If you want to succeed online you need website traffic.

Without visitors to your website, you won’t make sales and you won’t make money.  Getting web traffic is one of the biggest obstacles to overcome with any online business.

Here are a few of the common ways to increase website traffic.

ADVERTISING

Everything is for sale, right?  If you want website traffic you can simply buy it.

Buy advertising on Google AdWords.

Buy advertising on Facebook.

Buy advertising anywhere your potential buyers are.  But keep in mind, just because you buy the ads, doesn’t mean people will click on those ads and visit your website.  That’s one of the reasons Google AdWords is so popular – because they offer PPC.

With Google AdWords you only pay when someone actually clicks on your advertisement.  It’s called “pay per click” (PPC).  Your ad might be displayed 100 times, but if only 1 person out of those 100 clicks on your ad, you pay for that 1 click.

It’s also important to track your ad spending with PPC.  If you have a product on your website that produces a net gain of $24.00 for every sale you make, you need to spend less than $24.00 on ads to make a profit.

For example, let’s say you pay $1.00 every time someone clicks on your advertisement.   If 25 people click on your advertisement and you don’t make a sale, you lose money.  If you spend $20 on ads and 1 person buys, you make $4, or 20% Return on Investment (ROI).  You have to track your spending if you want to make money through advertising.

Of course, you can always advertise purely for brand recognition.  If you have the budget for indirect advertising, then best of luck to you.

AWESOME CONTENT

One of the most overlooked methods for getting traffic is to create awesome content.  It’s somewhat subjective to decide what is amazing content and what isn’t, but there are a few guidelines you can follow to ensure you’re closer to producing awesome content than average content.

First, you need to know your market.  Research your market and find out what kind of content people are already producing.  Then, create something different, something unique, informative, and helpful.

For example, case studies are always unique and people like them because they’re based on facts, not opinion.

It’s not always possible to create unique content.  If not, you can create content that is better than what’s already available.  Create content that stands out above the rest.  Be entertaining.  Be informative.  Be clear and straight-forward.  Put your unique spin on it and make your content better than the rest.

If you know your market, then you know the common problems they face.  Offer solutions to those problems.  People will automatically be drawn to solutions to their problems.

Be innovative.  If you really want to drive traffic and be known as the expert in your field, don’t write about what’s currently happening, write about what’s going to happen.  Most leaders are innovators.  They have vision and are confident in the direction they want to take.  They blaze new paths.  The don’t settle for the status quo, they change things to fit their needs and the needs of their market.

It may not be easy to create top-quality content, but if you do, people will read it, like it and link to it.

Experiment with different writing techniques and find out what works best in your market.  Once you figure out what works for you, the traffic will follow.

GUEST POST

Writing a guest post is essentially the same thing as article marketing except better.  You write an article, ask another blogger to post the article on their website and include a couple of links back to your website.

The key is to target blogs that have good traffic and have visitors that would be interested in the subject matter of your website.

There are 3 main benefits to guest posting.

1. You can get direct traffic from people that click on the link to your website.

2. You can get an SEO benefit from the links in your article, which will help improve your search engine ranking for related keywords.

3. You build relationships with other bloggers, which can help you grow your business.

There are a few important things to remember when guest posting.

Your content better be damn good.  Otherwise, no legitimate blogger will publish your article.  When you ask a popular blogger to publish your article, they don’t care how it will help you – they already know. They care how it will benefit them, their website and their visitors.

Their reputation for quality is always on the line.  If they publish low-quality content, it’s their reputation that will take the biggest hit.  Most bloggers care about their reputation and their readers and that’s much more important than accommodating you and your article.

Your reputation is also on the line.  When guest posting, you have an opportunity to show a larger audience what kind of content you can produce.  If it’s average, that won’t inspire many people to check out your website.  If it’s awesome, everyone wins.

It’s not about using other bloggers to get ahead.  It’s about connecting with people and helping others.  Think win-win and you’ll stay on the right track.

ARTICLE MARKETING

Article marketing is writing articles that contain links back to your website.  You submit your articles to different article directories and they publish it on their website.

It’s similar to guest posting but worse.  Article directories aren’t the best places to get direct traffic from.  Sometimes articles can rank well in the search engine results, but for the most part, article directories are made up of low-quality content posted primarily for the benefit of getting a backlink.

Google has been trying to tackle the problem of low-quality content and as they figure out which article directories are publishing “low-quality” content, those sites will likely disappear from the search results.

But, as of today, there are still benefits to article marketing.

First, you can get traffic directly from people that read your articles and click on the link to your website.

The second web traffic benefit of article marketing is that for every unique article you create, you create backlinks to your website.  The more backlinks you have, the more likely it is that your website will show up on the first page of search results.  So, with every article you publish, you get an SEO boost.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Search engine optimization (SEO) is simply optimizing your website to rank high in the search results.  When someone types in a keyword related to your website, you want to be the number 1 result because search engines provide targeted traffic.

People are searching for what you have and you want your website to be right in front of their face when they want it.

To rank well in the search engine results, you need to spend some time on search engine optimization (SEO).  SEO is basically doing things to your website to help increase the chances of getting to the top of the search results.

