Copyright 2005 Jim Edwards

Not a day goes by that any serious website owner doesn’t wonder
how to get more traffic to their site.

This intense desire to generate more clicks makes virtually any
online entrepreneur easy prey to many of the traffic schemes and
scams that pervade the Internet like conmen on a carnival
midway.

Promises of fast traffic and big bucks often separate even the
most savvy business person from their money because they want to
believe the promises made by these traffic hucksters.

However, rather than thinking “complicated equals better” in the
traffic game, the best website traffic sources rate extremely
easy to separate from the useless garbage traffic.

Fact: “Good Traffic” equals “Targeted Traffic!”

That means the visitors come as a result of desire to find out
more on a specific, niche topic, not as a result of “exit”
traffic or membership in a “safe” list where members simply
pitch each other in an incestuous spam fest.

Good traffic comes from people clicking links on topics targeted
to their interests and getting directed to a website containing
information they want and expect as a result of clicking the
link.

Bottom line, when you get right down to it, the best, most
dependable sources of targeted traffic come from links that
people click.

So, next time you’re considering spending money on a traffic
source, understand that unless it involves a targeted link that
a targeted visitor can click to get to your website, think twice
before opening up your wallet.

To my knowledge, only three ways exist to get a link to your
site: buy it, “voodoo” it, or grow it.

** Buy Links**

Buying links actually rates the fastest way to get traffic to
your website.

You simply sign up for Google AdWords at Google.com or you open
an account with Overture.com.

You then run ads with a link on those sites and any time someone
clicks the link, you pay for the click through a relatively
straightforward bidding process based on the popularity of the
keyword.

You can also buy links in ezines, newsletters, and on other
people’s website either on a per-click basis, for a period of
time (a week or month), or in exchange for paying them a
commission if a sale gets made as a result of a click on the
link.

** Linking “VoodDoo” **

Linking “voodoo” refers to attempting to manipulate the search
engines into displaying links to your website.

You can find a large number of automated software programs
online at any given time that will claim to help you get more
search engine traffic.

Depending on the intensity of competition in a specific market
and the fact that search engines change their rules frequently,
pursuing search engine links this way can quickly turn into the
online equivalent of Alice chasing the rabbit down the hole.

** Grow Links **

I personally prefer this method to get links to my websites:
growing them.

The best type of link to get involves one person telling another
person, either explicitly or implicitly, they should click the
link and visit the site at the other end.

One way to do this is simply to exchange links with another site
which targets the same audience as your site.

You can manage this process manually or use one of the many
software packages that will mange the process for you.

A search on Google.com for “reciprocal link manager software”
yields a good start.

The easiest way to grow a link is through using articles other
people post on their websites which link back to your website.

The reason articles work so well for “growing” links involves
the numerous ways in which articles get distributed online, each
of which can create dozens, hundreds, even thousands of
different links back to your website by publishing a single
article.

In fact, the following represent only the tip of the iceberg
when it comes to all the places you can grow links by publishing
articles online.

~ Blogs – Your articles can not only appear on your own blog,
but get posted by others on their blogs with surprising ease.

The links in these articles can point directly back to your
website.

~ Article Directories – Article directories such as
IdeaMarketers.com abound online.

They not only provide an easy way to display your articles to
allow others to pick them up for posting on their websites, but
also in and of themselves attract readers searching for content.

~ OPS (Other People’s Sites) – Popular websites like
WebProNews.com attract repeat visitors by offering targeted
content to their readers.

Since they can’t produce all the content themselves, they
publish articles created by others. Links from these sites can
bring a steady stream of targeted visitors by giving you
targeted exposure.

~ Ezines – By getting your articles published in other people’s
ezines, you can get a link on the most valuable real estate
online, a targeted prospect’s email “inbox.”

Many ezine publishers run articles written by others to their
targeted readers, and your link in the resource box can bring
you a veritable avalanche of targeted site visitors when
hundreds, even thousands of people receive your article at the
same time.

Whether you choose to buy them, “voodoo” them, or grow them,
getting targeted links to your site posted on the Internet
represents the absolute best way to get steady traffic to your
site.

Though not as fast as buying them or as exciting as trying to
manipulate the search engines, growing links with articles gives
you a long-term, dependable presence online.

Jim Edwards
http://www.articlesbase.com/ecommerce-articles/the-3-best-website-traffic-sources-1094.html

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