7 Ways to Generate Targeted Traffic to Your Site

Imagine having a business in the middle of the desert. You won't make many sales will you? That's what a website with no traffic or visitors is like. But it's not just traffic that brings you sales, you need to generate targeted traffic.

Here's 7 techniques for getting targeted traffic to your site:

1) Article Directories:

Write 300-700 word articles related to your sites traffic and post them to article directory sites. If this sounds like a lot of work you can outsource it through sites like scriptlance.com, elance.com and others.

You can post a job that you need to get done and qualified professionals from around the world will compete for your business. Many times you can get jobs done for nearly nothing. I have someone that writes articles for me for around $5 to $8 an article depending on the length. Once completed, she sends me the articles where I then just copy and paste them into the article directories.

However, I'll bet that if you tried to, you could easily write an article about your product or service. It's not that hard... and once you start you'll find that a few hundred words is not that long.

2) Blogging:

Set up a blog or blogs on free blog hosting sites and post summaries of your articles on them with links back to your main site. The best blogging program is definitely Wordpress, but Joomla and Blogger also offer free blogs.

Blogs are simple to set up and you can customize your templates to change the look of your blog.

Search engines absolutely love blogs because blogs are full of fresh content. And the reward for this many times is high rankings at search engines like google, yahoo and msn. You can also post comments on others blogs, but don't spam! Post legitimate comments and include your website link in your signature.

3) PPC search engines:

I have always used pay-per-click at sites like Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN Adcenter as one of my main marketing techniques. What I like about PPC is the you get immediate traffic. You simply decide on the top keywords that match your topic and drive traffic to your site with the PPC engines with these keywords.

Now definitely there is much more to it than that, but what I am getting across here is that you get targeted traffic FAST!. However, I highly advise that you research ppc marketing before jumping in. It can be very rewarding... but on the flip side, it can be very costly as well.

4) Social Networking Sites:

Setup accounts at places like facebook, myspace, squidoo, twitter and others. Become part of the community and above all... BE REAL! Remember, at social media sites you don't want to spam or come across as a marketer. Create relationships and be an asset to the site and its members.

5) Press Releases:

This is a great way to get traffic to your site that you would never get otherwise. Create a curiousity building press releases and submit them on a regular basis through the press distribution networks such as PRWeb, PRLeap, WebWire and others.

They should be 400 to 500 words in length and submit at least a couple of press releases per month. Insert points and facts and don't make them promotional. Also, be sure to include a call to action somewhere in your release.

6) Forums and Groups:

Join forums and groups related to your target market. Become a part of them. Ask questions, answer questions and be an asset to the site. Do NOT market to the people in the forums but you can create a compelling signature to include a link to your site or product which will be entered at the bottom of all your posts.

7) Q & A sites:

Have a friend or two post questions about your niche to sites like yahoo answers, and answer the questions. The questions need to be legitimate or you'll be seen as a huckster.

Trying to use all seven ways to get targeted traffic to your site may be overwhelming... but you could just try and focus on mastering just one of the above techniques. And when you get good at that technique, then you could incorporate one of the other techniques as well.