cost you money, but very little time, and it is down to you to way up the contrasts. I decided when I first started online that I would not pay for traffic, all my efforts would go into generating traffic for free. I even bought products that taught secret methods of generating traffic for free, which turned out to be those that I have mentioned above, and buying a product kind of defeated the free part.
I found over time that those people in the industry that were creating and selling these products on how to generate traffic for free, were actually paying for traffic to promote their products. So they were not doing as they were teaching and what they were teaching was available for free anyway.
The Turning Point
I decided that I had to give up on the notion that I could build a successful business online without buying traffic, this did not mean that I would not continue with all the methods that I was using because they do work over time, and I had made some money, it just wasn’t consistent.
My first method of paying for traffic was with Google Adwords, and I set up my first PPC campaign with high hopes. The results were not good, several hundred dollars later and no sales, I stopped. This is why I advise on getting the Right Training before you jump in like I did.
I then bought ad space on a website. I could not afford the prices of the likes of John Chow, and had to settle for a lesser known site. I can’t remember the amount of traffic they stated they were getting per month, but it sounded a lot at the time. The results were the same as the pay per click method.
Solo Ads were my next stop and I spent around two hundred dollars, I had high hopes for this method, but got the same results, no actual money made. I was getting a little disheartened, and wondered how this paid traffic worked, I was expecting a lot more from it.
I tried the direct traffic route and found that the quality of the traffic was not great and did not get the results I was looking for here either, it was time to return to the drawing board.
I spent a fair while learning more about these methods and did eventually find some success with the Pay Per Click method, but I use Bing/Yahoo as opposed to Google Adwords. I have not returned to solos ads or buying ad space yet, although I will not rule them out altogether and it may be something I return to in the future.
Recently I found a New Direct Traffic site that has brought in results, and I now use it more than I do PPC, so far I am happy with it and like the results I am getting, so will continue to use it.
Traffic Costs
Which ever way you look at it traffic costs, whether it is your time or your money, it will cost you to get traffic to your website, and we all know without it, there is no business. We need it and we always want more of it, so we will do all we can to get it.
My experience has shown me that the methods that cost you your time are effective, but slow. The methods that cost you money are also effective, but fast. What I like about the two paid methods that I currently use are that you can control the traffic and experiment with it.
I can turn it on or off whenever I want, I can test what time of the day or night gets me more response, how long my visitors spend on the link destination and where they go from there, either click away or click through another link. I like the control, and I like the results.
I know some of you will hate the thought of having to pay for traffic, I did too, but I also realized that it is a part of online business. It’s just another business expense and as long as you are getting a good return on your investment then it makes sense. Start small and scale up, use your returns to reinvest in traffic and gradually you will be buying more and more traffic and get more and more results.
I have just realized the word count of this post, it is quite long, so I will not keep you any longer, I hope you have enjoyed it and it helps you to increase traffic to your website. If you have any questions or anything to add, then let me know in the comments section below, I would love to hear from you.