5 Surefire Traffic Building Strategies for Local Web Sites

Are you experiencing the typical doldrums that goes with owning a business website with no traffic? Youre not alone; the fact of the matter is that a large majority of websites are so under-visited that they might as well not exist.

Face it, a well designed website with all the bells and whistles, beautiful graphics and even pertinent information is not going to return its potential unless people see it. But how do you get people to see your site, especially if you are on a tight budget?

The good news is there are a number of highly effective ways to drive targeted traffic to your web site. Most of these can be implemented for little or no capital outlay, so the only expense that will be incurred is the time involved in developing and producing the strategy.

In my experience, the five best ways to drive traffic to your site are:

1. Article Writing: Writing pertinent articles that are keyword rich and relate to the central theme of your site, will eventually pay off big dividends. I set aside Wednesday mornings each week and do nothing but compose and upload articles, both to my site and to article directories that will distribute them all over the web. Be sure that when you write your article you include what is referred to as a signature box with links back to your website and a contact link.

2. Offline Website Promotion: Here is one thing that is so out of the box that almost nobody thinks about it. I send out postcards to a targeted audience, offering a free report that will help them solve a problem related to their business. The only thing on the postcard is a message about the report and the address to a webpage where, in exchange for their email address, they can download the report. This works great and I get a large response at a very low cost per visitor.

3. Pay Per Click: It used to be Pay Per Click ads were ultra cheap, usually pennies per click. Unfortunately, those days seem to be in the past. You can however, still find keywords that relate to your topic at a fairly inexpensive rate. Pay Per Click works better for businesses selling products or services that are considered to be high end or companies that have an ongoing relationship with customers. If you want to learn about how to set up and run a successful Pay Per Click campaign, I highly recommend reading anything written by Perry Marshall, who is undoubtedly the guru of Adwords.

4. Blogging: Today it is easy to set up a free blogging account and begin to post blogs all within the space of a hour or two. Blogging gives you the opportunity to write on just about any subject and post it to the web. Once you become familiar with the how you can move on to more advance features, like RSS feeds, tagging and pinging your posts. The cool thing about blogging is that it is instantaneous; your message is live immediately.

5. Link Exchanges: Most website owners never consider the possibilities of linking to companies that are not competitors but who offer services that would compliment theirs, and visa versa. Think of an accountant who could offer a link to a business consultant, and the business consultant who would do the same for the accountant. Both would be able to recommend needed services to their clients that they themselves do not provide, thus becoming a valuable resource.

There are literally dozens of other traffic building strategies for your website, all of which have their merits. However, these five seem to work the best for local companies in a local environment. Whatever way you choose make sure to do something; if only because inaction will be a sure fire route to failure on the web.

The author, Michael Simmons, owned his own business for 27 years before going into web marketing. He now specializes in optimizing the web presence for local businesses through website development. You can visit his website at http://www.gmsimmons.com He also utilizes video, developing web video ads thru http://www.proweb-video.com He can be emailed at mike@gmsimmons.com