Nine Tips for Driving Traffic to your Web site that are all FREE

By Andy Brocklehurst
Posted Wednesday, August 25, 2004

You want more web traffic?
Some say that traffic is everything, in many ways I agree. It matters not how well your site is geared to sell, if no one ever visits, you won't make any money.

Here are fourteen ways you can begin driving traffic to your site:

1. Use Signature Files

In every email you send, every newsgroup or forum posting you make, be sure to have a signature file at the end of each message. Something like:

Fred Smith
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Discover how I achieved 20,000 hits from a simple signature file
(www.yoursite.com)
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You will be surprised just how much traffic you can build if you post in the right places and provide useful messages and not just blatent advertisements.

2. Search Engine Registration

It goes without saying almost. You must register your pages on search engines. There are all sorts of tools available to help you, but many of them will cost you money. You could check out (http://www.jimtools.com) for some handy free ones. If you're a member of the Inner Room and use a Windows 95/98 computer then there's some incredible programs you can use to help rocket your site to the top of the list.

Search engines are important, and worth getting right. If you really don't know what you are doing then you might want to pay someone to do it for you, but I would suggest that the better option is to learn how.

3. FFA Link Pages.

Free-for-All link pages have been around for some time, these days it is the general opinion that the only people who see these links are the ones who are only going to the site to post a message for themselves. Whilst that is partly true, if you post with a very strong headline, and use a multi-submitter, then you will be surprised how a few minutes work can generate a reasonable supply of visitors. I still post to FFA pages - it takes just a couple of minutes to cut and paste my headline and other details. Beware though - Owners of FFA pages will usually send you an email confirmation along with some advertisements - set up free email accounts and use them when you post to these places.

4. Web Rings.

OK - I have to be honest here - I hate web rings, but there are some markets for which they work. If you have a speciality line of goods and use a content filled site more than a direct sales two or three page type arrangement, then a web ring could work for you. Personally I tend to avoid things that can take visitors away. If you use a web ring, put the links to it right at the bottom of your web page so people read your content (and your sales messages) first. (www.webring.org) is where to go to get set-up.

5. Links swapping.

Now this is a powerful idea, and one that works surprisingly well. Basically you swap links with other web sites so that they link to your site, and you to theirs. Be the one who instigates the idea, email a few web master who have sites that compliment yours (rather than sites who are in direct competition) and get some link swaps going - then watch the increase in traffic. This idea also helps improve search engine rankings as the more you are linked to the better.

6. Banner exchanges

These are ok for getting small amounts of traffic to your site. The only drawback is you have to place a banner from the exchange on your site. If you run a business site this may not be the best thing for you because it tends to take away from the professionalism of your page, and you can lose visitors as a result. Check out BannerClicksLink Exchange for starters.

7. Start your own Newsletter

This is a MUST from a marketing point of view. It is so important that there are several reports dedicated to this subject alone in the Inner Room site

Having a newsletter keeps people coming back and keeps them informed about your site. You don't even have to publish every week or even every month, you can just send an issue out when you have something to say.

8. If you have an newsletter - Ad Swap.

If you have a newsletter/ezine going, and you publish on a regular basis. Consider doing an ad swap with other newsletter publishers. They run one of your ads and you run one of theirs. I have built my e-zine up the most using just a few stratigic ad swaps. I will even swap with people who only have a few hundred subscribers, because if I pick up just one or two as readers of my newsletter to, then that's two more people who might buy from me.

9. Free classified sites

See what I wrote about FFA pages, because that partly applies to this too. Having said that, there are some free ad sites like Yahoo Classifieds, that if you get the headlines right, can really pull some visitors. One ad I ran on Yahoo would get me over 100 visitors a day - not bad for a few minutes work and a free ad.

If you are a member of the Inner Room, then use the "Magic Headline Creation System" - I do and it works for me! If you are not an Inner Room Member, then why not take five minutes to check it out by CLICKING HERE

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