11 Free Tips To Increase Website Traffic
by Sharon Bray-McPherson

Now that a new year has arrived, it is the habit
of many people to make resolutions about their
online business. Usually this involves a resolution
to increase the revenue for their business.

As you know by now, more traffic generally equals
more money. Now, before you start screaming out-loud,
"I already know that, but HOW do I drive more
traffic to my site?", let me assure you that it
is actually relatively easy to increase your
website's traffic using a few simple and free
methods.

To help, I've compiled a list of 11 methods that
you can use to drastically increase traffic to
your site. In addition, there are two resources
listed under each tip that will help you get
started implementing these suggestions.

1. Social Bookmarking: Social bookmarking is a
method for internet users to store, organize,
search, and manage bookmarks of websites they
find interesting or helpful. The good news is,
these users can then share their bookmarks with
others, organized by tags (keywords). The more
people that bookmark your site, the higher it
gets ranked by the bookmarking service and the
search engines, which in turn leads to more traffic.
Two of the more well-known social bookmarking sites
and those that I use almost exclusively, are
del.icio.us and Digg.

http://del.icio.us
and
http://digg.com

2. Start a Blog: Unless you're brand new to the
internet, you have probably heard about the power
of blogs. Internet users today are becoming more
comfortable surfing and reading blogs instead of
relying on formal sources and media for the information
they're looking for. And if you haven’t created one
yet, you should use the New Year to take advantage
of this traffic pulling tool. There are many sites
on the web where you can create a blog at no cost.
The two most popular are Blogger and Wordpress:

http://www.blogger.com
and
http://wordpress.com

3. Directory Listings: When the internet first gained
popularity, Yahoo became famous for having a
well-organized directory. Although they now charge money
for inclusion into their directory, it is still possible
to find plenty of other highly visited directories. By
having a listing on these sites, you can generate a
steady amount of highly targeted traffic. The following
are two of the more popular directories that offer free
listings:

http://www.webworldindex.com
and
http://www.dmoz.org

4. Win a web award: A number of places give out
awards to webmasters that go the extra mile when
designing their site. In addition to prestige,
winning an award can generate interest and traffic
from the giving site. If you have a unique looking
site, then you can be assured that a web award will
bring a good deal of traffic. The two sites listed
here are directories of websites that give out awards:

http://www.awardsites.com
and
http://www.uwsag.com

5. Use of Datafeeds: There's no getting around it,
to keep visitors AND the search engines coming back
to your site on a regular basis you need constantly
updated content on the site. But creating that
content can be taxing, on both your body and your
time. That's why the use of datafeeds that automatically
update your website with fresh content are a great
resource to use. To see examples of two websites with
content that is updated regularly and automatically,
visit: http://www.janronmedia.com/videos and
http://www.janronmedia.com/software

Two resources that enable you to add datafeeds to
your site quickly and easily can be found here:

http://www.niche-content-stores.com
and
http://www.goldencan.com

6. Viral Marketing: There was a time when you heard
the phrase "viral marketing", that you automatically
thought of a report or ebook that contained helpful free
information that people could share with their friends
and collegues. Of course you included your marketing
message in the report, which would help you receive
traffic from those that you wouldn't be able to reach
on your own.

And then along came YouTube. Since it launched onto
the internet scene a few years ago viral marketing
has taken on a whole new meaning. It is now possible
to post a video on YouTube and have hundreds of people
visiting your website within minutes. There's been
dozens of other sites that have sprung up within
the past year that enable you to post videos with
your marketing message included. The 2 that I use
and recommend are:

http://freeiq.com/sbm5
and
http://www.imeem.com

7. Press Releases: Writing a press release is an
incredible way to boost your web traffic. By
describing the unique aspect of your business,
product, or service, you allow reporters and
publishers to give you free publicity that can
bring in tons of traffic. If you choose a company
whose releases are picked up by search engines
like Google or Yahoo news, the amount of traffic
you can recieve can be almost mind-boggling.
And if they archive your press release on their
website you can conceivably still be getting
traffic to your site months or even years later.
Two of the PR sites whose releases are most
likely to be picked up by the search engines are:

http://www.prweb.com
and

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