How do you increase traffic to your website for free?

[kally]

Hello Friends...

Share some tips to increase traffic to your website for free.


Thanks in advance

[mike@engagemarketing]

The easiest ways are:

• participate in social media with good, valuable opinions. If people like what you say and you prove yourself to be knowledgeable, you are likely to have them checking your link
• find relevant businesses and do a link-exchange between your sites and theirs
• volunteer your time and write an article for a website that will give you a link to your website in return

Many of these won't provide an immediate traffic boost, but a steady one over time as search engine's like your site more.

[objectman]

Naturally, there's a great wiki for this one.
http://www.wikihow.com/Increase-Webs...affic-for-Free

But it's a good idea to sign up for google analytics (also free) so you can keep track of where your readers are coming from.

[Aidan]

Backlinks, lots of them.

Get them from guest posting on other folks blogs, commenting on blogs, distribution of articles and press releases, writing and commenting on social sites, social bookmarks, beg existing well ranked sites for links, etc

Put your links in emails, forum signatures (cough...), write your url on light pole tear offs, community notice boards. Write your URL on your car, your dog, give stickers to your kids, have the url imprinted on your thongs so you leave a trail of urls when you go for walks on the beach.

OK I'm being a little OTT but the point is get links and URL mentions any way you can!

[objectman]

The thong idea is cool - esp. right after a rain, but before the sun comes out again and at low tide

[GMHost]

Don't go for cheap overseas hosting, your website simply will not be shown in search results. More info here: www.gmhost.com.au/overseas.html

[MatthewKeath]

Originally Posted by GMHost

Don't go for cheap overseas hosting, your website simply will not be shown in search results. More info here: www.gmhost.com.au/overseas.html

Hmmm, not sure I argee. Any .com.au is already associated with Australia and you can set your target location in Webmaster tools anyway. For free. IE you don't need to pay $200 more per year for this privilege.

In turn, if your web server is outside of your geographical search area, your website simply will not be shown in search results*

A quick Google search and testing with your own tool proves this to be false. This was from your website.

I don't mind promoting Aussie hosting, but you need to stick to the facts and not scare people.

Speed is a issue - if you can notice .001 of a second. You could show people 100 sites hosted here or overseas and people will only guess to which is which. Would Youtube.com or Google.com.au or Facebook.com or au.yahoo.com be faster if they were hosted here? We will never know, but it doesn't stop the millions of Aussies that use these everyday

And yes, I lease my server from the US because I get great service, technology, and price.

[Webolution]

Originally Posted by MatthewKeath

Any .com.au is already associated with Australia and you can set your target location in Webmaster tools anyway. For free. IE you don't need to pay $200 more per year for this privilege.

Spot on. As Matthew said, even for top level domains such as .com's and .net's, you can set the geographic target in webmaster tools - so hosting in the US is not really an issue.

Do the small things correctly to start with (quality content, valid markup, keyword placement) and then focus on backlinks and other forms of advertising once the basics are in place.

Let us know how you go Kally.

Cheers,
Joel

[Aidan]

Would have to agree that where your host is located is pretty much irrelevant as long as the server is up and running well, its simply not correct to go scaremongering like on that web page!

[webdigger]

Here are some things you could do to increase traffic. Obviously this is not exhaustive and some are more suggestions are more important than others for driving traffic and improving rankings.

# Start a blog if you don't have one
# Get involved in social media - Twitter, Facebook, etc
# Make sure your business is listed in the Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) in your market - Truelocal, Street Local, Brown Book, Google Business Listing, etc
# Claim you blog on Technorati and other blog submission sites
# Make sure you're on LinkedIn
# Share your site on Digg, Stumbleupon
# Comment on other blogs and forums which you can include your URL
# Publish articles to article submission directories such as ezine articles
# Submit your RSS feed to agregator sites
# Create a squidoo page
# Make sure your website and pages load quickly
# Create and XML sitemap
# Start an affiliate program to promote your services
# Try capturing contact details of people as soon as the visit your website so you can follow up with them in the future. Offer something for free?
# Create You Tube videos for "universal search"
# Create a wordpress theme or Browser tool bar widget