KhalidsLife.com

This article highlights five simple yet effective ways to generate real traffic that should convert well on any website.

1. Socialise

Social Media is the new MySpace marketing. Sites like StumbleUpon, Digg and You Tube and more generate thousands of unique visitors for webmasters every day. Your job is to ensure maximum exposure on these sites and maintain a good position in ranks too.

> StumbleUpon - Check out the freebies section of Digital Point Forums. There are hundreds of threads dedicated to Stumble exchanges. Search the forum for Stumbling services, such as 50 stumbles for $xx.

> Digg - Again, check out the freebies section of Digital Point Forums, there are threads dedicated to Digg exchanges too. Ensure your site has a BIG FAT Digg button on it too, the best wordpress plugin I can recommend was created by Paul Cheek and is called DiggIt.

> You Tube - A tip by Jon Warass - You Tube can send you 500 unique visitors overnight by simply uploading a video relating to your site’s niche with added credits at the end that display your site’s url. I have started doing this with the videos posted at OffBeatInk.com.

To edit You Tube videos you firstly need to download them and them and then convert them from FLV to AVI. After completing this, you’ll need to edit them. I download them using this site, convert them using Freez (freeware) and edit them in Windows Movie Maker.

Whilst I don’t encourage illegitimate Diggs or Stumbles, sometimes it is necessary to exchange these services with other webmasters to get yourself on the traffic ladder. I would strongly recommend you don’t overdo it because it may get you permanently banned.

2. Spread the word

> Social Bookmarking - Social bookmarking is a web based service allowing users to share internet bookmarks, usually their favourite sites. If a person, whom has 100 friends, bookmarks your site, then that link is automatically exposed to those 100 people. If 10% add that bookmark to their profile, and they each have 100 friends, your link is then exposed to a further 1,000 people! A very lucrative marketing method indeed.

> Tell a Friend - If you want to share a good site with a friend, writing a short e-mail, copying the url and then sending it off is usually more time consuming than it’s worth. By having a tell-a-friend script on your site, users can quickly enter their friends e-mail address and it’ll automatically send them a short message stating e.g. “Adam thought you would like this http://…”. Quick and easy for the user…more visitors for the webmasters.

> Link Exchange - Link exchanges are common for site’s of similar relevance and are an easy way for webmasters to share traffic. A program I’d definately recommend is BlogRush. By adding the BlogRush Widget to a blog, a blogger can get instant distribution for their latest blog post titles across a network of related blogs. In simple terms, a link to your latest blog post is shown on other sites in return for your displaying the widget on your site.

3. Stop spamming

Spamming people and/or other websites may help you generate traffic in short run, but will be sure to fail you long term. Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither was any popular site’s user base. If you want to generate real traffic, that will remain constant - providing you update your site with fresh content daily - then spread the word professionally. Don’t send junk e-mails, don’t spam other sites, don’t leave stupid forum posts…take your time.

4. Sponsor it

Sponsoring a popular site is a great way to get exposure to their 100% of their user database. If a user thinks they are going to win something, they will be more inclined to participate, perhaps checking out your site too. Further to this, it portrays your site in a positive manner and the user will probably remember it in the future.

Sponsorship needn’t be extravagant either. A simple free t-shirt, perhaps a dvd or even something cooler - but relating to your audience and niche - is probably money well spent in comparison to banner advertising.

5. Spend time keeping your visitors coming back

One of the best ways to generate traffic is through word-of-mouth. People who like your site are likely to talk about it amongst their friends, so spend time ensuring they are kept occupied. That means fresh content every 24 hours, the latest news and information, the coolest videos and images, etc etc. Read - Five Tips To Keep Your Visitors Coming Back.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.