Lens Crafting Guru

1. Offer free, original, and quality content on your site. This is, by far, the single most traffic-generating activity you can take part in.
   
   • Make sure the content is helpful to your visitors. Quality is key here; don't use information that is re-hashed from some other web site. Give your visitors the information they need to achieve their goal or solve their problem.
     
   • Create a fresh piece of content every two days if you can, or at least once a week.
     
   • Do not use content generators. They are nearly useless now. Do not copy and paste, either. Google, Yahoo and MSN are much smarter than a year ago and can detect copied and unoriginal content.
     
   • If you don't want to write article by yourself, you could outsource article writing for around as little as $5 per article (depending on the topic, length, and quality of the article desired, of course). Better yet, try writing your own content. Just sit down and start writing an article. You may be impressed when you're done!
     
   
   
2. Improve your search engine ranking by focusing your content on keywords related to your topic. This is called search engine optimization and will help people find your website when they're searching the Web. But don't overdo it. If you overstuff the content with keywords, say good bye to your search engine ranking. Make sure the keywords flow naturally with the text.
   
3. Start an e-zine for your web site. When people read each issue they'll be reminded to revisit your web site. Submit it to all the free e-zine directories on the internet.
   
4. Submit your articles to e-zines, web sites and magazines that accept article submissions. Include your business information and web address at the end of the article. This is a good way to create one-way backlinks to your website. This is the most effective way to get listed on any search engine. Usually, the more relevant links you have pointing to your site the higher you will rank.
   
5. Give away an electronic freebie (like an eBook) with your ad on it. Allow your visitors to also give the freebie away. This'll increase your ad exposure and increase web traffic to your web site at the same time.
   
6. Exchange links. Trading links with other web sites that are closely related to the subject of your web site can bring you more web site traffic. These are two-way links because you must provide a link to them, too, and linking to low-quality websites can threaten the credibility of yours. Only link to sites that are DEAD ON topic, and truly help your visitors. Instead of trading links, you could also trade banner ads, half page ads, classified ads, etc.
   
7. Participate on message boards. Post answers to other people's questions, ask questions and post appropriate information. Include your signature file containing your website's URL at the end of all your postings.
   
8. Start your own online discussion community. It could be an online message board, e-mail discussion list or chat room. When people get involved in your community, they will regularly return to communicate with others.
   
9. Hold free online classes or seminars. They could be held in your web site's chat room. The idea of "live" information will definitely entice people to visit your web site. You will become known as an expert on the topic.
   
10. Use your car, especially if your website is area-specific (e.g. a website detailing local events or selling local services). Get some vinyl decals or bumper stickers created and turn your car into a moving advertisement, literally driving traffic to your web site!
    
11. Use word of mouth. Tell everyone you know about your website, give out business cards to passers-by in the street, and so on. You might even want to run a guerrilla marketing program!
    
12. Give visitors a free entry into your contest or sweepstakes. The prizes should be something of interest or value to your visitors. Most people who enter will continually revisit your web site to get the results.
    
13. Let visitors download free software such as freeware, shareware, demos etc. You could even turn part of your site into a free software directory. If you created the software, include your ad inside and let other people give it away.
    
14. Offer free online services or utilities from your website. For instance, they could be search engine submitting, copy writing proofreading etc. The service or utility should be helpful to your target audience.
    
15. Give free consulting to people who visit your web site. You could offer your knowledge via e-mail or by telephone. People will consider this a huge value because consulting fees can be very expensive.
    
16. put key words and phrases in bold or italics, if you don't know what key words and phrases are look it up!
    

• Start right here on wikiHow. Read up on how to publicize your website on wikiHow without breaking the rules. If you can provide quality content, you can create a win-win relationship where you share knowledge and get publicity in return.
  
• Be patient; understand that search engines need a lot of time to index a new web site and domain. They need time to index all your content
  

• Never, ever spam. Your credibility will be gone before you know it, and with it will go your traffic.
  
• Don't get caught up with web site generators and internet tricks. All these "black hat" tricks will only work temporarily. Your business needs to be setup for the long term.
  
• Do not be fooled by those traffic sellers promising thousands of hits an hour. What they really do is load up your URL in a program, along with a list of proxies. Then they run the program for a few hours. It looks like someone is on your site because your logs show visitors from thousands of different IPs. What happens in reality is your website is just pinged by the proxy, no one really sees your site. It is a waste of money.
  

• How to Improve Search Engine Ranking
  
• How to Create One Way Backlinks to Your Website
  
• How to Start an Online Discussion Community
  
• How to Exchange Links
  
• How to Write Articles
  
• How to Create a Website
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Increase Website Traffic. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.