Traffic is the lifeblood of the web. Without traffic your online business will die. With enough traffic your online business can make you millions. I hope the 100 tips in this post help you drive serious traffic to your website, and rapidly increase your subscribers! (Remember, not just read it, make it done!)
1. Create a Memorable Domain
A good domain is an advertisement in and of itself. ".com" domains are your best bet, but since millions of them are already taken it might take some time to find one that you like.
2. Produce Videos on YouTube
YouTube is the second largest search engine on the web, and they are owned by Google. Be sure to track which of your videos get viewed and make sure that when a video gets more than a few views that you use the “annotation” feature of YouTube to add a call of action for viewers to go to the site where you want to drive your traffic. Interlinking your videos with annotations can help you pick up more views and traffic as well. Make sure to include a link to your website in the profile information of your channel.
3. Syndicate your Videos with TubeMogul
Although the bulk of your video views will likely come from YouTube, by syndicating your video content to other video sites with TubeMogul you will be able to pick up a considerable amount of niche traffic to your site. When you are setting up your accounts on each of the different video channels be sure to include a link back to your website in your profile.
4. Syndicate your Videos with Traffic Geyser
Traffic Geyser is like Tube Mogul, only it is a paid version with more bells and whistles. Traffic Geyser sends your content all over the web, to blogs, video hubs, and other Web 2.0 properties.
5. Watermark your Videos
A watermark is an image overlay on top of a video. Before I publish any of my videos I watermark them with the URL of the domain I want to drive traffic to with a video editing program.
6. Screencast Videos
I find that Screencast Videos are an excellent way to produce video content that you can use to attract visitors to your website. One way to entice users to check out your website with a screencast is by at the end of the video surfing to your website and talking for a short while about the cool things that visitors can find on your site.
7. Write Guest Posts
Reach out to bloggers with audiences bigger than your own and ask them if they would like you to write a post for their blog. Even if this strategy does not convert to a huge influx of visitors, it will get you quality backlinks that will boost the ranking of your site in Google. The bonus of this strategy is that you will build relationships in the process.
8. Build an Email List
An email list is an exceptionally powerful way to drive traffic at the click of a button, build a community around your site, and make sales. Building an email list requires an Email Service provider. If you are on a tight budget you can get started Email Marketing with MailChimp for free, if your list has under 500 people on it. Be warned though, MailChimp customer service is pretty much non-existent, and from my experience it is impossible to get someone on the phone.
9. Create Epic Content
Content that goes above and beyond attracts traffic naturally due to the immense value that it delivers. Epic content is not rocket science, it simply takes plenty of research to develop something that outdoes everyone else’s effort in a particular area.
10. Set up an Autoresponder Email Series
An Autoresponder is an email marketing tool that automatically sends emails to a subscriber in specific time insterals after they sign up to your email list. Ideally, you should have an autoresponder email for every important article on your blog. Every email you write in your autoresponder should have a call to action designed to get the reader to click through to your site. (But remember, DON"T SPAM)
11. Give Away Free Stuff
Giving away high quality free stuff is a powerful way to drive traffic to your website, generate leads for your business, and make sales. If you give someone $10 of value for free and then suggest a product for $1 people will be much more likely to buy compared to if you simply asked them for the $1 sale. Free content is often shared (do you share?), and the more value your free offer is the better your chances are of your content being shared virally. Visit My Giveaways...
12. Submit Your Site to Feedburner
Feedburner is a service owned by Google that takes your RSS feed and makes it easily accessible by a variety of RSS readers. Feedburner also offers a variety of tools to track how many subscribers your feed has, as well as different ways to publicize your feed with widgets, and optimize the content in your feed. Subscribe to Blog Feed.
13. Use Squeeze Pages
An effective squeeze page has a better rate of success for capturing new leads than any other form placement.
14. Create an Ecourse
A solid way to start an autoresponder series is by offering a 7 day email course where you send seven emails for seven days to build a strong initial relationship and trust with your subscribers.
15. Write a Free eBook
If you have blog posts already you can simply copy and paste your content into a document, then convert it to a .pdf, and just like that you’ll have an eBook! eBooks have a high perceived value and are a great way to build your email list. I use this strategy with my free eBooks. (All Harry Potter Books Download - of course I didn't wrote them!)
16. Write a Roundup Post
Write a post that rounds up a bunch of awesome people in your niche. This strategy is an effective way to build relationships with influencers, if you reach out to them and let them know you are promoting their content. Building relationships with influencers often leads to them returning the favor by blogging or tweeting about you, and thus sending traffic your way.
