Generating Traffic to a Website

[KevinG]

Someone asked for ideas on another forum for generating traffic to a website.

In general SEO and search engine traffic is always at the top of my list, but here are some other ideas as well:

1. MySpace - even though I think it is one of the stupidest things in the world, it actually does help to have a MySpace page with content and links pointing to your regular web site. I have tested and proven it personally. Disclaimer: It doesn't work for everything and it is not as great as some would have you believe, but every little bit helps.

2. Blogs - Another web 2.0 thing that works too. Blogs can get good rankings that "regular" web sites don't. Having a blog on topic with your non-blog site with links poiting in can help too.

3. Forums - using outside forums and having your own forum on topic and linking in is another traffic generator. I consider this the old school comparison to the new school social networking crap like MySpace.

4. RSS Feeds - Offer rss feeds of your content for individual users to subscribe to and for other websites to publish.

5. Publish Outstanding Content - Some of the largest sites that have become "Authority Sites" got that way by making substantial investments in producing and publishing their own outstanding, high quality exclusive content - content that is so good that other sites can't help but point 1-way links to it. Bam! There's goes your click traffic and your SE rankings through the roof.

6. Viral - "Send to a Friend" links, function buttons to link to your content on other social retard sites like Digg, Stumble Upon, del.icio.us, and others.

7. Free Content for 1-way links - Offer a "Pic of the Day", Articles and other free content to webmasters in exchange for a link back. There are article syndication sites you can submit your articles to.

8. Affiliates - have an affiliate program where webmasters can promote you for a commission on sales.

9. Link exchange - the old fashioned link exchange still works, but only in moderation with on topic sites from "good neighborhoods".

10. Buy other sites - One of my "Secrets to Success" has been ocassionally finding another site in my niche that has built up content and traffic over time, but just never broke out into a full time job for the owner and they are ready to sell the site for a reasonable amount.

One example - I started with Cigar-Review.com and later bought CigarReview.com (without the dash). The site had been online for 8 years and had a ton of inbound links. I bought it for $500 and 301 re-directed it. Google PR, traffic and rankings went through the roof almost overnight.

11. Other things you can try are toplists, press release distribution and 4-page "Free Sites" submitted to link lists if you are in the adult content subscription business.

[Hammer]

I have a MySpace page with over 800 friends but I can't bring myself to go there anymore. If I have to see one more fucked up idiotic background, impossible to read, music playing MySpace page I'm gonna puke.

[KevinG]

... well let me copy / paste a "vent" I did on Hammer's Ventibate site:

The huge popularity of MySpace is further proof that 99% of the world population are ****ing imbeciles!

It kills me that all these people really think that those other 1,000 people are really their "friends". Dumb ****s.

I want to kill someone when I go to a MySpace page and it starts playing some crappy music. And then they these idiotic designs to express how creative they are at making your screen have to scroll from left to right to see the whole page.

****ing morons. You are not a web site designer and it shows. Stop fooling yourself

Oh, and another thing. Nobody cares what your favorite **** is and no one wants to look at your skanky pictures either.

Someone please blow up MySpace. I will give you $1,000.

I turned on the profanity filter. You can see it unedited here:
http://ventibate.com/?method=showthread&id=5082

I bet that won't get me any more MySpace friends.

[Hell Puppy]

Most of the tricks and gimmicks that used to allow us to just throw up a site and instantly rain hits down on it just flat out dont work anymore. Free link lists and what not produce minimal traffic. TGP soaks your content and bandwidth without a lot of return.

The one thing that has always been true and I think will stay true is that if you produce unique entertaining or at least amusing content, traffic will come naturally with time and a little search engine savvy.

...or you can just buy the traffic.

[AdultInsider Cloner]

All good suggestions. In regards to blogs, I've found that if you set up a "Master Blog" which is actually the one you want to generate traffic for your site and then set up a dozen or so "slave" blogs, that don't have any obvious connection with your site, but feed your Master blog, it works really well.