The
one thing that webmasters wish for is a steady flow of web traffic to their website.
My
aim with this article is to give you a few ideas for bringing web traffic to your
website. Once your web traffic is up and flowing, what you do with the web traffic
is up to you. First and foremost, web traffic mainly comes from the following
areas; in no particular order
Web Directories
Search Engines
Link
ahoy!
Discussion Boards/Forums
We go into each of these in
detail below.
II - Web directories
A web directory is not
my favorite medium for building web traffic; but it can be useful to build PR
which can help to achieve better rankings in the Google Search Engine. PR (range
of 1-10) is one of the factors Google uses to rank its results when someone does
a search. Basically, with a higher PR; it is believed that your listing should
rank better than those with other PR. With a quick overview about PR; PR is determined
by how many backlinks you have, and the quality of those backlinks. The more backlinks
you have from quality websites you have, the higher PR you will generate; and
as a result; better rankings.Thats the beauty about some web directories and link
pages. According to how high the PR values are for the webpage where you want
to place your link; your webpage PR value would increase. If you could manage
to get many links on various PR6 websites for example; your PR value should increase
and your rankings should get better and should drive more traffic.How to find
web directories you ask? Its a simple task: All you need to do is to go to www.google.com
and type in your keyword and the word directory For example, if the keyword was
'Cat', the search term would be ‘Cat directory’ are various Cat directories should
come up.
III - Linkahoy!
Ebaumsworld is a very popular website for
finding jokes. It currently enjoys over 750, 000 unique visitors a month. Yet,
on typing ‘jokes’ and performing a search, ebaumsworld is not present in the top
100 results. How then can Ebaumsworld enjoy so much web traffic a month?
Ebaumsworld.com
bausmsworld
mainly achieves this through backlinks. Interestingly enough, on doing a backlink
count with Google, Ebaumsworld chalked up 9,550 in backlinks.
Now lets face
reality:
Manually creating 9,550 backlinks by manually going to web pages
and submitting your link is a very tiring task.
The only way to create so
many genuine backlinks is by having GOOD CONTENT.
After studying major websites,
I've found that they are two great ways of creating this:
1 Media/Downloads
2.
Articles
With Ebaumworld.com, their key is loads of media, not necessarily
article writing. Web surfers are attracted to downloads and media in general;
It’s a much welcomed difference to all of the text found on web pages. Once you
start to create a number of articles and media/downloads, you will find that persons
start to visit your website more regularly to check for more media/downloads;
Your web traffic will increase especially when the articles and downloads are
really great ones.
The added advantage with articles as well, is that you
can post them on other related websites. By doing this, you can create numerous
backlinks by including your link at the end of your article.Search engines love
Article content; but we’ll go more into Search Engines in the next section.
IV
-Search Engines
Search engines are great for driving web traffic if you
can get into about the top 30 results for popular search terms. With Google, rankings
depend largely on backlinks and PR.In addition to these two variables; another
variable is Onpage Optimization.
Onpage optimization is basically the editing
of your HTML code so that its ideal for placement in search engine results.
This
editing may including the editing of meta tags, descriptions, keywords and content
realignment.
Quick tips for Onpage optimization for web traffic
1.
Use H1 header tags Make sure that this tag contains your keyword.
An example
for Cats would be
Cat land
2. Use H2 tags.Largely taken as a subheading,
make sure this also contains your main keyword;
3. Evenly spread keywordsAlso,
with regards to the content, try to make reference to your keyword regularly,
but not too often. Try to mention it evenly throughout the document. This is where
the article writing from the previous sections comes in handy. With your articles,
make sure that There are numerous other Onpage Optimization tips I can give you,
but I go into that more in the Optimization tips article HERE.
V - Discussion
Boards/Forums
Discussion forums are a great way to get your message out
and generate even more web traffic.To find these forums use your keyword and the
word 'forums' with www.google.com For example, ‘Cat forums’. Make sure that you
keep a log of all of them. You’ll want to be making regular posts here.
On
registering, try to include your URL and a brief description of your website in
your signature. If you make regular posts on the forums, and change signatures
every once in a while to reflect what’s going on at your website, you will have
a steady stream of visitors. For example, an example signature could be ‘Catland.com
– ‘How to make cats happy’ article just posted 12/34/04’.
On these boards,
you will also realize that there are several recurring questions new persons ask.
With reference to the Cats forums; there may be a question which you find reoccurs
'How should I groom my Cat?'. If you can create an article to answer each of these
questions, you can always post the link to your article everytime a newbie asks
question. This will drive fresh users to your website and once your website has
in great content; will ensure repeat user and more web traffic.
V1 - Conclusion
There
are always new ways of finding means of developing web traffic. Offline promotion
such as developing business cards can also help. You've only just begun your journey!
The last thing I want to say is that fresh content ALWAYS brings return vistors;
keep adding content; and your visitors will return time after time.
With
that said I wish you all the best with your web traffic quest!- Kevin Allman
Kevin
Allman is a webmaster with over ten years Internet experience. He runs a Search
Engine Optimizationwebsite at http://www.pzeta.org/seo_global/
which contains many articles on how to optimize your website.