17. Interview Experts in Your Niche
Write an email asking experts a question that is relevant to your niche, and not only will you get some great content from their answers, you will also be building powerful relationships in the process.
18. Twitter Traffic
Twitter is a huge source of traffic, second only to Google. I have been able to get tens of tens of visitors to my sites by building my Twitter network on a daily basis with a nifty program called TweetAdder.
19. More Followers for More Traffic
Your goal with Twitter should be to network and build relationships, and these relationships will lead to traffic to your tweets.
More followers = more relationships = more traffic.
People often follow the followers of these folks so every time you use this strategy you will pick up some new followers.
20. Create a Facebook Page
By putting your traffic where users spend most of their time online you have the best chance of it being viewed. Currently people in North America spend more time on Facebook than any other website. If you do not have a Facebook page yet for your website you are seriously missing out on a huge source of traffic!
Install a “Like Box” into your website so that your visitors will know you are on Facebook and join your page!
21. Create an Infographic
I have seen many Infographics go viral. If you have a little bit of design skill you can take stats about any topic spin them into a cool image, and then sit back and relax as your infographic is shared all over the web. Make sure to include a url to your website within the infographic so that you can still get credit and traffic when your infographic is re-blogged elswhere on the web. (An Example)
22. Create a PDF Cheatsheet
Cheatsheets are documents with a bunch of important information about a subject that is intelligently organized so that someone can easily find the information they need. (An Example) People love content like this in .PDF format and if you create it the is a good chance that it will be shared.
23. Hold a Contest for Subscribers
You can do a one-time or a monthly contest where you giveaway a gift, like an amazon gift card, to one of your subscribers. The bigger the gift you offer, the more subscribers it is likely to generate. You will get traffic to your site from those who sign up, and then!
24. Retweet Contest
Another cool way to do a contest is to make the entry based on tweeting a certain link. You can use backtweets to track who has tweeted your link.
25. Content Contest
Ask users to answer a question to enter a contest and when the contest is finished you should have a healthy article filled with insightful responses to any question you want.
26. Traffic Contest
Earlier this year someone won a free ticket worth $2,999 to an SEO contest by being the person who sent the most traffic to the contest page. The way this can be done is by each user having their own bit.ly url. All bit.ly urls have built in analytics that can be accessed by adding a + to the end of the link.
27. Get a WordPress Blog (If you don’t have one already)
WordPress is open source blogging software that is the best way to publish your content online. I recommend installing a self-hosted blog with a hosting service like Bluehost so that you can install plugins like Ultimate SEO, and Google XML sitemaps, which will allow you to optimize your content for Google. (Here is my wordpress blog (http://martik2scorp.wordpress.com), I use it as a backup plan! It only updates once per month by importing content from blogger!)
28. Install Social Sharing Plugins
At the very least your website should have Facebook and Twitter sharing buttons. Share this offers a cool button that allows your users to share content to Facebook and Twitter, and a variety of other content hubs. (you can see the share buttons in top of the sidebar at your right hand!)
29. Start a Podcast
A Podcast is an excellent way to get content out to the millions of people with iPods and other Apple products. Podcasts are a form of magnetic content that will allow you to build up an audience who you can form strong relationships with. These listeners are also likely to be some of the most frequent visitors to your website, and the people most likely to purchase the products you offer for sale.
30. Ask People to Stumble Your Posts
StumbleUpon can be a huge source of traffic if your content catches on. A great way to get your content going on StumbleUpon is to ask your friends to stumble it.
31. Use the su.pr Link Shortener
Su.pr is StumbleUpons link shortener and I recommend using it to share the content you produce. When you use Su.pr to shorten a link it will automatically submit your content to StumbleUpon. (you may try 230 URL Shortener Services)
32. SocialAdr
SocialAdr is a social bookmarking service that allows you to have your bookmark saved by others in the community if you share the content of others. Users are able to choose the content that they bookmark, and whenever a site is bookmarked SocialAdr automatically bookmarks it on multiple bookmarking sites at once.
33. OnlyWire
OnlyWire is a tool that allows you to send your content to up to 45 social sharing sites at once. There is an OnlyWire plugin for WordPress that allows users to send their content to the social bookmarking sites as you publish a post.
34. Install a Facebook “Like” button
Facebook Like buttons are an excellent way to get people to share your content with the click of a button. (Can you see my Facebook Like button?)
