Every webmaster , domain owner , personal blogger , facebook owner , e-commerce runner , & fortune 500 companies want it & they need it bad. Traffic that is ! Some people call it a science some have absolute ignorance to the factors and roles that affect how traffic comes and goes to your website.

I’m here to help you with a few tips I found from an interesting book I read about traffic and blogging while I was killing time at a local borders. But try to keep in mind that these are only guidelines , tips that should be taken with only a grain of salt as everyone has their own formula as to what works for them.

So never stop thinking outside the box !

I’ll stop ranting now and give you all the “Secret List” (This is what the book called it)

Website Traffic Essentials

1) Get your site involved in directories for example , the DMOZ or Yahoo Directories

2) Get listed in search engines OTHER than google. According to this website submitting to other 1st Tier & 2nd Tier search engines can’t hurt right ?

3) Improve search engine rankings by targeting the right keywords

4) Meta Tags placement is HUGE when used properly as well as Headlines of your articles

5) Use Google Trends to find out what people are looking for , words such as “google checkout” will have like 30 million searches + while “purple ps3″ will get significantly less searches.

6) Find your niche in the Internet , websites that tend to stick to one type of topic or similar topics generally do MUCH better than websites / bloggers who try to cover every / any topic.

7) Write quality content , Build reader Loyalty

Don’t annoy your readers by placing an ad in everything , you are here to help them not annoy them

9) This tip is kind of tacky in my opinion but I suppose everyone needs to start somewhere , You can advertise your website in forums that cover the topic/theme that your website is about. The universally preferable way is to either ask politely of a review for your site on forums such as Webhostingtalk as well as posting a signature in your signature area. My friends use to do this and reported good success but don’t overdo this one.

Keep your readers on your site LONGER !

10) Experiment with different headers , remember your users are the center of the website not you

11) Improve the Navigation , in today’s web 2.0 world your website has to be easy on the eyes and have simple clean cut navigation. If you were lost on a new site you were on I’m sure 9/10 times you’d leave that site angry too and never come back so take the user’s perspective into place.

12) Be interactive with your users , if someone comments on your site , your successful in my opinion ! That means at least someone on the internet thinks the work you put into your article means something. Comment back and try to feed your growing community

13) Add polls & quizzes that will spark something in your users to voice their opinions. Ex : Do you like the idea of the govn’t handing out $700 Billion to these idiotic corporations via our taxes ?

14) NO Music , please stay quiet unless your a website like Imeem, it’s just irritating to most people who may already be playing music of their own choice.

15) Make sure the colors match up , your reader’s psyche` will have already made a decision of whether they will come back or run away as fast as they can from your site. Checkout my article about tools that help you in choosing colors for your design.

16) Create a forum ! People love to voice their opinion and generally be social creatures by nature.

17) Don’t be afraid to link to other websites or a competitors , it shows that you are not afraid of competition and that you truly have the best intentions for your reader. You take care of your readers and your readers will reciprocate 10 folds.

18) Make sure there is a search option somewhere on your site , In today’s fast paced world People want what they want NOW , ya get me slick ?

19) Offer a subscriber solution / newsletter such as Feedburner , it is one of the most widely used rss services.

20) Create on-going serial series of articles that have different parts that keep visitors coming back for more !

21) Frequently Update your content , not like every second but try for once a day update on material. It will make your visitors happy and google will reward you with stronger rankings. Update Frequency is part of their algorithm formula.

SPEED IT UP !

22) Don’t overload on ads , they slow sites down

23) Don’t use many video ads keep these down to a minimum , they usually are annoying to begin with as far as audios go

24) Make sure the layout you are using is low in size. For further tips check out my article on speeding up your site and timing the how long it takes to load.

25) Don’t use nested tables in the html code as this confuses some browsers and prevent it from drawing or forces it to redraw the page

26) If you plan on going professional then it may be time to invest in a stronger dedicated server. Or if your currently using free host server but want to upgrade to cheaper solutions I suggest hostmonster for any client I design web pages for.

27) Other reasons as to why your site is slow may be because of the content itself , don’t overload your users with a 2,000 page essay , no one has the patience to read that much as the average time a user spends on a website according to the book ProBlogger is just under 96 seconds !

28) Don’t use large high quality pictures 500kb+ , It will kill your bandwidth and takes longer for browsers to process. Use tools such as Fireworks to make the size cut in half!

Network Exchanges are IMPORTANT !

29) Being part of a network is very important don’t underestimate the power it has.

30) Social sites such as Digg , Delicious , Technorati all have badges via API code that can help you get more traffic.

31) Placement of these badges is best to put just at the end of your article. You don’t want to spam your users visually with all the badges at the top of the article but it’s entirely up to you.

32) Other options can be to purchase advertisement on other websites that are offering to put your banner on their site. Check out buysellads they are a “Middle Man” network site to hookup buyers and sellers. Basically every site will have rankings such as Alexa , Compete and Technorati as well as Yahoo Inbound Links but be aware that the better the ranking of the website the higher the price will be.

33) Write articles for other blog sites as a guest in most cases you will be allowed to advertise / promote your own blog in the process.

34) Have guest blog writers post an article for your readers to enjoy , most cases having an expert come in and speak his/her mind is a great way to promote traffic.

35) Some promotion will have to be done off-line , such as word of mouth from friends / family as well as promoting posters on college campuses.

36) Join blog networks such as 9rules , b5media , blog network you get the idea

37) Comment on other people’s blogs while listing your website if there is an option for it.

38) Go on a forum where people need help with coding issues for example and help them solve their problem , they may visit your website and become potential future readers as a way of saying thanks.

39) Start up an affiliation link exchange with ther bloggers who also have similar content / themes. It may be best to try to go for sites that ranked accordingly to your site. A Z-lister blogger trying to exchange links with an A-lister blogger is highly doubtful.

Glass Half-Full

40) Stay positive ! Understanding that website traffic have cycles is essential. People won’t surf the web as much when the weekend comes for some and others the weekend is the best time to get traffic.

41) Your website is not the center of the universe for your visitors. To them it’s just another website. It is a fact to get to because 9/10 times your users can get the same content someplace else and don’t’ need you as much as you need them unless your the only one who can offer a certain something. This is important because some website owners may become obsessive or overzealous. (I’m just as guilty sometimes hah !)

42) Rome wasn’t built in a day , and neither will your website give it time.

43) Prove that your the expert in your field , do research and write quality articles. People don’t want to be deceived.

44) You gotta give 110%. Example of is when you write an article listed 20+ photoshop tips you may see some bloggers posting 22 or 25. The writer isn’t blind or has bad math skills but did this on purpose to exceed expectations of his/her readers. It’s a nice tactic and I personally use it as it puts whip cream on the cake.

45) Another method to increasing traffic to your website is to continue creating more quality content , over time users will search results will lead to your website.

46) Don’t be to broad about the topics you write about , you will confuse your readers and people will not know what to expect. Websites that stick to a certain niche in their market tend to do better. A perfect example of this is Engadget and how they stick to technology , not technology and food.

47) Create a design that is very eye catching such as the header , a catchy website will bring users back if your content is up to par.

48) Make sure your content is not very long , stick to the point and try to be clear cut while being intersting.

49) Do not waste time paying websites to submit your Site to search engines , usually this will result in your domain being banned from certain search engines because it will recognize the submission as spam. It doesn’t take too long to submit your site to search engines.

50) Finally check your progress on your website , #1 widespread statistics analyzer is Google Analytics another good one that I find is somewhat more conservative is called Mint

I hope this helps you all!

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