Twelve Terrific Traffic Tips

So, why have I gone for twelve tips and not ten as you would usually expect to see? Well that is all to do with keywords, buuuut, I am not going to go into keywords on this lens. Lets just say there is too much competition for 'top ten tips' and well, eleven doesnt sound as good. 'Eleven Terrific Traffic Tips', not quite the same ring to it as 'Twelve Terrific Traffic Tips', I believe that is called alliteration. So because of strong competition and the human love for catchy headlines you are potentially getting two extra tips.

SPEAKS FOR ITSELF!

If you are here reading this then you probably now what Squidoo is and how it works, but a quick review for you. On Squidoo you can create your very own free web page (lens) which you can completely design yourself and add any content (within reason) to. You can give your site a big shout out and the best thing about Squidoo? Google loves it:-)

Submitting your site to search engines really explains itself. If you submit your site to be indexed and the site decides to index you then you will show up in their search results. Which search results all depends on the content of your site (see keyword research).

I am one of these people though who refuse to pay companies who say that for $25.00 or something similar they will submit your site to hundreds of search engines, bladdy bladdy blah! You can do this yourself and generally for free. Two great sites to do this are Free Website Submission and Submit Express

I am not going to go into too much detail about free ad boards and free ad sites because each one differs so I dont want to give you the wrong information if you use a site that I dont know of. So the only two I am going to tell you about is Basic Free Ads and US Free Ads

Business free ads is a board where you can post a text ad for free for a predetermined period of time usually about 5 - 10 days. You will then get an email when your ad has expired giving you the option to post again. Business Free Ads also have an payment options as an extra way to advertise your site but as I am only discussing the free ways I suggest you check this out yourself. I do not use the paid option so cannot tell you about it, sorry!

I prefer US free ads to business free ads, it is much more detailed and unlike business free ads where you just get a small text ad, with US free ads you actually get to write a whole classified add all about your site. Your add can be anywhere between 200-500 words or more and can be a blatant sales pitch which a lot of sites do not allow these days. Example Ad

One of my favourite ways to promote my website for free is to use the hundreds and thousands of forums on the world wide web. The reason I find this one so appealing is that not only are you driving free traffic to your site but you also meet some fantastic people.
Now when I say use these boards to drive traffic to your site I do not mean just sign up for an account and then start posting messages about your site, you cannot do this you will be banned before you have even got anywhere. The mods of these forums do not want there boards full of sales pitches and self-promotion posts; they want people to contribute and take part in interesting subjects on their particular niche.
So how do you promote your site without actually promoting your site? Signatures. Most forums allow you to put a link to your site in your signature and so long as you are contributing to the message boards frequently with good quality information then you will find people will click on your link as they feel you have the information and knowledge they are looking for. However, people will only click your link if you are posting regularly with good, quality information in your posts, they will not click on your link if you are just posting the odd post here and there saying something like 'Hi, I totally agree' or 'Hi, welcome to the boards'. You are not giving anyone an idea of the knowledge you have so why would they click through to your site?
This is a really fun and interesting way to drive free traffic to you website. Not only will you earn an abundance of new information from reading other people's posts but you will generally end up meeting a lot of great people who share an interest in your niche.

How you enter a link into your signature:

[url=http://globalinternetmarketing.info]Reviews, information and products for the internet marketer[/url]

[url=http://www.make-my-fortune.com/]Make Money Online Everyday[/url]

How others will see your links:

Reviews, information and products for the internet marketer

Make Money Online Everyday

For more information on basic html and making text links check out one of my favourite Squidoo lens Basic HTML for Squidoo

Two simple ways to drive traffic to your website:

Leave comments on other people blogs, sites, etc which are related to you niche. Leave an interesting comment with a link back to your site.

Tell people - seriously the amount of people who dont tell people about their site or blog is unreal. Tell all your family and friends and colleagues and then get them to tell all their family and friends. I can guarantee there is bound to be a few people who are interested who will not only check your site out (so make sure it is good) but they will then continue to tell people and so on.

Social networks and social bookmark sites are so simple to use to drive free traffic to your site, these are definitely the easiest of the twelve traffic tips I am giving you.
Take social networks for example, almost everyone is a member of some type of network these days whether it is bebo, myspace or facebook (there are many others but these are my top 3 favourite.) And if you are not a member it is extremely easy (and free) to become a member. It is estimated that there are over 200 social networking sites on the internet today so you have many to choose from. You can use Wikipedia to find sites that are more related to your niche or theme.
Really all you need to do is build your profile and add a link to your site. You can not advertise on most of these sites but if you make friends with like-minded people and keep your content updated (search engines luuurve fresh content) you will see the results. The main key to using social networking sites successfully to drive traffic your way is to keep your content fresh, make new posts every few days and you will soon have people flooding your way.

Social bookmarking is another easy, fantastic way to drive traffic in your direction. If you dont know what social bookmarking is then here is a small quote from Wikipedia "Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata.

In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, and can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine".
So how do you use them to drive traffic to your site. My top tips for using social bookmarking are:

Dont be greedy, you cannot just bookmark your site, it will be seen as self-promotion, bookmark other sites, blogs, article which are related to your niche. Even better if these other sites have a link to yours!

Update your site frequently to drive new traffic your way.

Research your bookmarking site first, Different sites have different crowds who like different things. Try and use a site that has a lot of interest in your niche.

Both of these traffic tips are a good way for you to meet like-minded people who have like-minded sites and blogs. It is a good idea to build good online relationships with people in your niche as word of mouth is one of the best forms of free advertising.

Keyword research is such a huuuge topic that it requires a whole lens just for itself, which I am in the process if creating. However for now you need to know that doing your keyword research is THE most important thing you can do in order to drive traffic to your site. If you dont do your keyword research properly you probably wont have the correct keywords in your site therefore search engines will not be able to show your page in results for the keywords people are searching for. Like I said this is so important to site owners that I am creating a lens on the subject alone. As soon as I have this up and running I will put a link in here.

Another important factor which will determine whether you get traffic to your site or not is content. Have you ever heard the saying 'content is king'? Well it is. If the content in your site is outdated, does not include keyword rich text and is not unique then search engines will not rank your site well. Also when you do get the odd trickle of traffic through you wont be able to keep people interested and they will not return, they will not bookmark your site and they will not recommend it through word of mouth, see how nearly all these twelve tips link together.
So it is an idea to do your keyword research and think about your content before you even start building your site or blog. If you have already got your site it is easy to go back and change your text to include correct keywords, etc.

I have left article writing as the twelfth and last traffic tip as it is one of the more tasking ways to drive free traffic to your site. Dont get me wrong once you get the hang of this or if you are already a keen writer then it will all become natural and you will be producing articles by the hour! Ok so that maybe a slight exaggeration.
Article writing is one of the best and fastest ways to get traffic to your site and increase your exposure to the world. You write your article based on your niche and include a link to your site in what is called a 'resource box'. Most article sites will not allow affiliate links in the article therefore you put your site link in the resource box and people will then be re-directed to your site if they click on it.
Article writing not only increases exposure of your site but it also is a way to establish your self as an expert in your chosen niche. The main key to article writing is good quality information. Ask yourself if you would read the same article if it had been written by someone else. If the answer is yes then others would probably want to read it, if the answer is no then it is time to scrap that one and get back to the drawing board.

For more information on article writing Click Here