5 Minute How To: Drive More Traffic to Your Site
58 Comments Published October 30th, 2006 in 5 Minute How Tos, SEO/Traffic/Links, blogging, blogsThe topic of driving traffic to your web site or blog is one that always has a great deal of interest. Instead of writing a book on it, I’ll begin the 5 Minute How To Series with a short post on getting more people to visit your site.
1. Provide good content. I shouldn’t even have to say this one, should I? There has to be something there for readers to read, and it should be something entertaining or useful, or, better yet, both. You should be posting often, too, so that readers will know to come back regularly for fresh content.
2. Search Engine Optimization. I don’t know how big this is any more, but I still think good use of keywords in a focused niche page or blog will increase the likelihood of it being indexed and found in the search engines. Make sure you have meaningful URIs to begin with. For example, in Wordpress blogs, you can use the default URI format that includes a number for the post instead of the title. Always modify it to use the title of the post. Keep in mind that getting traffic this way takes time, sometime months. Just be patient.
3. Put your blog or page address in your email signature. When you send or reply to emails, people you correspond with will see that you have a web presence or if they knew already, they may be reminded to go check it out again.
4. Post comments on a lot of other blogs. Most blogs have a place for you to leave your name, email and web address when you leave a comment. Definitely leave good, pertinent, comments on the blogs you read. It’s a great way for others to get to know you and for them to come visit your site. Remember that Google won’t count this as a link back to your site, though.
5. Take part in discussion forums. There are thousands of discussion boards out there on any number of topics. Find those that have something to do with the topic of your blog or web site and sign up for an account. Be sure to include your web address in your signature. Again, this most likely will not count as a link according to Google, but it’s get your web address out there for people to see. If you contribute to the discussion in a meaningful way, other people will be interested and will check out your site.
I hope these tips will be found useful for those who are just beginning. I searched a lot for ways to increase traffic when I first started out and these were some of the top answers I found. These are also ways I’ve used to increase my traffic. There are many others, but I’ll have to put them in another post.
58 Responses to “5 Minute How To: Drive More Traffic to Your Site”
- 1 Pingback on Jul 9th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
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Ray this is a grt post.
I very strongly agree on point # 1, 2 and 4 also I think network on on Prof and Biz Networks like openbc.com, Ecademy.com as that has very clean and elite audience!
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Just a caveat on posting on other blogs to get traffic. The blogs need to be related to your topic or the little traffic which will come your way will be worthless and definitely not repeat. If someone from “political unrest in Uganda” blog posts here, I may check them out once out of curiosity but will never click on their ads as they will likely not be of interest to me. Also, will never visit again. So posting on unrelated blog for fruitful traffic, in my opinion, is not as efficient.
Thanks for the info, Mehul. I’ll check those out.
Hey Syed, that’s a great point. I’m seeing some very interesting comment spam come through that’s been leaving me scratching my head. Yesterday, I found one that Akismet caught and it was an ad for Unicef asking for donations! What’s up with that? You’re right: If it’s not pertinent to the post or ongoing discussion in the comments, then it’s spam.
Thanks for the information! I tried some of the tips for my website (http://www.hosting-buddy.com) and within a week I generated about 15% more traffic. I’m sure as I work on SEO more, I’ll be able to rake in more unique visitors!
Hi Ryan. I’m glad I could help. Good luck with your site!
Another thing about commenting is that it won’t help with your pagerank (ie. google juice) because on the majority of blogs, the “nofollow” tag is enabled. If you want to know more about this, you can check out http://yesfollow.org
I’ll have to look into the whole no follow thing a little bit more. I’m all for helping out other bloggers.
There are a few things here i want to add to this great article
#1 don’t steal content from others, write your own unique content, search engines love unique content and will reward you
#2 don’t optimize the wrong way(ie. hide white keywords in white pages etc) search engines don’t like that
#3 optimize your site for all browsers, don’t use frames or long php-dynamic adresses. w3c can help you get a perfectly working website
#4 when dealing with search engines, always keep in mind that before changes take effect it could takes weeks or months don’t get discouraged by this
Thanks for the great tips, gsm. It’s so true that it can take a while to see the effects, too…
It is important to keep in mind that once you have traffic you have to keep “earning” it. Once I read a pseudo guru say something about “owning” your traffic. I don’t think you “own” your traffic anymore than you own your job. You have to keep providing reasons for people to keep coming back. For me its usually updated interesting material. Any site which stops updating will lose me. I even get tired of pretty pictures if they don’t change (u know wut i mean)
Great insight, Syed! The internet is all about current relevancy. Things are constantly changing in the most dynamic ways. If you fail to capitalize on your traffic then, before too long, it’ll start to stagnate and then fall away to nothing. Thanks for stopping by and LOL about the pictures.
Nice tips, I agree keeping quality contents on your site sure helps building traffic and the interests of your visitors. Also, try posting on the blogs on the same topic that your website is about.
Hi Sandra. It takes some work, but the basics are pretty simple. Thanks for your comment!
Hi,
Those were good advices. I am now on my mission to get traffic to my blog and there were good tips for me.
Hi TJ. I’m glad you’re finding the information useful. Good luck with your blog and thanks for stopping by!
Hi, that was useful information. I will be back.
Cheers.
Hi Robin. Glad to hear it and thanks for commenting!
Write more on this as you can. Actually I stopped by to see your Ilker redesign.
Thanks, digitalnomad. I’d like to write more on this topic, but it’s one that so many people have done. I always try to find a new angle that isn’t the usual one, though. What did you think of the new design?
I find I like Ilker designs. Yours is no exception. Fun to look at.
Thanks! I like it, too. I think it will help my branding efforts.
