Fifteen Ways to Boost Your Web Site Traffic

Contributed by Deb Powers

Fifteen Ways to Boost Your Web Site Traffic

Are you looking for ways to boost the traffic to your web site? Here are fifteen suggestions for things that you can do without resorting to professional help or spending a single cent.

Tune up your web site to boost traffic from search engines.

Most of the first time traffic to your web site will come to you through search engines. Experts claim that people seldom look beyond the first page or two of search engine results to find what they're looking for, so it makes sense to do everything possible to boost your standings in the search engine rankings and get listed on the front page. Here are five tips from experts to help you increase your web site's visibility to search engines.

1. Fill in your META description and keywords in the HEAD information on EVERY SINGLE PAGE on your web site.

2. Make your keywords specific. Narrow your field of focus, in other words. If you sell fishing lures, use 'fishing lure' instead of 'fishing'. The traffic you attract will be looking for fishing lures, not great places to fish. Added bonus: since the results returned will be smaller, you stand a much better chance of appearing near the top of the list.

3. Use the ALT field in your IMG tags to describe your pictures - with keywords. Search engine spiders can't see your pictures, but they will read the descriptions.

4. Stay away from sleazy tricks like white on white text to load your page with keyword terms. Search engine algorithms are increasingly sophisticated, and tactics like that can get you banned from a search service.

5. Update your site with fresh content regularly, especially for the first weeks after submitting to a search engine. Search engine spiders will return more often and list you higher if your content changes frequently.

Publicize your web site to boost traffic through other markets.

You don't want to rely exclusively on search engine traffic, though. Some of these tactics serve double-duty - they'll publicize your web site AND increase your visibility to search engines.

6. Exchange links with other web masters, but be selective. Search engine ranking is affected by the number of links to your site, but the newer algorithms take into account the similarity of content. If another site that carries similar content to yours is linked to your site, the search engine will rank your web site higher.

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