Top 10 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website  Part 1

I am always thrilled to drive down The Irlo Bronson highway anytime I visit Orlando, Florida.  

I like this strip of Orlando because of the array of shops, motels amusement parks. You also have tourist shops and this strip of over 5 miles never goes to sleep.  The area also enjoys the traffic from Disneyworld. All the space ads, banners most retailers have to attract customers, always impress me. If you plan to set up a retail shop in Orlando, you must consider leasing on the Irlo Bronson highway or other high visibility sites. 

This brings me to the point of my article today....

How to drive traffic to your website

Traffic to your website is very important because that is the only way your company can develop a relationship with potential customers in your niche. 

Let's start by covering the basics....  

Your primary goal is to generate Search Engine Traffic.  By doing so, search engines and visitors will find you online and get to your website.

The key to building site engine traffic is to create new content regularly, using keywords, and posts to your site. 

Why is this important...? 

Most people who search online use keywords. If you properly do your research on the most frequently used keywords in your target market, and then create content often using those keywords, you going to generate great traffic.  

The following 10 ways described below, will help drive traffic to your website and build your business.  These are tested, proven methods and simple enough for anyone to do.  

#1.Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to any activity you do to attract visitors-to your website-using keywords.

Keywords are the phrases internet users use to search for their topic of interest on the web. Most searches happen through search engines.

There are two types of Keywords. Short-tail keywords and long-tail keywords also referred as broad keywords or narrow keywords.

Long-tail keywords are keyword phrases used to search by a narrower segment of internet users. These set of internet searchers tend to be knowledgeable and know what they want.

You can to target a specific niche or lesser competitive market, when you build content with long-tail keywords.

Short-tail keywords are broad phrases used to search online.   These keywords tend to have a higher competition and a broad market.

If you focus on using long-tail keywords, you can actually generate a higher conversion rate and get more buyers as opposed to generating more traffic, which is what short-tail keywords do.

The reason is the buyers who search online most often use long-tail keywords, as they know specifically what they are looking for.

Let's use an example to explain the last point...

Let's say your niche was weight loss. “Weight loss” itself is a broad keyword and will generate lots of traffic. However if you use a long-tail keyword such as “help to lose weight now” you are likely to find visitors who want to lose weight right away and they can most likely convert into buying customers.

The key to success with SEO traffic is to target long-tail keywords and... Make your website search engine friendly and your content valuable and useful.

 #2.Article Marketing. This method is a highly effective and long-term way to drive traffic to your website. 

Article Marketing is one of the most powerful ways of getting traffic to your website because you gain credibility as an expert and authority figure in your niche.  

The key to success is to write articles regularly and submit to article directories or ezines related to your niche. 

As a guideline, you want to write articles that are between informative, actionable and useful to your readers.   Your articles should be simple so that everyone can read them .  Write articles that contain good content and add value to your readers.   Use keywords in your articles for search engine optimization. 

Remember you are writing articles so your readers can take action. 

The key to effective article marketing ...is to make your article sell.  And you get to sell yourself with the... resource box.  This goes below the body of the article and contains the author's bio section. You should include your name, your website and your call to action.

Write articles that drive traffic to your squeeze page where you can capture their information and build your list. 

 #3.Video Marketing. Internet marketing has dominantly moved into the Web 2.0 phase. More than ever before internet users are now demanding face-to-face contact or real life experience and video is by far the most interactive and the most effective method used by today's internet entrepreneur.

The search engines love it too. Google, for instance, is now indexing video. Video works because it builds trust easier and draws customers to your website faster. The timing to begin using video now is great because not too many marketers are. So you can get ahead of the curve in your particular niche.  

Getting started with video can be very simple. The best way is to create and send your video to YouTube. For best results, leverage the many submission services out there. Once you have done that, watermark your video so that you can link it to your website. 

Here are some useful tips for video marketing 

·          YouTube does not allow links to your site; however, you can create a short screen video showing your website at the beginning or at the end. Or you can give your topic at the beginning and offer your free report at the end, directing your audience to your website where they can pick it up. 

·          A recommended resource is www.tubemogul.com this will upload your video to all the video linking sites. It has a great dashboard for analytics showing you what sites have indexed your video as well as the demographic and geographic locations of those who have viewed your videos and website. 

·          Add your video link to your resource box in your article writing and offer your special report at the end of each video. 

Here are some useful tools that will help you get going with video

Cam Studio - a very useful screen casting software 

Flip Video - so you can take clips while on the move 

Camtasia - great tool for doing screen cams and teaching people on your video 

HD Cam - for better quality video recordings 

 #4.Social Video Marketing. This form of marketing is growing more popular each day. Used to build relationships with your website visitors and strengthen your credibility by sharing personal and professional information about yourself.  

Recommended social websites are: 

www.t witter.com - use to leverage good followers such as prominent marketers and guru types. 

www. Facebook.com - used to get social with your customers. Best way to use Facebook is to create a front or company page as this will give you an unlimited number of people connected to you. Regular Facebook pages allow up to 5,000 friends. 

www. Linkedin.com - used more for business and professional networking.    

 #5.Viral Marketing. This marketing phenomenon facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message. It depends on a high pass-along rate from person to person. If a large number of recipients send something to a large number of friends, the overall growth snowballs quickly. You can use concepts or boxes like “forward to a friend”  “re-tweet this page” or create videos that go viral and spread it.