My greatest increase in ranking comes from posting articles to http://www.blogcarnival.com . Post to as many as you can, provided your article fits the categories of course. This has really pumped my visits and ranking at technorati.com . Hope it helps!
Alan
http://www.madetobegreat.com
I have posted a few articles to blog carnival. It does seem to be worthwhile. They do have to get approved by the moderator, and just submitting does not mean they will be approved.
I find submitting articles to the article directories works well for links, but not necessarily fro building traffic straight away. Those articles are there forever though and should help in the long run.
I agree digitalnomad. The trick is to try and make your article as wide open to be able to fit into the different carnivals being hosted there. With some luck your articles will be featured in all of the carnivals you post to. Technorati loves this!
I only have a little experience so far with blog carnivals, but I’ve definitely gotten some good traffic. I’m thinking of setting a goal of submitting one article every couple of weeks or so to a new carnival to try to build up some more traffic here. It might be what I need to take me to the next level… Thanks for your comments, Alan and Digital Nomad!
Driving traffic to your site is always going to be difficult if no one wants to read it. Once the content of a site reaches a certain level, even bad search engine optimization won’t hold you back. Commenting on other people’s blogs is not likely to build real traffic unless you still around for a long conversation. Even then, the structure of most blogs renders old posts unread and you have to constantly comment if you want anyone to notice.
Hi Erasmus. I agree with a lot of what you’ve said. I do think that commenting only helps if it’s a useful, relevant comment, but I don’t think you necessarily have to stick around for a lot of back and forth. I wouldn’t expect a great deal of traffic from comments unless there’s some kind of teaser included that draws readers in anyway.
I have to disagree about the old posts, though. I find that I get quite a bit of traffic to old posts (like this one!) and I regularly get new comments on them. Thanks for visiting and thanks for your comment!
Interesting article. I’m just starting to create my website and trying to get as much information as possible to help drive traffic to it. This has provide some great ideas.
Thanks!
Great article and just a comment on the above, I think you don’t always get more traffic but I am sure it helps your pagerank.
Ray-
Is your blog now “Do Follow”? I was reading through older comments where it said that you needed to check into it some more. You really need to make it “Do Follow”, if you have not already.
Thanks for the comments, guys.
Yes, this blog is do follow. I suppose I should find a badge or something like I’ve seen around. I’ve had the DoFollow plugin installed for some time now…
So do i get credit for posting my link here?
http://www.astawerks.net
http://www.xtremedirectory.com
Congrats Ray ,your blog is dofollow now.
I suggest you to go to Digital Forum .It is a good forum to post your site(and it helps SEO as well). But remember to read the policy first
Sorry , its full name is Digital Point, which ranks in Alexa around first 150
Hi Celebrities. I’ve been a member at Digital Point for a bit, but I haven’t posted that much. I’ve also used it as a resource from time to time and gotten some great information there. I would like to take more advantage of DP in the future. I’ll put it on my to do list! Thanks for your comments!
Hi JBrock. Too funny! Yes, you get credit for a link from a PR4 page…
this has helped me so much!!! thanks
These are great tips for increasing traffic! Will come in handy to all new webmasters. Thanks!
Very good information. It will help my blog.
Thanks for some great tips Ray. I will definitely try to put them to good use in future projects.
A great help for people who want to increase links! thanks a lot!
I think posting comments on the peoples blogs is a method that is often overlooked, but extremely worthwhile. However, I think it’s easy to make the mistake not to plan it, so it always gets done in a rush. It’s better to set aside some time each week to this activity so that not only does it get done, but the comments you are making are well considered really than just random drivell spurted out in a rush.
Excellent post – These are some really great basic tips for anyone getting started.
Yes these are the best tips to get your blog to be known in the blogosphere. I too am following the same.
Unique content is king! As a directory owner, one of my main concerns is duplicate content. I have found one company, Unique content wizard, that probably does the best job of all of the auto submission services.
http://www.livepr.info/internal-pages-page-rank3.php
This is a site I like to use to check pr of internal pages, its a really handy tool. Also checkout the google toolbar if you dont already have it… You should… you need to turn on monitoring and pr tool in options..
generally, if you do the #1 and #2 well enough, you will be found very soon. Actually the SEs are working hard to ensure that there is no such thing as SEO left, like with LSI (latent symantic indexing). I think what will eventaully matter is the good content and possibly the network you can build of people who will visit everything you put out.
Well, no one can beat good content. In part because the SEs are working hard to remove anything called SEO. They want it to be about quality information, not about who has the best SEO skills. So I would say that for the long run, the content and the network are the most important things.
Posting in forums is a way to spend your time, but Staying home and tending the flock is OK too.
Here’s something I’ve been thinkng about for a while. How do you make your blog popular if you have great, quality content but are competing in a very established niche where most of the niche’s websmasters have already clued in on the techniques that work? In my recent attempt at promoting an internet business blog with great potential called hochstadt.com, I found that there is some really tough competition out there. There are so many webmasters out there selling themselves (convincingly) as gurus or experts on the subject. If everyone is using the same strategy, does that deter traffic generation? Does anyone have any ideas on this? Cheers, Lilly
Nice blog. I’m liking how the dofollow movement is really gaining steam! You bring up some good points, but I agree that the pros far outweigh the cons.
Very informative! Enjoy what you do, write for the users and it will appear natural to the search engines and most of all be very patient!
Great overview of these key areas. The ideal place to start on number 4 is right here ^^
Though most social bookmarking sites are nofollow, they still provide a good traffic specially if you have an interesting topic.
These are great tips. Good content, content based on the interests of your readers, both current and future, does wonders.
Thanks
Steve