How To Generate Website Traffic

Here are the three most popular ways to generate site traffic and resources that help implement each program:

E-mail Newsletters: Ubiquitous, often overdone, but still potentially very effective. Since websites are a form of 'pull' communications [i.e. people seek them out and pull the content] e-mail newsletters can be the perfect 'push' antidote. Given the right content with a focused call to action e-mail newsletters can generate significant traffic. Some of our favorite vendors and articles regarding e-newsletters are:

• bCentral List Builder: This application from Microsoft allows you to manage an e-mail database, review reports on the effectiveness of e-mails sent, manage subscribe and unsubscribes etc.
• Grow Your E-mail List: A concise article on e-mail list building strategies from Constant Contact.
• E-Newsletter Content Ideas: An excellent article from Michael Katz who wrote the book "E-Newsletters That Work: The Small Business Owner's Guide to Creating, Writing and Publishing an Effective Electronic Newsletter."
• E Newsletter Strategies: Subscribe to the ClickZ e-newsletter about e-newsletters!

Search Engine Optimization [SEO]: Everyone knows they should be doing it, some people pay exorbitant fees to get it done, but most website owners have neglected any serious attempt to increase their search engine rankings. But the truth is SEO does not have to be difficult. SEO is very different today than it was a short time ago. Only 5 engines drive over 95% of web traffic and the techniques for getting high rankings are becoming more similar for each engine. Some of our favorite vendors and articles regarding SEO are:

• Web Position Gold: This is a great application that once set up basically runs by itself. Web position has been acknowledged as one of the most effective SEO tools by a variety of industry critics.
• Search Engine Tips: A concise article on how to optimize web pages for search engines from Market Position.
• Search Engine Strategies: Subscribe to a great newsletter specifically about SEO produced by ClickZ.

Links: Most every site pre-1996, had a links page and its become even more important today. Besides being a direct way to generate traffic, search engines use the amount of links, and quality of each, to asertain a site's relevance - and relevance is becoming a key factor in determing a site's ranking. For more information on linking see:

• Link Strategies: Excellent articles by Eric Ward on increasing traffic by linking other sites to yours.
• 360 Web Marketing: A consulting company that develops Link campaigns.