Increase Website Traffic For Free!

You've got that perfect website. Maybe you built it through hours of toil and effort. Or, maybe you paid a hefty sum to get a pro to build it for you. Whichever, your goal is to increase website traffic to your site. Whether you want to earn money from your site, or inform the public on an issue dear to your heart, you want that traffic. How do you get it? What are some tips to increase website traffic?

Tip one:
Get listed in the major search engines. How to do this? First and foremost, have competitive keywords. This means keywords that get lots of searches. There is a golden ratio of searches to websites that compete. Programs that educate you on keyword optimization are excellent to learn just which keywords work best. However, if you don't want to put out that money right now, just be sure to choose one that has lots of requests, but ones with the least competing sites. Sometimes, keyword phrases are best for this.

Also, to stand a better chance of getting a listing, and better yet, a high listing, in search engines is to make sure you have good content. Fluff will not work. Don't stuff your content with the keyword phrase, but do use it periodically throughout your content. Again, there are ebooks and programs that give estimates of the best keyword saturation, which just means the number of times the keyword appears in every hundred words. This varies from guru to guru, but you can do searches and find out what saturation is recommended to increase search engine traffic and as a consequence increase website traffic. You could then use the one recommended most, and do your own tests to see which works. There is a happy balance between too rich a keyword saturation and too weak. Either is not effective.

Tip two:
Another important point in the game to increase website traffic is linking to your site. The more links to and from your site, the better your search engine ranking. Also, the better the sites linking to you and that you link to, the better your ranking. There are techniques to help obtain good links, which can also be found in ebooks and website promotion programs. You can also search and find some free information as well. Some gurus think this is the one most important aspect to getting search engine traffic.

There are also many free and paid link exchange/promotion programs. Just be prepared with these to have to promote someone else's link if they promote yours.

Tip three:
Web directories are another method to increase website traffic. In this method, you get listed into a website directory, or ring. When someone surfs to a website in the directory or ring, a link is shown to click to other websites that are in that ring. Of course, you need to be sure to be targeted well and join a well-targeted ring. You don't have to have the exact same content, but just be sure they contents relate and are not offensive to the rest of the ring. You don't want to be promoting hunting products in a webring that promotes animal rights. Yes, they relate, in that both deal with animal hunting, but they are on opposite sides of the table. You don't really want the traffic that the animal rights ring produces.

Tip four:
Article directories are another method to increase website traffic. In this method, you submit articles to the directory and they use their traffic to promote your article. You have a resource box at the end of your article directing people to your site. These may be articles you have written or that you have paid others to write for you.

The key here is to have excellent titles, content and to write an excellent resource box. Make sure your resource box contains good keywords. Include a strong call to action as well. Again, there are ebooks and programs out there that teach you to write good call to action lines and good headlines/titles.

Tip Five:
Be prepared to spend a little money to increase website traffic. Ebooks and programs are mentioned throughout this article, but they are a wonderful, inexpensive source for information and education. True, some can be quite pricey, but other are in the less than $10 range. Of course, there is also free information on the internet. Still, the ebooks usually explain in more detail the points you find for free.

Another area where you should be prepared to spend a little money is in your content. If you can write good content consistently, then by all means do so. However, if you need more content than you feel confident providing, hire a good writer to write articles, ads, resource boxes, and other material for you. Some are very inexpensive, doing an article for $5-10. Others charge more. However, the pricier writer is not necessarily the best. Offer a small assignment of five or so articles as a test, check what you get from them, then decide whether you want to use that writer or not.

With just a small investment of money, and somewhat more in time, you can increase website traffic. After all, if you have an excellent website and no ones come to it, have you achieved your goal? Probably not. Do what you can yourself, spend whatever money you can budget, and watch that traffic grow.