Getting Traffic to Your Website Yesterday

By Jerry Robertson
Posted Wednesday, October 20, 2004

You have spent countless hours working on the perfect web site. It is live on the net and you need traffic. What can you do to get traffic now?

Submitting to the various search engines is great for the long term. However, your site may not be listed for several months, if at all.You do have some options. Several of the search engines have express submissions. You can have your site listed in a week or less.Looksmart and Yahoo express submissions are $299. Looksmart has a basic submission that is $149 and you will get listed in about 8 weeks or less.All of these fees are a one time fee and there are no refunds. Alta Vista charges $39 for the first URL and $24 for each additional URL every 6 months. Inktomi charges $30 for the First URL and $15 for each additional URL yearly. Alta Vista and Inktomi refresh weekly, so your changes will show up quickly. I would recommend using Inktomi first. Then, I would consider Looksmart and Yahoo next. Yahoo has more traffic, but Looksmart is easier to get a higher ranking. I don't think Alta Vista is worth the money. If you decide on Inktomi, pick your best URL's. Concentrate on 1-3 keywords per URL. Use these keywords 3-6 times in your page preferably near the top of the page. At least one of your keywords should be in the title. Make sure you have meta tags and descriptions. Getting listed in Inktomi can get you top rankings in Hotbot, Msn, AOl Search, and others. These strategies have helped me obtain numerous words that have top 20 rankings.

There is another traffic option to consider. Pay Per Click Search Engines(PPC) will get you targeted traffic at a specific cost. You are charged every time a customer clicks on your site. Many PPC's start at 1 cent per click. There are over 160 PPC's and growing. Many of them are very slow and you will not get much traffic from them at this time. However, there are several that will get you considerable traffic. The leader by far is Overture. It is also the most expensive. However, with some work, you can get numerous targeted keywords for 15 cents or less. The minimum bid at Overture is 5 cents and you must spend $20 per month. All of the PPC's have their own rules, but here are some general suggestions for success.

1.Try to get one of the top 3 bids if possible. You will get at least double the clicks.

2.Bid 1-2 cents more than the spot you want. This seems like common sense, but I see tons of money wasted by overbidding. Also, look for big gaps between positions. If you see a big gap, go 1-2 cents higher than the lower bid. For example, if the top bid is 18 cents and second is 15 cents and third is 5 cents, I would most likely bid 6 cents.

3.Write a description that is very specific. A well written description will make up for a lower rank. If possible have your URL go to the specific page that your keyword refers to instead of the home page.

4.Once you get that person to your site, you want to capture their email address. The most common way is to get them to subscribe to a newsletter. There are other things you can do. For example: training courses, tip of the day/week,etc. This way you are only paying for that customer once for repeat visits.

5.Work search engines on a regular basis. I would work the busier ones at least once a week and the slower ones at least once a month.

There are tools that can help you manage your bids for you automatically. Overture is My number one PPC in clicks at (http://www.overture.com). Here are other PPC's that I receive extensive traffic.They include the following: (http://www.iqseek.com) and (http://www.goclick.com) and (http://www.findwhat.com) Many PPC's will give you a bonus on your first deposit up to 500% depending on the PPC. In addition, some will give you extra money for putting their search box on your site. Also, there are several PPC's that give you money to try out their site at no risk. Here are three of those: (http://www.ban-x.com) and (http://www.topseven.com) and (http://www.solidhits.com) By following these strategies, you can get traffic to your web site today.

About the Author
Jerry Robertson is the editor of the free biweekly newsletter "Elrob Online Biz Tips". Visit his sites at: (http://www.makeumoneynow.com) and (http://www.elrob.com)