Traffic Generation is hard, problematic, and confusing.
I WANT TO DEMYSTIFY THAT IDEA RIGHT NOW. THE ONLY REAL TRAFFIC
GENERATING "SECRETS" ARE JUST METHODS YOU HAVEN'T LEARNED ABOUT YET. Once you
understand the basic rules governing how people find Web Sites, you will never
again be at a loss for traffic-generating ideas.
1) EVERYTHING IS
CONNECTED - The internet consists of millions of Web servers. While not all of
these servers are linked directly to one another, they are inevitably linked
within their own "mini nets". What does this mean, exactly? Well, PEOPLE
DISCOVER NEW WEB SITES IN THREE MAIN WAYS: by inputting keywords into a serch
engine like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc; by clicking on links in articles or
advertisements; by word of mouth - online (e.g., mentions in forums or chat
rooms) or offline (e.g, via business cards, stickers, classifieds, radio,
etc.).
Almost everyone knows about google, yahoo, msn, ebay, and so forth.
Those are some of rhe most popular search engines right off the top of my head.
Most people have the addresses memorized and know how to get to them without
searching for them. Sites like google and Yahoo are the first places people go
when they want to perform a specific search. Sites like MSN and AOL are often
set as "start pages" or "home pages" - meaning they are the first sites a
person's web browser goes to when the get online. So these types of sites
represent major hubs of internet activity - like the airports or bus stations of
internet. A majority of people start from there but can pursue an unlimited
number of destinations because these sites are heavily linked sources of
information. You can click on news article, a search result, an advertisement...
and suddently you find yourself at a site you may not have seen before. This
"new" site will also be linked to other sites, which link to other sites, witch
link to... you get the idea. You can start in a familiar place and keep clicking
link after link until you arrive at a Web site you have never seen
before.
2) IT IS ALL ABOUT LINKS - In order for someone to get to your
site, they need to hear it, to see it, or write it down and then type it into
the adress bar of their browser; or they could click on an active hyperlink
(this can be a text link or graphical link) from another Web sites or from
within an e-mail. It followa, then, that
what you need to do to generate
traffic to your site is get your URL on many other sites as possible.
You do this in the folling ways:
- Advertising (buying text or banner adson other sites);
- Creating content (e.g., articles, press releases, viral reports);
- Networking with other site and list owners;
- Linking to your site within forums, newsgroups, testimonials, classified
ads, product reviews, blog comments, videos, etc.
The possibilities
are limitless. The key point is that there are opportunities all around. THERE
IS ALWAYS A WAY TO GET MORE
LINKS
BACK TO YOUR SITE. The more links you have out there, the more traffic you
are going get.
What do you need to
get started? To get started, you just need a few things.
Firstly, you need to buy a domain name. A domain name
is something like www.something.com, www.anewwebsite.ca, etc. Try and pick a
domain that reflects the title of your website. For the domain name we will use
go
daddy and their private registration
service.
Second, you
need a Hosting. What is hosting? Hosting is basically some space on a web server
(a fancy computer) where your website files (like photos, videos, HTML, etc)
reside. When somone types in your domain name, the web server then serves your
site to the visitor.
For hosting, we tend to use HOSTGATOR. ONCE ON THEIR
SITE (USING THE LINK BELOW), GO TO THE "WEB HOSTING" SECTION AND SIGN UP FOR THE
HATCHING PLAN.
Third, LINKS
BACK TO YOUR
SITE.