35. Link to your site in your Email Signature
Every email you send is an opportunity to get traffic to your site. Set up a custom signature with a link to your website, and the title of your site, and there is a good chance that it will get clicked.
36. Customize your 404 error page
Hopefully your visitors never see your 404 page, but it is bound to happen as your site grows so it’s best to be prepared with a custom designed 404 page that suggests other content to your visitor, so they don’t bounce from your site.
37. Interlink your Pages
The more links you have within your content to other content on your site the better your site will rank in Google, which will mean more traffic for you. Takeaway: Interlink the pages on your site as often as is relevant.
38. Emphasize your Popular Content
Make it easy for your visitors to find your best content. The more visitors that check out your best content the better, since this is the content that they are most likely to share, which will bring you even more content.
39. Test your Website in all Popular Browsers
The tool browser shots allows you to see what your website looks like in different web browsers. I use the Opera exclusively, but Internet Explorer is still the most widely used browser out there. Dont forget about firefox and chrome browsers, too. Different browsers will render websites differently so it is best to check and make sure that your site looks okay because a messed up site will cost you visitors.
40. Speed up your Website
When a website takes more than a few seconds to load some visitors will leave simply because they are impatient. I recommend installing the w3 cache plugin if you have a WordPress.org blog. Optimizing images with Yahoo’s smushit lossless image compression tool will also help. (Test Your Website/Blog Speed or Check Your Website/Blog Speed With ...)
41. Optimize your Images
Size, alt tags, and title are three ways that you can optimize your images so that they are found by image search engines, such as Google Images. You can also optimizing images so that your site loads faster by using the lossless Yahoo developers tool smushit.
42. Get Quality Website Hosting
With shoddy website hosting your traffic might not have a site to visit. Don’t mess around with Hosting, go with a host that is well established and has great customer service.
43. Build Backlinks
Quality over quantity is a truth that applies to link building. One link from an authority site can do more for your site than 1,000 low quality links.
44. Build Backlinks with Article Marketing
Article Marketing is a great way to get your content in front of many different people, and direct them back to your site. In the signature section of articles you are able to build links and send traffic back to your site. I recommend using the links in your signature to send traffic to a squeeze page with a relevant opt in offer.
45. Use the Free Traffic System
The Free Traffic System is a tool that publishes your content and backlinks to blogs that are relevant to your niche. Relevant links are worth more than irrelevant links so this system does indeed increase the rank of your site in Google.
46. Title Tag Optimization
By ensuring that your Title tags include the keywords that you are trying to rank for you will increase your chances of ranking in Google and getting traffic from searches containing those keywords.
47. Take Advantage of Mobile Traffic
There are over 4,600,000,000 mobile phones in the world and many of them are smart phones with Internet Access. By optimizing your content for mobile you will be ready to take advantage of the plentifu; amounts of mobile traffic. (look mobile version Martik-Scorp)
48. Install a Forum
Forums are a great way to build a community around your site and in the process get plenty of user generated content. Simple machines is free forum software that you should consider, and the best paid option out there is vBulletin.
49. Post Links on highly visible Facebook Pages
Craigslist forums are highly visible, and a great place where you can get the word out and drive some traffic to your site.
50. Squidoo
Squidoo is a Web 2.0 site that allows you to create “lenses” that tend to rank very well in the search engines. Link back to your website and there is a good chance that you will get some serious traffic as a result. (My Squidoo)
51. Hubpages
Hubpages is very much like Squidoo, only instead of creating “lenses” you create “hubs.” Like lenses, hubs rank very well in the search engines and can be a great way to direct traffic to your site. (View My Hab)
52. Add your Site to Directories
By adding your site to directories you will be able to pick up some high quality backlinks that will help your site rank well in Google Check out strongestlinks.com for a list of directories that you can add your site to.
53. Add your Blog to Blog Directories
There are directories for blogs only and by adding your blog not only will you be getting link juice you should also get traffic from people who are browsing the directory.
54. Build Links with Other Web Masters
One way links are more powerful that two way links so if you have two sites then build links with other bloggers by linking to them with one site and having them link to the other. This way you both get one way links. If you have three or more blogs you can apply this same strategy internally. (Link Exchange)
55. Do Ad Swaps with Other People in Your Niche
Ad swaps are a form of cross-promotion and a powerful way to build your email list while building relationships in the process. The way ad swaps work is you find someone in your niche with a similar sized email list and you send an email about their opt-in offer, and they do the same for you. Not only will you get the initial traffic to your opt-in page you will also get repeat traffic as you send emails to your new subscribers.
