When you create a website you do so for the purpose of providing information to a targeted audience. The websites that are most successful are those that receive a lot of traffic. Traffic is vital to the success of any website.
You can get traffic to your website from search engines, directories and word of mouth.
Search engines are those sites like Google and Yahoo where people enter a search terms using certain keywords and are given the results of websites relevant to the words they search for. If you have a website that is relevant to particular keywords then your website will show up in the results when people search and you will receive traffic.
Word of mouth is basically when you have happy customers that recommend your website to others. This can be by word of mouth or it can be recommending your website on social bookmarking sites.
Directories are lists of categories where people can access information they are looking for.
To receive traffic from both search engines and directories your website needs to rank highly so that it is among the first in the results.
To receive traffic from word of mouth you need to provide a good quality website and service so that others will want to recommend you.
These three types of traffic sources are the most popular. You can pay for services to get your site to rank highly in the search engines and directories, as they say to make money you need to spend money. There are other options available though to obtain website traffic.
Organic placement is a great way to get traffic to your website. With this process your site is located by a large number of people and their search results will make your sites rankings on the search engines rise each time someone visits your site and it increases with popularity. To make the most of organic placement you will use relevant keywords and phrases and vary the phrases that you use to cover more search terms.
The first three methods outlined above will give you high levels of traffic, but it will take some hard work on your part to reach that point. You must be determined and stay focused on your efforts to get your website in a good position. When you start seeing some traffic come to your website you will know your efforts are starting to pay off and this will keep you motivated to keep going.
There are other simple methods that you can use to get traffic like viewer feedback forums, newsletters, affiliate marketing, RSS feeds, blogging and video marketing. Also have an interesting and good quality website will make it appealing which will give you much more traffic through recommendations. Adding more quality content or features to your website will also help to increase your traffic.
Try to think outside the box also as if your site offers something that others don't then this will make it more appealing to visitors. You don't need to be the number one leader in the industry but it can help to have a site that stands out from the crowd. The main thing is to put the effort into both the content of your website and also the traffic generation and you will soon have a very profitable website.
