To succeed on the Internet, you must learn how to increase web traffic. Without getting targeted visitors to your website, you don’t stand a chance of selling your products or services to any large degree. There are a variety of tactics, tools, and resources you can use to increase web traffic. In this article, I’ll share with you the specific resources I’ve used to increase my website traffic and generate a large annual income online. More specifically, I’ll tell you some of the secret tools I’ve used to drive targeted web traffic.

Google Adwords
If you want to know how to increase web traffic instantly, then learn about Google Adwords. This is the most targeted form of marking on the Internet. However, it requires that you have a marketing budget and can realize a positive return on your investment.

Google Adwords allow you to drive traffic to your website using a specific keyword or phrase. Your ad appears across the Internet on websites displaying relative content. When users click on your ad, they are redirected to your web site. You must pay each time a user clicks on your ad which can get expensive, especially because a click does not guarantee a sale. Therefore, before using Google Adwords, you must fully understand how to increase web traffic using online marketing techniques such as cost per click and generating a positive ROI.

Optimizing your Webpages
A much simpler method to increasing web traffic is to optimize your homepage using on-page and off-page optimization techniques. The best part of this method is that it costs nothing! Learn to employ on-page optimization techniques such as using your selected keyword phrase in your meta tags (page title, description, etc.), as the title of your page using <h1> tags, and sprinkling your keyword phrase throughout your text. Lastly, you want your keyword phrase to appear as the last thing on the page. These techniques alone are sure to increase your web traffic by improving search engine results.

Off-page optimization techniques are quite simple, yet more difficult to achieve. If you want to improve your search engine results and therefore increase your web traffic, then you must build links to your web page. This can be done through a link exchange program, directory submissions, or purchasing one-way links to your website. Don’t forget how to increase web traffic by combining on-page and off-page optimization techniques.

Low Budget Online Marketing Techniques
If you don’t have a budget to throw at online marketing, you may want to use some tried and true marketing techniques that require little or no investment other than your time and some basic HTML programming knowledge:

· Build an opt-in list that you can market to over and over again by offering something of value in exchange for an email list.

· Use viral marketing (referrals) to have your website visitors generate links to your website such as “email a friend”.

· Generate compelling “one-time-offers” to get users to take action and optimize these offers on their own web page so that the search engines can pick them up.

· Focus your website copy using the WIIFM concept (what’s in it for me?). By doing so, users will find your site engaging a recommend others to visit your site.

· Develop an affiliate program and get others to generate traffic to your website by offering a commission when selling your products or giving you referrals.

· Use testimonials one your site and see your on-site purchase rates skyrocket! Using this technique alone to increase web traffic has generated thousands of conversion that I otherwise would not have had.

These are just a few of the marketing techniques I’ve used over the past few years to generate serious online income. I learned these techniques and a number of others from a report I read online about web marketing techniques. I usually don’t recommend someone else’s products, but if you’re serious about generating an online income, you should check out the Butterfly Marketing Report. It really helped me understand basic marketing techniques and apply them quickly to generate a steady monthly income. If you want to check it out, just click here or serch on Google for traffic generating strategies in your specific market niche.

Increasing Web Traffic by submitting your site to Web Directories
I couldn’t believe how many websites offer free directories for those seeking specific information on the web. After doing a number of Google searches, I quickly found one powerful way to answer the question of how to increase web traffic – Search Directories. You can submit to a lot of web directories, but the most popular is DMOZ. Dmoz is the Internet’s largest human edited directory. The drawback is that it takes a long time to get your website listed. So if you haven’t already submitted your site, go to DMOZ.org to find a relevant category and submit your site.

Using these techniques and a number of others, I have learned how to increase website traffic. What’s great is that I do so without spending a large sum of money. The best investment you can make is to read all you can about online marketing techniques that show you how to increase web traffic and apply them.

In today’s web world, one thing is clear. Content is still king. Writing the right kind of content and disturbing that content, also known as article marketing, can help you establish yourself as an expert and improve your online marketing results.

Getting started with article marketing is easy to do and can pay huge dividends. Many individuals use article marketing to improve search engine rankings, to inform, or to pitch products and services they sell. Regardless of your purpose, consider using article marketing as a great way to build a loyal following.

The proliferation of information online has brought with it varying degrees of content. Some content is valid, other content is purely fictional. When you write, be sure to provide references, examples, or quote data from other sources. This helps to build credibility and informs your audience that your content can be trusted. For your article marketing to be effective, follow these guidelines:

Research your niche. Before you begin any writing whatsoever, start by finding a niche that is popular and that you feel you can write about. It should be something you enjoy. If you are not interested in a particular area, it will be difficult to enjoy the process of writing articles.

