5 Internet Marketing Tactics to Drive More Traffic to Your Site

The success of a website depends on its ability to attract traffic. There is no avoiding the fact that a website needs visitors, and lots of them, in order to survive and thrive. However, driving traffic to your site is easier said than done. There is a lot of competition out there, and your site could be buried in obscurity before it even gets off the ground if you do not devise a strategy for attracting traffic at the outset. Following the five tips below will help you increase traffic to your site and motivate users to return again and again. 1. Promote Your Site If you want to increase traffic to your site, you need to make sure that as many potential visitors as possible are aware of your site and the benefits it offers. One of the best ways to promote a site is to post about it in online forums and other online communities. If, for instance, your site focuses on weight loss methods, then be sure to post a link to your site in every onlline forum or blog you can find that deals with issues related to diet, exercise, and weight loss. Be sure to take advantage of the myriad of social networking tools available on the net. Create a facebook page and a myspace page for your site. Post a link to your site on your own individual profile pages on these sites as well as on LinkedIn, Plaxo, Friendster, and similar social networks. Create a YouTube "channel" for your site and create a clever promotional video. Post the video in online forums and on social networking sites. Promote articles that appear on your site by posting them on article aggregators such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Yahoo Buzz, and Reddit. If you sell merchandise on your site, sign up for a pay-per-click program such as Google Ad Words or recruit bloggers to act as affiliates by placing links to your products on their sites in exchange for a small commission.  2. Help Interested Users Find Your Site Submit your site to as many site directories as possible so that it will appear in searches returned by Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. Some of the more prominent site directories include the Open Directory and Yahoo! Directory. When creating the content for your site keep "search engine optimization" in mind. When writing articles and other copy for your site, use keywords and phrases that users are most likely to enter as queries in search engines. A site that uses keywords will appear higher in a search engine result list, and the higher a site appears in a result list, the more likely that users opt click on it.  3. Exchange Links Post links to other sites and blogs on your site. Ask the webmasters of those sites and blogs to reciprocate. Choose these sites carefully; consider whether visitors to a site that you link to would be interested in what your own site has to offer. If a link to your site appears on a well-established website that deals with a related topic, it could mean a robust increase in traffic to your site.  4. Offer Quality Content Whatever the purpose or focus of your site, it is important it provides a compelling and enjoyable experience for those who visit so that they will have an incentive to return. Provide original content of the highest quality. Don't post articles that can be found on other sites. Visitors are less likely to come back if they can find what you offer elsewhere on the net. Pay attention to the details: good writing will attract and keep good readers. Take issues of grammar and style seriously and never skip that final step of proofreading. The more professional your site looks and the more care you take in presenting your content, the more seriously visitors will take your site and the more likely they will be not only to return but to forward content from your site to friends and associates.  5. Give Gifts Provide internet users with an incentive to visit your site and to return. Offer visitors a freebie or two, such as a free e-book, a free e-card, coupons, a free online seminar, a free newsletter subscription, or a free widget to post on their social networking profile pages, personal websites, or blogs. If you sell merchandise on your site, consider holding a contest and giving a free item to the grand prize winner. Whatever freebie or incentive you offer, try to make it something that represents your site's mission and personality and sets your site apart from similar sites on the web.