All enterprises great and small are obsessed with getting more traffic to and through their sites. If you are not obsessed with this, perhaps you should be. Any company that isn't optimizing its traffic flow (read more sales, prospects, subscribers, etc.) is leaving money on the table.

No one likes admitting to leaving money on the table. But we all do it. There's always more traffic out there you can garner. Naturally, you go after the low-hanging fruit first. Thereafter, you weigh the costs in effort and funds against your results.

Below are my Top 10 Tips for Boosting Site Traffic:

1. Why Bother? The number one mistake companies make is to first build a site, and then try to figure out why people should come visit it. Answer the question of why they should visit first, then build the site. Helping firms answer this question is what I do, when time permits.

2. Email Away: After publishing Web Digest For Marketers for nearly 10 years, I can't help but notice that my site traffic always increases when I send out Web Digest or FYI from Web Digest. It simply boosts the awareness of your site when you go outbound with an email newsletter.

3. Alert the Press: Create a press release so interesting and packed with facts that you yourself would read it. To do so, magnify your own skeptical self by a factor of 10, and you've just created the typical journalist, who will usually give your release a millisecond of his or her time -- unless it demonstrates immediate value. Every word of your release must reward the reader for reading it -- and it must include a link to your site, where the reader will be able to find more of the same high-value information.

4. Write Articles: Then submit your articles to sites such as www.ezinearticles.com, which will point to your site in turn -- and help you with your search engine rankings as a result.

5. Speak Up: Whenever I give a speech, I notice that my site traffic goes up. Why? Members of the audience are going to go to my site to sign up for the Web Digest For Marketers email, or they will look for articles I've written on subjects I referenced in the speech.

6. Use Alexa: If you're not already using the Alexa toolbar, start now. When visiting a site you think you want to ask for a link from, or that wants to trade links with you, check out its Alexa traffic rating. The lower the number, the more traffic it gets -- and the better it is for you.

7. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Forever: You can always improve your legitimate search rankings. There are probably pages on your site (if not whole sections) that have not yet been found by the search engine spiders. I find that developing a site is often more about information design than graphic design.

8. Advertise Away: Make your site the subject of your ad campaign. I've recommended this to a few clients over the years. Let broadcast and print and direct mail promote that must-have thing that's only available at your site -- and your site only.

9. Build Links: Use some of the tools featured in Web Digest For Marketers and which you can now find at www.SearchEngineForMarketers.com, to help you find sites that are linking to your competitors but not to you. Then lay in a course of action to contact those sites and offer them some clear and obvious value in return for pointing to you. It could be great content at your site or you might even wind up paying for the link.

10. Feature Links: Be sure to feature links to your site in the articles you write, as I have done here. :) LC

Return To > Larry Chase's Search Engine For Marketers Home Page