Mitchell Choy asked:


BOOST YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC

If you have an online business then you know that driving traffic to your website or to your affiliate’s website is of primary importance, after all, without traffic who would buy your products, click on your affiliate links or make you money? So one of the primary objectives is to drive traffic to your website but how do you do it?

One of the first methods you could use to drive targeted traffic to your website is article marketing. If you are knowledgeable about the subject you are advertising and are able to write then you could choose to write your own articles and submit them to article directories but if you are not able to write your own articles you could always get other people to do it for you. Article marketing is beneficial in that it sends people who are already interested in your product to your website as they have read your article and so know what you are selling.

Another targeted form of advertising is forum marketing. A primary key to forum marketing is to build a relationship with the people who visit the forum. Do not hard sell. Post messages that are relevant and helpful but ones that are also on topic to your website. When people have read a couple of your posts and seen your website address or affiliate link in your signature they will want to know more about you and so will be more likely to click through to your website. If you choose forums that are relevant to the type of product you are selling these people will be more inclined to buy the product you are selling.

Email groups such as Google groups and Yahoo groups are another way of driving traffic to your website. Join email groups that are relevant to the topic of your website and then follow the same rules as for forum marketing – build up a relationship with your group before marketing your website and don’t hard sell. Also check the rules regarding posting to the groups. Some groups allow you to post a couple of times a day or only at certain times, etc. Follow their rules but try to post as often as possible as this will expose people to your message more often and they can also see your link in your signature more often and so will be more likely to click on it. Also consider the type of posts that other members are making – some groups do allow mostly hard sell posts while others are more informative and wanting people to share information rather than just selling their product.

Traffic exchanges are another useful way to drive traffic to your website and a very popular method but they do not provide as targeted traffic as most of the people who will be seeing your website are other webmasters wanting to advertise their website. Some traffic exchanges are getting more targeted however and providing a choice of what websites webmasters view so you get webmasters who at least have some interest in your topic.

Recently, a 2nd generation Internet, has evolved. Web 2.0 refers to all the new communication and interaction programs now available. Websites like MySpace, facebook and YouTube are quickly becoming preferred sources of web traffic.

Driving traffic to your website is one of your main priorities in running your online business. There are a number of methods you can use to drive traffic to your website including article marketing, forum marketing, email groups, traffic exchanges and social networking. The more targeted traffic these methods send to your website the better as this will help to increase your sales or earnings.



Kennedy