Build The Path and They Will Come

By James D. Brausch
Posted Friday, September 24, 2004

Your profit is directly related to the amount of sales you generate. Your sales are directly related to the number of visitors you get to your website. Your visitor traffic is directly related to your web presence. Your web presence is the quantity and quality of paths that lead to your website.

Therefore, the most important thing you can do to increase your profit is to increase the quantity and quality of paths to your website. It is as simple as that.

Here are five good ways to build new paths starting today. All of these methods take time, but the time spent is a good investment. Our clients pay us to improve their web presence and these are the methods we use for our clients and for ourselves.

1. Link Exchange

If you don't already have a link directory on your site, create one today. This is one of the easiest and most effective methods of improving your web presence and building new paths to your website. You simply find sites similar in topic to your own and offer to trade links with the webmaster of these sites. This is one of the oldest and most effective methods of building new paths to your site.

2. Publish Your Own Newsletter

If you don't have your own newsletter, start one today. Have several links in your newsletter to different pages on your site including: your archive of past articles, a page to subscribe to your newsletter (for those who receive it from a friend), a page to unsubscribe, a page to submit articles, etc.

When you send out your newsletter, you will be reminding past visitors to visit again. You will also be providing them an easy path back to your site with the links in your newsletter.

You should also make a note in your newsletter that your articles are available to be printed in another newsletter or on another website for free as long as a link is included to your website (another path).

3. Submit Articles To Other Newsletters

You are already publishing your own newsletter; right? Why not write an extra article and submit it to other newsletters with the same topic as your own? Most will include a link to your site in their newsletter (another path). Many will also publish your article on their site along with a link to your site (yet another path).

4. Participate in Online Discussion Forums

Join all of the online discussion forums, newsgroups, and mailing lists you can find in your topic area. Never discuss your product/service on the discussion forum. This is considered very bad taste in many forums and outright spam in other forums. However, if you participate in these forums by answering questions and being genuinely helpful, you will be noticed.

Include a link to your site in your signature so that those who like your advice can drop by for a visit. The simple link in your signature becomes a new path to your site every time you help someonw by answering a question.

5. Syndicate Free Content

When you are building content for your site, always offer it for use on other sites. Simply include a note at the bottom of your page saying that webmasters are welcome to copy anything in return for a link to your site.

This might include articles, pictures, scripts, etc. Encourage others to copy your site as long as they provide another path to your site.

Be sure to do a little of each of these methods every week and your site will soon be among the most visited sites in your topic area.

Someone once said "If you build it, they will come." I believe that statement to be true. But you can't just build the best website in the world and expect everyone to visit tomorrow. You also have to build the paths to get to that website.

If you build those paths, they will come!

About the Author
The author, James D. Brausch, is the Vice President of Marketing for Target Blaster, Inc., an Internet Marketing firm specializing in targeted traffic. (http://www.TargetBlaster.com)