Off-page SEO is even more important.  Off-page SEO is all about backlinks.  There’s a lot to learn about SEO, so check out this post if you want to learn SEO.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Using social media to drive traffic is becoming more and more important as it grows in popularity.  I classify just about everything as social media if it involves any online social aspect.

That means delicious, YouTube, Twitter, Digg, Facebook, StumbleUpon, and the 1 billion other similar sites I classify as social media.  It doesn’t really matter how you classify them, they all center on the same thing.  Being a part of the conversation.

People are writing about, bookmarking, sharing, tweeting, learning about tons of different things online.  The conversations are happening whether you’re a part of it or not.

The key to getting traffic from social media resources is to be an influential part of that conversation.  Provide something unique to people and direct the conversation to your website.

It doesn’t matter what market you’re in, you just need to find your potential buyers.  If your market is internet marketing services, be a part of that conversation.  If your market is digital photography, be a part of that conversation.

The more involved you are, the better results you’ll see.  Don’t use social media as your sales platform, use it to provide something useful to your market and build authentic relationships.

FORUMS

I’m tempted to throw forums in with social media, but forums are a little bit different.  Most forums are specialized.  They focus on specific markets.

For example, there are forums that cater to people interested in SEO.  There are forums that focus on internet marketing.  There are forums for just about every niche you can think of.  If there isn’t a forum for your niche, well then that’s a perfect opportunity for you to create one yourself.

There are at least two benefits from participating in forums.

First, the social aspect, just like social media.  You can participate in meaningful conversations and build relationships and/or brand awareness.

Second, you can get backlinks from forums when you attach a link signature to your posts and in your forum profile.

Generally speaking, forums aren’t the best places to get backlinks because the links don’t pass a ton of link juice.  Forums are seriously abused when it comes to backlinks and you can’t expect Google to give those links the same value that they give to content links found on trusted, high-traffic, high PR sites.  That doesn’t mean they don’t help, it just means use common sense.

VIRAL MARKETING

If you use marketing techniques that are likely to be rapidly promoted through the effort of others, that’s viral marketing.  It may not be the best definition, but it’s better than saying marketing that spreads like a virus…I think.  Either way, it’s some form of content that takes off for one reason or another.

Although you can’t always predict what will be a viral success and what won’t, you can do some things to increase the odds.

First, you need to create content that people will want to share.  It could be unique, funny, entertaining, shocking, interesting, controversial or anything else that inspires people to share.

There are different approaches and different mediums for viral content.  Usually, the more subtle the approach, the better the results, although that’s not always the case.  Contests frequently inspire people to share content.  Sometimes the contests are intentionally structured to promote the spread of information.

Anything you can do to get people to talk about your brand or visit your website (within reason, of course) is a good viral marketing tactic.  You may not hit a home run with every attempt, but consider viral marketing as an option.

EMAIL MARKETING

Email marketing is a powerful tool for website owners.  The idea is simple.  You capture a visitor’s email address, then you build a relationship with that person through email marketing.  The more trust you build with that person, the more likely it is that they will buy from you when they’re ready.

Capturing the email is usually done by putting a form on your website and offering something of value in exchange for their email address.  The more value the product has, the more likely it is that people will sign up for your email list.

Once you capture their email, you continue to update them on newsworthy events, new methods, new products, new tools, whatever you think they’ll find useful.  If you send too many emails, or emails that aren’t useful, you risk losing subscribers.

When you decide to promote something on your website, simply send out an email and you’ll get instant traffic.

Be helpful and build trust before you try to sell.

COMMENTING

Making comments on blog posts isn’t the best method for getting traffic but commenting does have some benefits.  First, it’s a backlink to your website.  I know, comments are usually no follow links but the latest research shows that no follow links are actually a very important part of SEO (see SEO Factors article).  They may not pass PageRank or anchor text, but the search engines are aware of them.

If you read about the Google Caffeine update, Google clearly stated that they are giving more weight to the social aspects of the internet.  Commenting on blogs is definitely a social aspect that can be measured by the search engines.

That brings me to the next benefit of commenting on blogs.  It provides a social benefit that can help you build relationships with other people in your market.  If you make comments on a regular basis on specific blogs related to your market, people will notice.  I’m not talking about SPAM comments.  I’m talking about useful comments that contribute in some small way to the topic of the post.  This goes back to the social media aspect of driving traffic and being a part of the conversation.

The more involved you are in your market, the more opportunities that you’ll create for yourself.  Maybe that opportunity is a guest post, or a joint venture, or an endorsement.  In most cases, other people in your field can help you grow.  Instead of looking at them as competition, look at them as potential partners.

Lastly, you can get website traffic from blog comments.  Every once in a while, if you make a meaningful comment on a blog post, some people will click on that link and visit your website.  I wouldn’t recommend this as your primary (or secondary) traffic strategy, but consider it more in line with being active in social media and building your brand.

INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC

When it comes to website traffic, you need to find out what works best for you and your website.  If you can get traffic from multiple sources, that’s the best option.  But sometimes, you just don’t have enough time in the day to try every method.  Focus on what you do best and keep improving until the traffic starts burning up your servers.

What traffic methods work for you?