Tactics to Build Traffic for Your Website

There are several ways to build traffic for your website. Some, such as organic search engine optimization, are free. Others will require you to spend money. Here is a quick overview of three strategies that can attract visitors to your website:

Organic Search Engine Optimization (“SEO”)
The goal of organic SEO is to increase your website’s visibility and number of visitors by boosting its position on search engine results pages (“SERPs”). The process involves several steps:

•    Identify the keywords and phrases you want to target;

•    Create website content that is original, highly relevant to your target search terms, and provides real value to your visitors (not just fodder for the search engines);

•    Use relevant title tags and meta descriptions that include your search terms in a meaningful way;

•    Add fresh, high-quality content to your website frequently;

•    Make sure your website is easy to navigate; and

•    Make sure there are not any unwanted barriers to search engine bots that are seeking to index your site.

Following these steps can increase your website’s traffic by making it easier to achieve a prominent position in the SERPs for your target search terms.

Link Building
Do not confuse this technique with buying links – that is a practice the search engines now frown on. Instead, we are referring to increasing the number of links coming into your website on a free, unpaid basis. Think of these links as unpaid referrals to your site.

Many webmasters and blog owners link to other sites because they think those sites provide value to their readers. The best way to build inbound links is by providing high quality, original content that is relevant to your target search terms. Search engines and human readers alike highly prize top-quality content that adds value to the web.

Exchanging links (“reciprocal links”) with like-minded sites used to be common and was condoned by the search engines. Recent changes to Google’s™ search engine algorithms have made link exchanges more problematic, however.

Pay-Per-Click (“PPC”) Ads
Many (though not all) webmasters also use PPC ads to build traffic. Google AdWords is probably the best-known PPC program, but there are several others. With the AdWords program, “sponsored links” are displayed on the SERPs for targeted search terms. Website owners using PPC ads must pay the search engine each time a visitor clicks on their “sponsored link.” PPC can be an effective way to build traffic, but it can also get a bit expensive.

Your website needs traffic to thrive. If performed properly, these tactics can help you increase the number of visitors your website receives.