Labels: SEO, Traffic, Web Development
Recently, a coworker and I discussed having a friendly competition to see who could drive more traffic to their blog. We are both starting from scratch, essentially, with low, low traffic. Both of us are in marketing, but in different areas. It would be interesting to see what avenues we both took to get to the same destination. It seems like this competition won't be happening, but the question still remains. What is the best way to drive traffic to a blog, or any site, for that matter?
Obviously, content is king, but even if you have a site filled with awesome content, the word still needs to get out. Without visitors, page rank won't increase and without page rank, visitors won't appear. It seems like a real chicken-or-the-egg predicament. This is why it's crucial to take the initiative to drive traffic yourself; not waiting on your favorite search engine to do all the heavy lifting for you.
With ecomm sites, or sites that may show a return, either by sales or by turning traffic into revenue with AdSense, spending money to get traffic is warranted. Chances are, at some point, you will see the investment return. But what happens when you just want traffic for the sake of getting traffic? Maybe revenue isn't the ultimate goal, but promoting/networking yourself is. Yes, one should put a value on promoting/networking them self, but if traffic can be had for little investment, wouldn't that be better?
First thing's first. Submit your site map to Google and every other search engine you desire. They should have tools available for you to submit a site map. Google uses 'webmaster tools'. Additionally, optimize your site for search engines. Learn about meta tags and keywords, then put it all into place.
There are several ways of attaining free traffic. Posting your site on social networking sites like Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us and Twitter are all free, and can provide traffic. Don't forget your Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn profiles. The larger the friend list, the more possibility there is of recruiting traffic.
Do your part to be an ambassador for your site. Learn and live your site. Is it about electronics? Join and contribute to electronics forums. Add valuable content by discussing relevant topics with others in the community. Place a link to your site in your signature (if allowed), or reference your site in discussions. In addition, guest blog on other's sites, or have others guest blog on your site. Generally, this will include a link back to your site, which will increase the user base for both parties.
Now more than ever, the internet is a community. As a site owner, embrace your site's visitors. Ask questions. Task them with writing product reviews. Create polls. Throw competitions. Create email lists and RSS feeds. Make them feel like a part of your site, not just a inconspicuous passer by. Users should feel as if they have invested in the site; given time to the site and added value to the site.
All of the above solutions are free and are by no means the complete solution to out-trafficking all of your friends, but are a good start before getting into paid advertising. How do you plan to out-traffic your competition?