One of the most popular questions we receive here at Hypergurl is "How do I get more visitors to my site?" Obviously this is easier to do if you have an endless supply of cash. With little or no advertising dollars behind you, it's not impossible, it just takes more time and effort.
1. Register your own Domain Name and give Free hosting the flick
Free hosting is ok for personal sites but if your serious about getting visitors or promoting your business, then getting your own domain name and paying for hosting, gives your site added credibility.
Long url's, pop up ads and slow loading pages detract from the quality of your site.
Looking successful is important. It also helps you get listed higher in search results which means more visitors. Make sure the name you pick is a logical name pertaining to the subject matter of your site and isn't too long to remember or easy to misspell.
2. Submit Your Site to Search Engines
After you have your meta tags in place, submitting your site to search engines yourself, always gives the best results. Read our report on Understanding Meta Tags to learn how to make them effective for search engines to start with.
Think it's sufficient to submit your site only to the few "major" search engines? Think again! While the larger engines admittedly make up MOST of the traffic you'll receive, smaller engines still make up nearly 10%.
Can you afford to lose out on THAT much business simply because you didn't take the time to submit your site EVERYWHERE!?! Probably not!
For that reason, we suggest visiting ALL engines and adding your site everywhere.
Targetted traffic is even more important when selling your products online, so consider using a "pay per click" search engine, such as Kanoodle.com
Using the "pay per click" method, your visitor is definitely looking for the product you sell to buy, therefore the chance of a sale from that visitor is greatly improved and the cost can be as little as one cent per click.
This does not have to cost a fortune as you set the maximum amount to be spent in line with your budget and stipulate how much per click that you pay.
3. Offline Advertising:
Don't forget that offline advertising for your website is just as important as what you do online and can bring your website valuable traffic. You don't need to spend thousands of dollars. Just a few dollars invested in the right areas can return huge dividends.
A cheap and effective way to advertise your website address is with the use of car stickers. People will often read promotional advertising such as back window stickers and bumper stickers of the car in front, when driving or waiting at stop lights. Place a sticker on your own car and give some to your friends.
You should also include your url and email address on all personal and company correspondence, letters and business cards. Use this medium to it's fullest extent.
4. Start A Newsletter :
Newsletters bring customers back to your site on a regular basis. Every webmaster should offer a way for surfers to sign up for a regular email notice. You can send specials, freebies or even site updates notices. The key is to keep in touch with the people you manage to get to your site. It's hard work getting traffic, don't let them leave without offering to stay in touch! If your webhost doesn't supply you with one then you can start your own free mailing list at Topica.
5. Message boards and Guestbooks
Message boards and guestbooks are a great way to get your name out. Wherever you see a guestbook, sign it. You can find a tutorial for leaving your banner in a guestbook
Look for message boards which suit the content of your site and take an honest part in their community. Say a kind word or help a fellow member out and at the end of your post, include your url. Don't, however, go into message boards only to promote, promote, promote, such as "Come check out my site" This could have the reverse effect.
6. Banner exchanges and Webrings
Join banner exchanges and webrings which are similar to the content of your site. Or start one of your own.
7. Be Creative
Your success at attracting repeat visitors is as important as attracting first time visitors, so be creative about promoting your site to them. An occasional contest giveaway, does wonders.
You could maybe include a scavenger hunt, where your visitors find clues within the content of your site. It's a proven way to get them to read important sections. Prizes may include one year advertising on your site or in your banner exchange.
8. Change Content Often
Changing or adding content often also helps, as does making your site more interactive with messageboards, chat rooms, newsletters and email services.
9. Set your Automatic Email Signatures
Set your automatic email signatures. That way your url will be displayed on every outgoing email you send. The more people see your url, the greater the chance they'll visit.
10. Check our blog out often for new ideas
Our weblog for webmasters has a category specifically for discussing visitor traffic ideas. Recent ideas include social bookmarking, video and company jigsaw promotion.
1. Register your own Domain Name and give Free hosting the flick
Free hosting is ok for personal sites but if your serious about getting visitors or promoting your business, then getting your own domain name and paying for hosting, gives your site added credibility.
Long url's, pop up ads and slow loading pages detract from the quality of your site.
Looking successful is important. It also helps you get listed higher in search results which means more visitors. Make sure the name you pick is a logical name pertaining to the subject matter of your site and isn't too long to remember or easy to misspell.
2. Submit Your Site to Search Engines
After you have your meta tags in place, submitting your site to search engines yourself, always gives the best results. Read our report on Understanding Meta Tags to learn how to make them effective for search engines to start with.
Think it's sufficient to submit your site only to the few "major" search engines? Think again! While the larger engines admittedly make up MOST of the traffic you'll receive, smaller engines still make up nearly 10%.
Can you afford to lose out on THAT much business simply because you didn't take the time to submit your site EVERYWHERE!?! Probably not!
For that reason, we suggest visiting ALL engines and adding your site everywhere.
Targetted traffic is even more important when selling your products online, so consider using a "pay per click" search engine, such as Kanoodle.com
Using the "pay per click" method, your visitor is definitely looking for the product you sell to buy, therefore the chance of a sale from that visitor is greatly improved and the cost can be as little as one cent per click.
This does not have to cost a fortune as you set the maximum amount to be spent in line with your budget and stipulate how much per click that you pay.
3. Offline Advertising:
Don't forget that offline advertising for your website is just as important as what you do online and can bring your website valuable traffic. You don't need to spend thousands of dollars. Just a few dollars invested in the right areas can return huge dividends.
A cheap and effective way to advertise your website address is with the use of car stickers. People will often read promotional advertising such as back window stickers and bumper stickers of the car in front, when driving or waiting at stop lights. Place a sticker on your own car and give some to your friends.
You should also include your url and email address on all personal and company correspondence, letters and business cards. Use this medium to it's fullest extent.
4. Start A Newsletter :
Newsletters bring customers back to your site on a regular basis. Every webmaster should offer a way for surfers to sign up for a regular email notice. You can send specials, freebies or even site updates notices. The key is to keep in touch with the people you manage to get to your site. It's hard work getting traffic, don't let them leave without offering to stay in touch! If your webhost doesn't supply you with one then you can start your own free mailing list at Topica.
5. Message boards and Guestbooks
Message boards and guestbooks are a great way to get your name out. Wherever you see a guestbook, sign it. You can find a tutorial for leaving your banner in a guestbook
Look for message boards which suit the content of your site and take an honest part in their community. Say a kind word or help a fellow member out and at the end of your post, include your url. Don't, however, go into message boards only to promote, promote, promote, such as "Come check out my site" This could have the reverse effect.
6. Banner exchanges and Webrings
Join banner exchanges and webrings which are similar to the content of your site. Or start one of your own.
7. Be Creative
Your success at attracting repeat visitors is as important as attracting first time visitors, so be creative about promoting your site to them. An occasional contest giveaway, does wonders.
You could maybe include a scavenger hunt, where your visitors find clues within the content of your site. It's a proven way to get them to read important sections. Prizes may include one year advertising on your site or in your banner exchange.
8. Change Content Often
Changing or adding content often also helps, as does making your site more interactive with messageboards, chat rooms, newsletters and email services.
9. Set your Automatic Email Signatures
Set your automatic email signatures. That way your url will be displayed on every outgoing email you send. The more people see your url, the greater the chance they'll visit.
10. Check our blog out often for new ideas
Our weblog for webmasters has a category specifically for discussing visitor traffic ideas. Recent ideas include social bookmarking, video and company jigsaw promotion.
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