There are many ways to increase your website traffic. Although everyone would like to use methods that are both highly successful and free…that’s just not the reality we live in. Once you have maximized the best free traffic generators..you might want to add some ppc to the mix to effectively compete with your competition.

By Jennifer Horowitz
Driving traffic to your site is one of the first requirements to a successful online business. Without website traffic, your site may as well not exist. There are numerous ways you can drive traffic, so let’s take a look at some of them and evaluate them. Keep in mind, this isn’t a comprehensive list, but it is some of the more successful ways. I invite you to share any other ideas that have worked for you.

• PPC
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Affiliate Programs
• Article Syndication
• Press Releases
• Blogging Banner ads
• Joint ventures
• Offline campaigns (that drive traffic to your site)
• Advertising (on other sites, ad networks and industry publications)

Let’s look at the pros and cons of a few of the methods, to help you
determine what methods are viable for your business. Stay tuned for
parts 2 and 3, as we work our way through the list above and determine
the pros and cons.

PPC

Pros:

You can drive traffic quickly — that’s a good thing!

Your traffic is targeted if you select the right keywords — also a good thing!

You can use PPC to test things (headlines, landing page copy) —
great way to use PPC, in addition to just driving traffic for sales. Be
willing to sacrifice some profits and use PPC to test ideas before you
fully role them out.

You control the settings and can turn it on and off any time — control is good.

Cons:

There is a lot of research and set up required (unless your
outsource it) — not necessarily a bad thing, unless you don’t have the
time to learn and implement or the budget to outsource. Your best bet
is outsourcing, if your budget allows it. You should be running your
business not becoming a PPC expert.

The cost per click can be very expensive on some words — in some
industries and on some words it is prohibitively high. In other cases
it’s just annoyingly high. You have to determine where your keywords
would fall and if you can afford it. How much is a lead worth to you?
How much is a sale worth to you? You should figure this all out before
your start.

You have to worry about click fraud — bummer! There is software out there to help.

Once you’ve reached your daily spend (the amount you are willing to
pay each day) your ads are turned off and your exposure disappears —
that’s just how it works. It means there is often a good part of the
day where your ad isn’t showing, unless you have a large budget.

SEO

Pros:

• Organic search listings have a higher click through rate than PPC
  listings. — Getting the most clicks out of any listing is a good thing.
  Major pro!
• Traffic from the organic results converts at a higher rate than PPC
  traffic. — Another major pro! Conversion is what it is all about, so
  getting traffic that is more likely to convert is your ultimate goal.
• Your traffic is targeted if you select the right keywords. — That’s a good thing.
• It is more cost effective than PPC (usually, depending on the cost
  of your keywords) — Just run the numbers and determine if that is true
  for you. In many, many cases, $300 of SEO will bring in more traffic
  than $300 of PPC.
• Your listing appears 24/7 and doesn’t turn off after you’ve reached
  a certain limit (like in PPC). — Constant exposure is definitely what
  you are striving for.
• Search engines are the prime source for finding information and
  websites, with more than 8 out of 10 people using them to find
  products, services and information. — Makes it a no-brainer. If you
  aren’t ranked in the top of the engines, you are losing out on traffic.
• You can get content, videos, images and news indexed. — Cool!

You can read more of the informative article about ways to increase website traffic by continuing to read more of the article by Jennifer Horowitz

About the author: Jennifer Horowitz is the Director of Marketing and co-owner of EcomBuffet. Since 1998, her expertise in online marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has helped clients increase revenue and achieve their business goals. Jennifer has written a downloadable book on Search Engine Optimization and has been published in many SEO and marketing publications.