Filling a website with content is one thing, but getting visitors is an entirely different thing altogether. Many webmasters agree that the hardest part about starting a website is getting traffic to it. The good news is that there are a number of reliable traffic sources for newly created websites.
Each of the following traffic sources are free. In other words, these sources are the kind that you don’t need to pay for in order to continue seeing traffic from them. A few paid sources will briefly be mentioned at the end of this article for those who are interested in them.
Social Marketing
You’re probably familiar with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or Pinterest. You might even be familiar with more than the four mentioned. Each social network is a valid place from which to drive traffic to your newly created website. You just need to know how to do it.
While each social network has a “best” way to market your website, the best general advice is to keep advertisement polite. Use methods of advertisement that promote your website and provide some value to the people on these networks, such as posting infographics or blog excerpts. You should also make an effort to utilize things like fan pages, groups and other official features to represent your website. Then get your friends, co-workers and family to like or comment on the things that you release.
Yahoo! Answers
The goal to be helpful to other people will always bring in visitors to your website. This further extends to answering questions on Yahoo! Answers.
Your goal here is to find questions that your website can answer or provide more information about. Look for a question, type up an answer that successfully answers the poster’s question, and then drop a link to your website in the sources.
You will not only gain traffic to your newly created website from the Yahoo! Answers network, but you’ll indirectly gain it from Google searches too. Yahoo! Answers pages tend to rank highly in Google for some search phrases and thus you’ll gain traffic when people search for the best answer to one of their questions.
Article Marketing
There are a wide variety of articles sites from which people get information that they’re looking for. Some sites have an average of a few hundred thousand readers each day. Your website could potentially benefit from these visitors.
The way you use an article website like Ezinearticles is by writing content that people will find useful and search for. You may wish to do some keyword research before writing your articles, as part of the traffic article websites draw in come from search engines. Like Yahoo! Answers, article websites tend to rank highly and they also tend to rank highly when it comes to long-tail search phrases such as, “How can I get traffic to my new website?’
Viral Marketing
The goal with viral marketing is to make something that people love to send to their friends. This could be in the form of a video, a picture, a piece of writing or even an alternate reality game. The content can be humorous, dramatic, inspiring, heart-warming or anything else so long as it grabs people’s attention.
An outstanding example of viral marketing would be TED’s Prometheus video clip. It amassed hundreds of thousands of views overnight and was spread to a variety of channels on YouTube, Vimeo and other video sharing websites.
Your content doesn’t have to be as awe-inspiring as that video, it just needs to grab attention. Surprising facts about the main topic of your website, preferably narrated by someone with a voice that can capture attention, will do just as good. Add a watermark to your website and a short introduction to it at the beginning or end of your media. Then spread it to some people or post it on a social bookmarking website and let it take off from there.
The one disadvantage with viral marketing is that it doesn’t always take off on the first attempt. The key here is to try until it does.
Paid Traffic Options
Sometimes the above methods don’t generate enough traffic in a timely period for some webmasters. There are paid solutions that allow you to get traffic without having to have an extensive network of Facebook friends, Twitter followers or even a Level 2 Yahoo! Answers account.
Places like Fiverr are especially good at this. People will offer to tweet your website to 10,000 or more followers for just $5. They’ll do likewise for their Facebook friends or post a pin to their highly active Pinterest account.
If you are going to pay someone for traffic, then the one point to keep in mind is, “How long will this traffic last?” You also need to keep the question of, “Will the traffic coming from these places be related to my website?” When you find a service that answers both of these questions positively, then you’re likely to get the best amount of visitors for your buck.