56. Press Releases
Press releases are old school, but they still work.
57. JV Partners
If you have a product than an awesome way to promote it is by finding other people in your niche and partnering with them to promote it.
58. Keyword Research
By using the Google Keyword tool you will be able to find keywords that are relevant to you with a low level of competition. Traffic Travis can show you exactly how many back links your competitors have so that you know how many you will need to build in order to outrank them.
59. Google AdWords
PPC Advertising can be a good want to go if you have a sales funnel that more than pays for the cost of the traffic. If you do not have a product that you are making sales with already I recommend you avoid PPC.
60. Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads are awesome because you can hyper target your market. You can choose to direct your ads to any age group, in any region of the world, who”like” pretty much anything. Due to Facebook’s massive user base you will probably still have a large group to market to even when you drill down to your ideal prospect.
61. StumbleUpon Ads
If you have content that will stumble well (entertaining and epic content stumble well) and you invest in StumbleUpon Ads they can really get your content started going viral.
62. Solo Ads
Solo ads are a list building technique. How they work is you pay a list owner and they mail a list for you. Make sure to find a list owner with a very good reputation, and preferrably one who guarantees a certain amount of clicks.
63. Purchase Ads on a Website
There are many website owners who have invested plenty into building their blog and brand, but are willing to sell ad space for very cheap. Send the site owner an email and you might be surprised at how cheap you can purchase hyper targeted traffic for.
64. Paid Site Review
By getting a problogger to review your site you can pick up quality backlinks and benefit from the exposure to their community.
65. Business Cards
Make sure to include your url on your business card and let people know about your site when you give it to them.
66. Give out Swag with your URL
Everyone loves swag. Make the swag you dish out as cool as possible so that people actually wear it. If you just give out a plain t-shirt with your logo there is a good chance that it will end up in the trash. Go to threadless.com for some inspiration.
67. Post Content on a Regular Basis
Regular content generates a regular readership.
68. Be Controversial
Take a stand. The world belongs to the bold.
69. Choose a Smart Domain
Having a domain with the keywords you are trying to rank in Google for gives you a step up on everyone else trying to rank for those words.
70. Add a translation widget to your site
Want non-english speaking traffic? Take advantage of traffic from non-English speakers with the Google Translate Tool.
71. Submit your Site to Search Engines
If your site is new make sure you manually submit it to Google, Yahoo, and Bing, so that they know to crawl it on a regular basis. If you have a WordPress blog install the Google XML Sitemaps plugin so that your site is crawled regularly.
72. Alltop
Alltop is Guy Kawasaki’s creation that does a pretty good job of syndicating all of the top stories about a huge variety of topics. Submit your site and it provides another place for visitors to find you.
73. DMOZ
DMOZ is a huge directory and getting listed with them holds alot of weight in the search engines. Every new link to DMOZ is manually reviewed, and few are accepted, so you may or may not be included but it is still totally worth a try.
74. Put Your Website Everywhere
Don’t be afraid to do a little bit of Guerilla Marketing. Get business cards with an incentive for people to visit your site on them and leave them everywhere. Go to an auto detailer and get a decal of your url for your car. Get stickers with your url on them and stick them on people. Do whatever it takes to get people to your site!
75. Ask your Readers for Feedback
What are some traffic tips that I could have mentioned in this post? Let me know in the comments below. How else can I improve this site? Don’t be afraid to ask people what they think of your site and you might get some great feedback. The better you can make your site the more visitors you will get over time from repeat visitors, and people spreading the word by word of mouth.
76. Track your Rank in the Search Engines
If you are regularly checking your rank in Google there is a good chance that you will make more effort to improve it. Market Samurai has a rank checker tool that works great, or if you are looking for a less robust solution you can go with the free Rank Checker firefox plugin.
77. Get Guest Bloggers
Myguestblogger.com is a community of guest bloggers looking for blogs to write on.
78. Get an Awesome Design
If your site has a stellar design it will increase the chances that your visitors will come back for more. (Blog Header - Need Your Help!)
79. Join a Forum Relevant to Your Niche
Forums are an awesome way to build your brand by helping people, and learn from other people who have already “been there and done that.”
80. Distribute Your Articles
Article Marketing is a great way to spread your content across the web, and build links back to your site. You can distribute your articles manually, or you can use the paid service Distribute Your Articles to send your articles to many article directories at once.
81. Network with Other Bloggers in Your Niche
The more relationships you build with other bloggers you can build, the better. Go to blogging events and network with as many people as possible. Tweetups are a great way to meet people if you are on Twitter.
