Traffic is the lifeblood of the internet. Without it, your webpages don’t do a whole lot but sit around and look pretty and if you’ve taken a look at the majority of websites out there, they rarely even do that ; ). To be a successful niche marketer, you need traffic, and lots of it. Quality over quantity anyday and preferably quality in quantity.

So, with that, we’ve got some incredible stuff to go over! The following ‘traffic strategies’ are a culmination of my personal experiences and the experiences of the amazing people I’ve worked with over the past few years. I’ve got 14 main strategies to share with you guys as well as a few sub-strategies here and there and explanations. Ready? Let’s get to it!

14 Traffic Strategies

1. One-Way Links – These are the heart and soul of traffic. The more quality one-way links, the better. Best of all are one-way links from sites that are ‘relevant’ to what you have to offer. If you have a website about dogs, getting links from a popular dog magazine’s website is going to be a big deal. Getting a one-way link from a siamese cat website is good, just not as good ; ). Here are some quick strategies for getting one-ways:

• Ask for them – The magic words! There’s nothing like sending someone a nice little email and watching the one-way links pop up. Yes, there is a lot more than just ‘asking’ yet sometimes that’s really all it takes. Remember, nothing happens if you don’t take action. The worse they can say is no and you can always ask why, ask what might change their mind, if anything. Learn from it and ask again : ).
• Write Hot Content – Write the stuff that people will want to link too. Articles are a good start, tutorials are even better. How about a few really good blog posts? (Be sure to write good comments on others and get some new readers!). Controversy works, just make sure that you think it through.. the internet has a very long memory ; ).
• Post Offsite Content – This includes blogs, forums, guest books, you name it. Look for places where you can contribute and.. contribute! On forums, be sure to have a signature with a one-way link back to your own website. On blog posts, add your URL under your name. Look for places to contribute and add something your mother would be proud of.
• Buy Them – Yes, when all else fails you can always buy links. Though generally frowned upon by search engine purists, link buying is a strategy that can work well. Invest in quality links, focusing on building relationships with people you buy from within your various niches.

2. PPC (Paid Traffic) – While buying links may be frowned upon by search engines, buying traffic from them definitey isn’t ; ). One of the fastest ways to get traffic to a brand new site is to buy it! AdWords is the big player in the PPC game right now as well as Yahoo’s Overture.com. Look forward to more on PPC in the future ; ).

3. Link Exchanges – For a good while, link exchanges were the way to score big on the search engines. These days, they still work but not quite like they used too. Focus on link exchanges within your niche when you do go for them. Also, consider giving ABC linking a shot ; ). Get together with 2 friends, link to friend one from your site, have friend one link to friend two, and friend two link back to you. One-way links through a link exchange and you’ve got 3 winners! That’s tough to beat ; ).

4. Content ‘By Lines’ – This is really just an advanced ‘one way’ link strategy, but it was big enough to warrant its own category. Tagging an author’s blurb at the end of your content can be a powerful way to drive highly targetted traffic to your niche websites. Here are a few tagging strategies:

• Write and Submit Articles – Write articles (or have them written) and submit them to article directories. Head over to places like goarticles and ezinearticles.com or just start searching. The cool thing about this is that other webmasters will often pick your articles up and ‘republish’ them, along with your author blurb.
• Write and ‘Submit’ Tutorials – This is a bit trickier than articles and, at the same time, often much more rewarding. Find a good subject and write a tutorial (or, again, have one written) and look for relevant places to submit them. If it’s a photoshop tutorial, you’re in luck (and competition!), head over to some of the big photoshop tutorial sites and just start submitting. Not a big market for your tutorial? That’s ok! Look for relevant websites and offer to share your tutorial with them.
• Write and Submit News Stories or “Hot Scoops” – One of the ultimate examples of this is to get ‘slashdotted’ ;). Submit news stories and offer your name and a link to your site for credit.

5. Friend Sending – This is what we call viral marketing or what my good friend Paulie Sabol would call, ‘fractal’ marketing. It’s the concept of creating something that people absolutely want to send off to the people they know. One way or another, they have an incentive to send, whether it’s sentamental value, a financial reward, or the knowledge that they’ve just scared the heck out of their buddy, people send things on for a reason. Here are a few ways you can encourage ‘friend sending’:

• Scare-A-Friend – There’s nothing like watching an apparently innocent little move clip, suddenly leaping a few feet back out of your chair as you get the noodles scared outta you, and then immediately sending the clip on to your friends. Create a site with something scary and have easy ways to send it on, perhaps even ways to personalize the scare!
• Quiz Show-Off – People love taking quizzes and when the results are good (or even bad!) they love showing them off! Share quizzes through your website and once they’ve got their results, include ways for them to post and share their results with others, including a link for their friends to take the same quiz! This stuff spreads fast.. really fast :). Make the quiz good!
• Tell-A-Friend – Ever seen those little scripts? Believe it or not, people actually use them ; ). Put tell-a-friend scripts up on your websites and encourage people to use them! It helps to have something that people want to tell others about ; ).

6. Contest Traffic – Similiar to friend sending, contest traffic is traffic stemming from an often much more incentivized individual. An obvious application of this is a contest focused on.. yup.. sending traffic ; ). Less obvious ways are contests that encourage people to share their results with others. Perhaps a contest that requires ‘voting’, which sends contestants off in search of as many voters as they can get. Be creative, the traffic will flow : ).

7. Organic Search Engine Traffic – Ahh, the holy grail of traffic, being ranked in the top 10 for a popular search term.. there’s not a much like it ; ). There is a LOT you can do to help improve your rankings and sometimes, it just happens. The most important thing is that in the long run (sometimes it seems like the very long run) good content wins out. Focus on providing quality and keeping it up. Keep those links coming in, keep adding in the fresh stuff. Keep your site clean and focused.. the organic goodness will follow : ). Here’s a quick tip:

• Submit Your Sitemap – Generate an XML sitemap and submit it! Google has a great little submission process which I’ve had some extraordinary success with in my brief experimentations. Check out Google Sitemaps for more!

Wow! And that’s only 7! It’s getting late and I’ve got a few more projects to work on, so the next 7 will have to wait a bit ; ). Look forward to them and I look forward to hearing from each of you!

Have any of your own strategies to share? I’m always up for making the next post more than 7 ; ). Send ’em on over! I look forward to hearing from you!

-Jonathan Wold