Think you're ready to start building your website traffic? Before you start spending time and money on getting visitors to your site, be sure your site is ready for them. Is your sales copy complete? Is there a clear way to purchasing your products/services? Do you have all the information available that your visitors require?

If your site is really ready then you need to get yourself some traffic, here's some basic information on getting started:

There are many many ways to get traffic to your website. Which method you will use will depend on what you are promoting on your site and how much you can afford to spend on promotion.

It is important that your traffic is targeted, there is no point in getting 100,000 people to a site that sells something they are not interested in. You are much better off getting 100 people to a site that are looking for that product, they will be much more likely to want what your site has to offer them.

Here are some common methods for getting more visitors to your website:

· Search Engine Optimization

· Pay Per Click Ads

· Link Building

· Writing Articles

· Forums/Discussion Groups

· Ads

· Offline

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - In order to start doing SEO you need to choose keywords (or keyword phrases), then optimize your site for those keywords. Don't just pick a word that describes your product (like 'handmade soap') and start working. You need to research your keywords. This is very important because you want to find keywords that are going to bring you the most targeted traffic, and if you are competing with thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of other sites it will be difficult to get a high ranking in the search engines. You will also have to get your site indexed with the search engines to start working your way up to top ranks in the search results. Yahoo and Google are two important search engines to be sure you are listed in.

Pay Per Click (PPC) - PPC is a great way to start seeing immediate results for your efforts. You create an ad, pick the amount you are willing to pay, and then when someone clicks on your ad you pay for that click. It is also very important to target your keywords to get targeted buying traffic heading to your site. Be careful that you are not spending more on ads than you will make from the sales, this is why tracking is very important. Here are two sites where you can set up Pay-per-click campaigns:

Overture – http://www.overture.com

Google Adwords – http://www.adwords.google.com

Link Building - Link building is another way to get qualified traffic to your website. If you are comfortable linking to other competing sites you could contact the site owner and request they exchange links with you. There are also many other types of sites that you could do a link exchange with, anything that relates to your products and industry. I once contacted a site owner to request a link exchange, she email me back and suggested she do an article on my company and products (and she was a professional writer with a published book)! So you never know what could happen once you start contacting people, this is also another form of networking.

Writing Articles - You might be thinking.... ‘I can't write articles, I'm not a writer'. Well let me assure you, you can. Writing about what you know isn't hard, and when you speak from the heart you'll be amazed at how much you can actually write. By writing articles and submitting them to different article submission sites you will gain credibility in your industry and exposure to your site by providing a link at the end of the article. Here are a few sites where you can submit articles, there are many sites so do a search and find the ones that are right for you:

Ezine Articles – http://www.ezinearticles.com

Lady Pens – http://www.ladypens.com

Idea Marketers – http://www.ideamarketers.com

Go Articles – http://www.goarticles.com

Isnare – http://www.isnare.com

Forums/Discussion Groups – Building relationships on relevant forums can be a very fun and rewarding experience. DO NOT join just to spam them with you site link, it will get deleted and you will likely get banned. Listen in for a while to get an idea of what kind of information is shared, then start asking questions, posting responses and starting new topics.

ADS – You can places ads on others sites, in newsletters, and any other places that will allow it. Some forums and discussion groups allow ads on certain days.

Offline – There are many places offline where you can advertise your site. Newpaper, Radio and Magazine ads are one way. You could hand out business cards with just your website and a catchy phrase. A great way is to get a decal for your car with your website on, people will see it wherever you go!

However you chose to start getting traffic to your site keep at it! It will often take time and patience. Be sure that you focus your efforts on targeted traffic so that the people you get to your site are interested in what you have to offer.