Top 5 ways to Drive Traffic to your website

Marketing Lary Stucker

Everyone wants to increase traffic to their website. They have heard a lot of the marketing buzz words, SEO, adwords, RSS, social media, blogs, et cetera but have no way of determining which will have the greatest impact on increasing website traffic. So it is no surprise that I am often asked, “What are the Top 5 ways to drive traffic to my website.”

Here is my typical response:

  1. SEO: Search Engine Optimization is the best, long term strategy for increasing qualified traffic to your website. Pick two-three keywords per landing page and optimize!

  2. Forums: Get active in the places where your customers gather. Include a link to your website as part of your signature and be helpful, offer your advice, opinion, and position yourself as an expert in that category. WARNING: Don’t just jump in and start hawking your wares (they call that SPAM)
  3. Google Adwords: No time for SEO? Want Customers on your site now? Then Google adwords is the place to start. Create a couple of contextual based ad campaigns, throw in a few keywords and set a budget. Before the end of the day you will have visitors on your site.
  4. eMail Newsletters: Giving your visitors a place to sig-up for a newsletter or to receive updates is a great way to increase traffic to your website. It takes a dedicated effort to write effective content and deliver relative information to your audience but they will reward you greatly by frequenting your website and telling their friends and colleague. If you don’t have that kind of patience, dedication or time, you can always rent a list or sponsor a newsletter by a publication relative to your audience.
  5. Yahoo! Answers: Yahoo! Answers is a new way to find and share information. You can ask questions on any topic, get answers from real people. This is similar to the forum technique in that you are helping people find answers to direct question. Positioning yourself as an expert on that topic will go a long way in increasing traffic to your website. You may even get people asking direct questions about your goods or services.