82. Install Google Analytics and Optimize Your Site
Google Analytics is easy to install into your site, and once you do you will be able to track a variety of variables that will give you insight into how to optimize your site. By looking at the exit paths of visitors, for example, you can see which pages should be tweaked to prevent people from bouncing from your site.
82. Comment on other blogs
Comment on big blogs, like Mashable or TechCrunch so your comment will have the most visibility, and try to be the first person to comment.
83. Add your Blog to Technorati
Technorati used to matter much more than it does today in the blogosphere, but adding your blog to Technorati is still a very real asset. (Tutorial to Get Your Blog Listed at Technorati) Once you do this all of your blog posts will be imported into Technorati, thus giving your site powerful backlinks from an authority site every time you publish a post.
84. Spy on Your Competitors Links
Go to Google and search for the keywords you are trying to rank for. Once you know the pages that out rank you it’s time to spy on their backlinks. To do this go to Yahoo (they show more results than Google) and type in: link:pageurl -site:domain.com . This will show you the links that are pointing to this page so that you can attempt to duplicate them.
85. Encourage Active Commenting
Answering comments with a question is a good way to keep the conversation going. The first comment is often the hardest one to get, and to hedge against this a strategy I have seen used is for bloggers to break the ice by being the first to comment in the own post. Ask people what they think about the post you wrote, and don’t put them down if they disagree, and you’ll have plenty of comments in no time.
86. Write about Twitter
From my experience I have seen that content that deals with Twitter tends to be shared on Twitter very liberally. Writing about Facebook tends to retweet quite well also, and posts about Facebook are also “Liked” liberally on Facebook.
87. Do not install ads
Ads send traffic elsewhere on the web, and once your visitors click away they may never return. If you’re thinking about installing AdSense try thinking about something else. AdSense is often called “the bloggers welfare program” since it sends your hard earned traffic elsewhere for pennies a click. A saying I came up with, which relates to smart blog building, is “popularize, then monetize.”
88. Include at least one Picture in Every Page on your site
Pictures say a thousand words, so use them liberally. If you have budget then consider buying stock images from places like iStockPhoto. Even if you don’t have cash to spend on images a quick Google image search will likely reveal an image that will work well for you.
89. Befriend the Giants
Twitter is a great platform for reaching out to people with bigger networks than your own.
90. Check for Broken Links
Use link checker tools to scan your website and point out the broken pieces.
91. Start a Fight with Another Blogger
Don’t agree with everything you read. If you disagree with another blogger, say so. Everyone likes to watch a good fight, so this tactic can bring plenty of traffic your way.
92. Write Easy to Read Posts
List posts work well, and the same goes for posts with short and simple sentences.
93. Get a Favicon
This one won't get you mountains of traffic, but it will help with both traffic and consistent branding.
94. Write for the Reader, not for Google
Right now my articles that get the most traffic from Google are the ones that have been shared the most on Social Media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and StumbleUpon. Sometimes when people are trying to rank for certain keywords they stuff those keywords into the content in an unnatural way. Keyword stuffing tells your readers that you don’t care about them, and visitors will probably not return if they feel like you could care less that they are reading your content. I recommend including your keywords only a few times in your content; once near the beginning of your article, once at the end, and in the Title. If you have your keywords in these three places, and in the URL, that is all you need. Write your articles in a way that will be the most valuable for the person reading it. By writing for the reader you increase the chances that your content will be shared, and sharing is more of a factor in Google’s algorithm now than ever before.
95. Help People
If you make this the primary goal of your blog you should have little difficulty building up a following, as the people who you help will sing your praises on social media.
96. Write a Post Every Day
If you write a post every day you stand a great chance at building up a strong readership, since people will check back often, knowing that there will always be fresh content. All of the massive blogs on the net publish content daily.
97. Contact Form
Install contact form (like this) and response to all contacts as possible as you can. (want to contact me?)
98. Write a post that has a cliff hanger ending…
Keep readers coming back for more. In the next post I will let you know which one of these traffic tips has been the most effective for building my traffic.
99. Be Persistent
Rome was not built in a day. Persistence is what separates the winning websites that enjoy the majority of traffic, leads, and profits, from the millions and millions of bloggers who let their blogs stagnate and die. The more you put into your blog, the more you will get out of it. So work hard, persist, and before long you will be reaping the rewards
100. Write List Posts
List posts cater to the short attention span that our generation has developed. They are very scan able and easy to write.
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