Over the past decade, the web has grown to such a scale that there are websites covering every single topic under the sun. Due to the sheer scale of it, it is near impossible to pin point the exact number of websites which are on the web; however, statistics show that in February 2007 there were an estimated 29.7 billion pages on web. Taking into consideration the speed in which the web has grown since it’s beginnings in the 1990’s, it is safe to say that this number has increased greatly over the past three years. When it comes to using the internet in connection to our business, targeting the right customers can be hard due to the level of competition our website has. There are various methods in which we may attempt to attract the right visitors as a means to increase our traffic, but some of the most effective methods are in actual fact the cheapest and easiest methods.

Increasing your website’s traffic is all about making your presence known on the web. Marketing and advertising strategies are the main way in which to do this, but in terms of traditional business these can be costly and take sometime to be effective. However, the internet is a fast paced business which allows for your campaigns to be made live in a much shorter space of time, as well as lowering your costs to almost nothing. One of the best ways in which to target visitors is through the use of back links. These can be placed on a wide variety of sites which gain high traffic such as social networking websites and blog sites, but can also be placed on other sites which you can partner up with, exchanging links. When using back links, the first thing you must take into consideration is what your website/product is and what your target market is. In doing this, you will have a clearer idea of what the best sites will be for you to target as irrelevant sites or sites which receive a low level of traffic will be of no use to your website. If you are fortunate to have capital to use, you can also use the aid of Pay per Click schemes. Large search engine sites such as Google can offer this to you but before deciding on this as a means to help your traffic, think about how much you can honestly afford as not to risk a loss in profits.

As businesses look for cheap ways in which to promote their websites, there has been a great increase in the amount of blogs and article directory sites on the web. These allow you to promote your product or service, as well as providing a link back to your website all for the simple exchange of your content on the website. This is a great way in which to gain more back links to your website, as well as s great method of advertising and self promotion. Different websites will have their own guidelines in terms of what you may submit to their sites, but in most cases this is one of the easiest ways in which to promote your business for free. The more external websites you use, the more links you will accumulate on the web which will help your overall traffic level. However, ensure you submit content to reputable sites which have some kind of relevance to your website so that you are targeting the right visitors for your market.

Finally there is one of the most beneficial forms of advertisement- word of mouth marketing. This is not necessarily something which you can achieve yourself, but rather a method of marketing which is completed by your current customers and visitors for free. Word of mouth marketing works by users of your site adding their own back links on to websites in the form of link sharing. Many companies and websites have benefited from this increasing their traffic thanks to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The way in which you can help this become possible is by providing a website and service which is worth talking about. By doing your own part in terms of promoting your website and your own marketing strategies on sites such as these, they are more likely to be noticed by visitors who will then be motivated to visit them. If they like what they see, they can then use bookmarking and other back linking methods to share with other web users they know, thus providing you with free marketing.

Generating traffic to your site is simple when you take into consideration what is right for your website. By looking at the way in which other websites are using the web to promote themselves, you too will soon discover the benefits which come from using simple, yet effective marketing techniques and see your traffic levels soar.