Create a plan. Are you going to write one article per week or one each day? Think about how much time and energy you want to put into your article writing and for what purpose. If you simply want to write and publish your work, you may only want to do a little bit each day. Once you have a complete work, then you would submit to websites or blogs. On the other hand, if you are looking for improved rankings or sales from your article marketing, your publishing schedule may need to be more aggressive.

Write your article. Write and article on your subject that includes the specific keywords you seek to optimize for. Your article should be between four to seven hundred words. It all depends on the intent and purpose of the article. After you write your article make sure you proof it for spelling and grammatical errors.

Submit your article to article directories. This is a great way to get your information published quickly and easily. Register with an article directory like Ezinearticles or GoArticles. By doing so, you will have a place to submit your articles and build an author profile. Webmasters use these article directories to find content for their website. Additionally, article directories give you added exposure in a given topic area.

Article marketing has many benefits. The most important aspect of article marketing, in my opinion is to clearly understand what you want to use it for, building a plan, and consistently creating and distributing content. This is essential for long term success.

1. Target The Right Audience

Target the right audience by selecting the language and countries that you want to target. For example, I exclude all countries where English is not understood by a large percentage of the population.

2. Refine Your Keywords

Use square brackets “[...]” around your keyword/s.

For example:

[google]

Your ad will only show when the search is for the exact keyword phrase you have included within the brackets.

The ad will not show for searches that include other keywords. In our example, this would be for searches such as “google search,” or “google news.”

3. Test Multiple Ads Simultaneously

Always test 2 (or more) ads simultaneously. This is what is known in the print industry as an A/B split test.

Find out which one produces the higher click through ratio. Then replace the weaker performing ad with a new one.

Continue this process in your never-ending quest to get the highest click through ratio possible.

4. Track The Return-On-Investment Of Each Ad

Google tracks the click through ratio of each ad. But it doesn’t track the conversion ratio.

Use a special tracking link in each ad to track its conversion ratio. For example, you could attach each ad with an affiliate tracking system link. Make sure each ad produces a return-on-investment.

5. Include Targeted Keywords In Your Ad

Include the targeted keywords in the headline and the description of the ad. Google will highlight searched keywords in bold in the ad.

When people scan search results, they look for the keywords they have entered. Searched keywords highlighted in bold certainly help to catch the user’s attention. For this reason, ads with searched keywords usually perform better than ones without.

6. Sell The Benefits

Spell out one or more major benefit in your ad. For example, make more money, stay younger looking, lose weight, get healthier, live happier, etc.

7. Include Attention Grabbing Words In Your Ad

Start your headline with an attention grabbing word. For example, “Free:, New:, Sale:, etc.” Make sure you stay within Google’s editorial guidelines.

8. Use Words That Provoke Emotion & Enthusiasm

Use power words or call-to-action phrases that provoke emotion, enthusiasm and a response.

Here are some examples of power words:

free, cheap, sale, special offer, time limited offer, tricks, you, tips, enhance, discover, fact, learn, at last, free shipping, etc.

Here are some examples of call-to-action phrases:

* Buy Today – Save 50%
* Download Free Trial Now
* Sale Ends Tomorrow

Make sure the phrase specific to your business, otherwise Google may reject the phrase.

9. Sell Your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)

What makes your product or service better, or different, from the competition? Spell them out in your ad.

For example, one of Amazon.com’s first taglines was “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore.” That’s a powerful USP!

10. Link To Relevant Landing Pages

If an ad is for a specific product or service, create a landing page for the ad. Include relevant and useful information to convert the customer. Generally, a well designed landing page will almost always convert more visitors than if you simply sent the visitor to the home page.

11. Remove Common Words

Remove common words, such as “a, an, in, on, it, of, etc.” Remove every word that does not absolutely need to be in the ad. Make every word count.

12. Deter Freebie Hunters

Deter freebie hunters by including the price of the product or service at the end of the ad. This will improve your overall conversion ratio and lower your average customer acquisition cost.

This may reduce your click through ratio, but that’s OK. After all, you’re not trying to target every body, only potential customers. In most cases, freebie hunters will never become paying customers.

Without website traffic your website isn’t going to do you any good. Many people do not realize this and they believe that once the website is built and on the web that is all they have to do. Unfortunately, this is simply not true and this is also the demise of several websites.

There are approximately 4 million websites on the Internet. Additionally, there are approximately 1 million spam sites. These sites steal traffic from sites that are useful. They drive your readers into traps of advertisements that they find it difficult to get out of. These sites are also only designed to generate traffic without providing any good information on the web.

