How do you drive traffic to your site?

[PPC Icon]

I've been dabbling in websites for many years now and am a jack of all trades, master of none I can turn my hand to fairly much anything when it comes to cobbling together a decent website and getting some genuinely good original content on it.

The one thing I can honestly say I can't seem to get a grip on whatsoever is traffic. Namely, getting some. I have several websites that I agonised over, lovingly tended and made & then watched as they floundered into a pitiful ongoing existence.

I am aware of SEO and the importance of backlinks etc But frankly unless you are in the top 3 results for your main keywords, you dont get any traffic of note.

How do you build traffic to your sites? Spamming the web, forums and social sites with links to your sites can't be the way to go surely? Yes I could buy backlink submission packages from `other sites` that will submit my site to online directories and use XRumer to spam wordpress blogs but surely success online hasn't sunk so low?

Bit of a ramble, sorry, all thoughts appreciated!! C'mon, if you have a good site, good original content, how do you get enough eyeballs onto it to start building momentum??

[Andy]

Hi PPC,

Sounds like we've run some parallel paths. Traffic is my biggest bugaboo too. Somedays I fantasize all my troubles would vanish if I only had hoards of rabid buyers overrunning my pages. Actually...

it would help a lot. Maybe this is an impossible dream (please, no band). Maybe there isn't a single "best" source of traffic. We want visitors from places where people interested in our wares hang out. These places may differ depending on the kind of wares we offer. Dieters hang out weight loss, exercise and, yes, even food centric forums. They search for certain keywords. They gather on social sites. So do you want to advertise with a banner ad on Yahoo? Maybe in late December or early January.

In light of this we may be better off doing some reverse engineering first. Take a look at what we have to offer and then find out where folks likely to show an interest in our products and/or services gather.

Now that I've done some rambling on my own, the one source of traffic that seems to consistently do well is article marketing. For almost any group I want to reach, articles tend to pull quite well. If I had to focus on a single source of traffic, this would be the one.

Regards,

Andy

[hooperman]

I tend to get the majority of my traffic from the search engines. I don't like link building though, so I don't tend to do any of that (though I did buy a link once!). Most of the links I get are from peole who genuinely believe my sites to be worth linking to.

The above is for sites I build from scratch, anyway.

I tend to buy a lot of expired domains too, though, purely for the links they already have. Like I said, I don't like linkbuilding so if there is the chance to buy a domain that has existing traffic/links in a niche I like then I'll take it. Instant traffic.

[SitePurchaser]

I think that if you are starting out with a site that you built from scratch, I would start by focusing on the long tail keywords of your subject matter because it still brings in customers/visitors that relate to your subject. Long tail are key phrases that consist of a couple of words, not one or 2 words.

You have a better shot at ranking for those long tail terms (as noone else is targeting them) by getting the right content up there which you said you are good at. Then you build it up from there.

That's also the whole beauty of these PPC tools out there that help you compile those keywords lists of a few thousand terms. Nobody else is bidding on them so you can get traffic really cheap that is still related to your subject matter. No sense in bidding for those +$1 per click words if you're just starting out.

[LukeMoulton]

Ahh, the age old dilemma, traffic generation.

You can save yourself a lot of time and heartache by doing thorough keyword research before you build or write anything. Targeting keywords with solid search volumes and low competition makes ranking and therefore traffic much easier to attain.

At the end of the day, however, you still need backlinks. Link building is tedious and if you're competing against a page with loads of backlinks and high PR then you're in it for the long haul.

Some link building activities:
- High Level Directory submissions: (Yahoo, Dmoz, BoTW)
- Low Level Directory Submissions: (you know, all the crappy ones you can buy on other less scrupulous forums)
- Article Marketing (Ezine Articles, eHow, article base etc)
- One way links (Guest Posting, buying, begging, blog comments, forums)
- Video (submit with tube mogul)

[christopheravell]

Ahh, the age old dilemma, traffic generation.

You can save yourself a lot of time and heartache by doing thorough keyword research before you build or write anything. Targeting keywords with solid search volumes and low competition makes ranking and therefore traffic much easier to attain.

At the end of the day, however, you still need backlinks. Link building is tedious and if you're competing against a page with loads of backlinks and high PR then you're in it for the long haul.

Some link building activities:
- High Level Directory submissions: (Yahoo, Dmoz, BoTW)
- Low Level Directory Submissions: (you know, all the crappy ones you can buy on other less scrupulous forums)
- Article Marketing (Ezine Articles, eHow, article base etc)
- One way links (Guest Posting, buying, begging, blog comments, forums)
- Video (submit with tube mogul)

I agree with hooperman -- "Most of the links I get are from peole who genuinely believe my sites to be worth linking to."... AMEN! I really don't subscribe to out-of-the-box formulas and don't understand some of what Luke suggests. The bottom line of SEO -- build a nice useful (unique content) site that people will want to share with others!!

How much time/money do you think Wikipedia spent on SEO last year?

[Clinton]

Targeting keywords with solid search volumes and low competition makes ranking and therefore traffic much easier to attain.

Absolutely. But I recommend that people do it in a subject area of interest to them. I seriously advise people against doing what many of those site-flippers suggest i.e. deciding the niche etc., based solely on competition and keywords searches. I'd say that if you aren't already interested in the subject or have some expertise in it - don't bother starting a site. There's enough junk on the internet that doesn't earn money. Don't spend time and effort creating sites that are just going to join that non-earning heap of rotting HTML. Would you agree with that, Luke?

To me there are two sources of traffic - SEO and ....everything else. If you concentrate on the everything else, the SEO comes automatically. Even better than working on links is to work on developing reasons for people to link to you. It takes a little more time, but it's a lot more effective in the long run.

[LukeMoulton]

There's enough junk on the internet that doesn't earn money. Don't spend time and effort creating sites that are just going to join that non-earning heap of rotting HTML. Would you agree with that, Luke?

To me there are two sources of traffic - SEO and ....everything else. If you concentrate on the everything else, the SEO comes automatically. Even better than working on links is to work on developing reasons for people to link to you. It takes a little more time, but it's a lot more effective in the long run.

Of course! Above all else, create good content and add value where ever you can. But you still have to do some SEO so people can find that content. You still have to promote the fact that you've got a great site. Clinton, you always link to relevant articles on your sites from forum posts on other sites - that's SEO, but yeah, you have to have great content to start with, no arguments there.

Doesn't matter how good your content is, if you don't market it, few people will find you.

[Clinton]

Clinton, you always link to relevant articles on your sites from forum posts on other sites - that's SEO

I also link just as liberally - or more so - from my sites to other sites

When I link it's because I believe the link will be useful to the reader. No SEO intent. The article in my signature is tops in SERPs for many very competitive terms yet I have maybe a hundred links going out of it (and they are all dofollow, BTW). I link out from my posts here a lot as well - to SP, to Flippa, to anything that may be of assistance to the reader with no care about how it's going to impact my SEO.

[hooperman]

Of course! Above all else, create good content and add value where ever you can.

Unfortunately "create good content" has become a meaningless soundbite, especially amongst "SEO"s. What good content means to most of them is an article that has enough filler text to stop the keywords running together. Also, some people place their writing skills higher than knowledge of a particular niche. They write well but the material is lacking. Is that "good content"?

Doesn't matter how good your content is, if you don't market it, few people will find you.

The other side of the coin is that some people can market mediocre content really well.