by Paul Forrest

Created on: October 09, 2009

How to Increase Web Traffic

This article attempts to offer proven methods on how to attract visitors to your website. Once you have invited web users to your site you then need to convert visitors into buyers, which is explained in a separate article.

The key measures that will succeed in bringing more traffic to your website can be divided into two categories, online and offline. The first half of this article will be dedicated to offline promotion, that is, letting people know about your website before they switch on a computer.

Offline Promotion

Web advertising is now the major source of revenue, compared to traditional media, such as television and newspapers. Before you can start to cash in on the internet revolution, however, your target audience needs to know that you have a website. The increased competition from web-based advertising should drive down the previously high advertising costs that have excluded many smaller businesses from competing with larger companies. Proof of this assumption can be found in the number of smaller enterprises now promoting their wares on local radio.

The key in taking advantage of the newly levelled playing field is to ensure that your web address, or URL, is clearly announced in all advertising and prominently displayed on everything that bears your company name. This includes all stationery items, such as letterheads, invoices and business cards. All company vehicles need to show potential customers that you can easily be found on the World Wide Web. Even if you are a sole trader with a family car it should easily be within your budget to equip your vehicle with low cost vinyl decals displaying your web address.

Online Marketing

For the purposes of this article, online marketing refers to promoting your website through the various resources available on the internet. We have deliberately refrained from discussing the elements of marketing that are built into your website, such as optimising your site for high rankings on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Again this subject is dealt with in alternative articles.

It is widely accepted that good, clear, interesting copy will attract potential customers to your website. While this is true, you still need to promote your site to people who aren't already aware that it exists.

Professionally written articles submitted to specialist sites such as Helium can attract the attention of prospective clients. Most article sites encourage the author to include a potted biography at the end of the article, including a link to the author's website. Web logs, now more commonly known as 'blogs', offer the opportunity for you to share your knowledge with the outside world, again including a link to your site.

Social Networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, are now recognised as excellent opportunities for business owners to spread the word and become known as the experts in their given profession.

All of the above resources offer you the opportunity to get your web address in front of potential customers. The general rule in all of these tools, though, is to not blatantly use them just to promote your products or services. Offer general advice through well written articles, blogs or postings; include a link to your website, and watch the customers queuing to get into your online shop. It sounds almost too good to be true. It does, however involve hard work and can be quite time consuming. But the rewards will make it all worthwhile.

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