Traffic just doesn’t appear. Sure, you’re going to have people stumble across your website, but the chances of them staying long and coming back are slim to none. The main reason that you don’t see immediate traffic once you get your website posted is because traffic has to have a source. People have to see a link to your site and click on it to go to your site. Or, they have to see the address on a piece of marketing material and then go seek out your website from there.

There is another kind of traffic that you want to generate as well. This is called organic search engine traffic. When you’re trying to get your site noticed in a search engine, this is the traffic you’re trying to attract. This type of traffic is the hardest to build because your site has to pop up reasonably close to the top of the search engines and then attract somebody to click on it. You are also competing with about 4 million other websites. If you’re on page 100 of Google’s page rankings for a particular keyword, then the chances of you getting noticed are very slim. The keyword also needs to be one that is popular and searched frequently. Obscure keywords will only get you a few obscure hits.

It is also important to realize that you can buy traffic. For $100 you can purchase hits from a company. Now, just because you purchase hits doesn’t mean you’re going to make any money. And, if they are just random, untargeted hits then you’re not likely going to profit and it will most likely be a waste of your time and money.

The key is to ultimately find viable methods that will get you website traffic. You need a constant stream of traffic, because without this you’re not going to make much money off of your

5site and your business is going to not do so well.

Website Traffic and Sales

If you’ve been on the Internet much at all you probably know that traffic is the key to generating sales and sales are the keys to generating money. Traffic is a very profitable thing, but your traffic has to be targeted traffic. It can be a bunch of hits that don’t intend to purchase your products. This also means that you should avoid any traffic generating scheme that seems too good to be true, because it probably is.

There are several ways that traffic can generate you money, including:

• Increased Sales – The more people you attract, the better your chances are of selling your products or services. The more products or services you sell, the more money you will make.

• Build You Lists of Prospects – Mailing lists are a great way to keep people informed about your business. By generating traffic you can generate mailing lists as well.

• Expose Your Brand or Your Service’s Popularity – The more traffic you can attract, the more people are going to know about you. They will then pass on information and praise about your business to other people who will then visit your website and hopefully purchase your products as well.

Plain and simple – if you have no traffic, you will make no money. This is the way the world works when it comes to business and this is especially true for an online business.

The Two Strategies of Traffic Generation

There are two ways that you can generate traffic on the Internet. They are very simple and concise and include:

• Free Traffic • Paid Traffic

Free traffic is not entirely free, as it will still require an investment of time. Also, there is no guarantee that either way will generate money, but they are where you want to start and they are both very powerful ways of generating traffic if you used appropriately.

Paid traffic can be useful depending on the type of product that you are selling. If you are in a Google Adwords program, you can use paid advertising and generate traffic in a very effective manner. People who click on your advertisements are likely to be interested in your product and likely to buy. Also, those people who click on those advertisements know that they are being sent to a site that has paid for placement and they know it is a site where something is to be purchased. However, this is the “right way” to make money off of paid traffic. You can also use this program the “wrong way” and generate money as well. For example, Perry Marshall is an expert at using paid advertising to generate traffic and profits, but he often uses Adwords the “wrong way.”

On the other hand, you can look at someone like Jimmy D. Brown. He gives away free reports and generates viral traffic in this manner. He is able to generate traffic without effort and he does it for free.

When you look at both aspects, you will most likely find that there is no straight answer as to which method is best. They can both be used effectively if used in the appropriate manner. Otherwise, you can do a lot of work and make a whole lot of nothing. It’s all about how you control the medium.

Understanding Search Engine Optimization

In order to be successful on the web, you have to have a clear understanding of search engine optimization, or SEO. Many people have heard of SEO, but very few completely understand it. Search engine optimization is actually rather simple, and it is one way to generate traffic to your site for free. This method does take some time, but if you put good work into it, you will be seeing results within a few weeks.

The first concept that you must understand is how search engines rank pages. Pages are ranked according to their relevancy in relation to specific keywords that people use when looking for information. The more inbound links that a site has from similar sites with high quality information, the better the site will rank. The more relevant and useful the information is

on the site, the higher it will rank for a specific keyword. This does not necessarily mean that it will rank high for related keywords or key phrases, however.

When people search the Internet, they are not usually interested in those pages who are number 200 in rankings. They are more interested in the first 10 or 20 because they do not want to spend the time looking and sifting through hundreds of pages. The idea is that through search engine optimization, you can move your site up the ranks with fresh, keyword content that will attract the search engines and traffic. In turn, the more traffic you generate, the higher you will be ranked in the listings. Think about your own searching habits when you are looking at optimizing your website. If you are planning a vacation to Las Vegas, are you really going to look on page 40 for a hotel or casino? Most likely you’re not.

