Cheap Traffic Generation
You need a strong flow of traffic to your web page if you want to make money from it. Your web site can be absolute eye candy, but without visitors, it will not deliver sales or commissions.
Common wisdom dictates that to make money, you need to spend money. In the world of the Internet, you do not necessarily have to spend a lot of money to generate traffic. There are a number of ways to generate low cost web site traffic without having to spend what you don’t have or can’t afford to spend. Some enthusiastic newcomers to the Net have spent a lot of money on advertising and have regretted it later.
There are many ways to develop traffic, but here are five simple traffic generation methods that are free or very low cost that could help you start earning something from your site. Even if you only get a small percentage of paying visitors compared with your overall traffic, that small percentage can pay off healthy dividends to you if you have a high volume of web site traffic.
Exchange Links with Quality Niche Sites
Link exchanges are an effective strategy so long as you are receiving useful links from reputable web sites. It is unusual to see a popular web site that has no links coming in or no links going out. Many webmasters are willing to exchange links with one another so that they could produce more public awareness about their sites. If done right, you will see a boost in traffic from other sites. Be careful with your link exchanges. Go for quality, not quantity. For example, if you have a site about auto repair, you don’t want to exchange links with a site that is obviously a machine generated site with tons of reciprocal links to Viagra sites, gambling sites and so forth.
A big consideration in exchanging links with other sites is to make sure that the site you are exchanging with has the same general topic as your site. The sites you exchange with should share a common subject so that there is something of interest to your target audience. If the site has a links page, be sure that it is a quality link page that is indexed in the search engines. The link page should be accessible from the index page of the site, not buried in an obscure subdirectory.
Exchanging links with well written web sites can boost your chances of getting a decent ranking in search engine results. It is common knowledge that search engines ranks high sites that have inbound and outbound theme-related links. With a good ranking position in the search engines, you will generate more traffic to your web site without the high costs.
Start Publishing Articles
There are many article directories, ezines, and other resources on the Internet which provide free publishing of articles. Authoring your own articles may be time-consuming, but you will save money. However, there are many freelance authors who are willing to write for you for a small fee. If you are truly interested in your niche, you will probably want to write your own articles.
Make sure that your articles are relevant to the subject matter of your site. An example is if you have a site featuring healthy eating. You can write articles about nutrition, health, or meal planning. Write something that you have expertise on so that when someone reads it, the reader feels that you know your subject and have something to offer and will be curious to visit your site for more information. Writing articles with useful tips and guidelines is an invaluable practice.
Include a resource box at the end of your article that links to your site. Write a little about yourself and your site. If you provide a light, informative and interesting article, people will go to your site for more.
Become Part of the Media by Publishing an Online Newsletter
At first, newsletter publishing might sound like hard work because of all the articles you may need to use to publish an informative publication. However, this is not so. There are many content providers willing to provide free articles so long as you provide the author’s name and resource in on your publication. This provides free advertising for your authors and you get free content.
As your newsletter gets passed around, you can widen your popularity and build an opt-in list of people who regularly visit your site.
Become a Member of a Forum or Community
This traffic building option requires some time but does not involve a lot of effort. You can share your knowledge and expertise with many online forums and can promote your web site. You can get free advertising when you go to forums that share the same subject or niche as your site.
Follow threads that are interesting and then share your opinion or knowledge. As you build your reputation, you also build the reputation of your site, making it a respected resource that could be visited by many people.
Blog It!
Blogs are a great way to generate web traffic. Like the articles and forums discussed above, blogs are a way to share your expertise. You can submit comments containing your site address to blogs. When doing so, make sure your comment is not ’spammy.’ It should be thoughtful and well written, which will build your reputation.
Some Internet blogs allow you to post ‘mini articles’ or blurbs onto their blogs. This is an easy way to get inbound links to your web site.
If you’re more ambitious, you can start your own blog that ties into your niche. For instance, if you have a site offering psychic readings, you can set up a blog about astrology, spirituality, tarot or some other topic that is related to your psychic site.
Obviously, the above five tips are just the tip of the iceberg. But they are easy to do and for the most part, are free.
Looking for free blogs for your backlinks? Start blurbing! An example of a blog that accepts short articles - or blurbs - is Unknown Resources. Visit http://www.unknownresources.com today to find out how you can take advantage of several free blogging services to promote your site.
- Urbain Beck