Secondly, keywords that are used frequently are going to have a lot of competition. So, you already know that there are about 4 million websites on the Internet. Now, let’s assume that you have a website about wine. Obviously, you are going to think of “wine” as being your main keyword. Now, if you search wine in a search engine, how many pages are there for you to sift through? Most likely you will find hundreds of thousands and all of these sites are your competition. When you are targeting your site for a keyword, you need to choose a path of least resistance. The key is determining which keywords are popular, but not highly competitive.

Thirdly, you will want to begin by choosing keywords that are easy for you to compete for. You will then want to build pages that are based around those keywords that receive traffic, but have no competition. As you do this, you will want to begin building up pages that reach the higher and more competitive keywords. Essentially, you will be building a ladder that allows you to exchange links with relevant sites and you then use their keywords as an anchor in your sites.

Indexing your Site into Search Engines Quickly

In order to gain exposure you have to be indexed. You can guarantee yourself to be placed in their “sandbox” by simply submitting your sites. However, you may still have to wait several weeks or months before they finally make their way around to your site.

The key to getting noticed quickly is to get your website’s link on a highly ranked page. This is because highly ranked pages get spidered more quickly than those websites who are waiting. If you are linked into one of these higher ranked sites, then the search engine’s spider will move into your site as well through the link.

To get linked into one of these highly ranked sites, you can simply purchase advertising space. You can spend $10 to $25 and get placed on their site, which will then get your site indexed. After your time period for your link is over, you are not obligated to repurchase, but you will enjoy being indexed very quickly.

The next way to get noticed is to join a highly ranked forum. Leave useful posts that include a signature with your website address in it. You can also leave comments on popular blogs. Be sure that they do not use “no follow” tags, otherwise you are just leaving a comment that will go unnoticed by the search engines. Always make sure that your signature links back to your website.

This is just a couple of ways to get a link on a highly ranked page. There are several other methods that you may use as well.

Optimizing Your Site for Free Traffic

This is crucial when building a website. Not only will it save you a lot of money in advertising, but it will always work for you. Organic hits are the best and if you can receive all organic hits, then your site is going to be very valuable. This is especially true if you were to consider selling your website somewhere down the road.

The best way to start receiving free traffic is to do link exchanges. You will want to find other websites that are in your niche, and then you request that they place your link on their page and then you will do the same for them. You can use http://www.linkmetro.com to hunt down sites that are involved in link exchanges.

You will also want to setup links with sites that are ranked highly and are related to your area. You should also keyword optimize your anchor text for your link so that you have keyword optimization working for you as well. This is what the search engines will look at when they are determining what your site is all about.

While you are writing your anchor text, it is also important to have a few different variations. Use different keywords so that you will receive traffic from a variety of different keywords. This also helps to prevent duplicate content.

At the same time, you will want to keep your website’s content fresh. You should set-up a content creation program that you will use to add new keyword optimized pages to your website

so that your site is new and ever changing. The more often you change your site, the more often the search engine spiders will have make their way back to you to check you out. In return, you will begin moving up in the ranks.

1. Submit Direct To Google

The first method is to submit your web site via Google’s free submit your site form. Just submit your home page and Google’s crawler, Googlebot, will crawl the rest.

However, Google does not add all submitted URLs to their index, and there is no guarantee as to when, or if, your site will be indexed.

2. Get Linked From A Site That Google Crawls

The second method is to get a site that Google already crawls to link to your site. So when Google recrawls the web site, it will find the link to your site and crawl and index it as well.

This is Google’s preferred method of finding sites to index.

To get another site to link to yours, simply look for a site that links to your competitors and ask them to link to yours. You may have to offer a link back to their site in exchange.

You may like to read my link popularity article, “How To Quickly Improve Your Link Popularity.” In this article I show you how to find link exchange partners.

3. Submit Your Site To The Yahoo! Directory & The Open Directory Project Index

The third method is to submit your web site to the Yahoo! Directory and/or Open Directory Project index, which is owned by Netscape.

As far as I know, this is the only guaranteed method of getting into the Google index.

Google has agreements with Yahoo! and Netscape to include the sites indexed in their directories in the Google index. So submit your site to either, or both (recommended), of these directories.

For more information, visit Yahoo!’s How to Suggest Your Site page and the Open Directory Project’s How to add a site to the Open Directory page.

Once your site is included in either of these directories, it will appear in the Google index in about 4 to 8 weeks.