Do you remember back in May when we offered to let authors post tutorials on various development, marketing, and I.T. related subjects?

That offer is re-open. We have a good amount of traffic, and it is increasing daily. If you are an expert in your field then drop by our contact page and let us know you are interested. Go back to the original post and make sure you can accommodate our requirements for posting tutorials and articles.

I felt the need to share some of my ideas for generating traffic. Mostly they are universally proven, but there are a good number of webmasters who turn to black hat seo because it “sounds” easier. The problem is that they end up pushing for results with black hat for years before deciding that it is best to work on proven ethical internet marketing methods.

1. Keep your comments open – Do NOT make visitors sign up for an account to comment on your blog post. You will be surprised how many regular reads avoid commenting because they do not want to be bothered with signing up. I keep my comments open so anyone can post, but I make them approval only to avoid spam.
2. Comment on other blogs – You can easily find a few blogs that are in an industry you take interest in. Find them and comment. Join in the discussion and have fun. You will get traffic from signing your name with a URL. Just don’t go and spam your url into your comment. You will probably be blocked or marked as spam.
3. Create a forum – A community is a good place for people to come back to. Setup a forum with Simple Machines of PHPBB and make it specialized to your specific industry. Then find others like it and join them. Put your url in your signature so others can follow your link and join your forum.
4. Write articles – You can write articles and post them on free article publishing websites. These websites allow other webmasters to use the articles as long as they keep your author credit in them. This is basically the idea that other webmasters are marketing for you by posting your name and url on their website.
5. Press releases – A press release should be written about your company whenever you have something newsworthy. For example, you partner up with a major hosting company and your company becomes the referral for web design services. You can post your press releases on free press release websites. You can also benefit from the paid services as well. We like www.eworldwire.com for the paid services.
6. Newsletter – Setup a newsletter system so that visitors can optin to receive company updates. Allow them the ability to unsubscribe when they want to so it is compliant with CAN-SPAM laws. Send out newsletters on the regular. Maybe every week, or every month depending on the news you are providing. Make sure you highlight different areas of your website that need a traffic increase. You can also get advertisers for those newsletters and make some money that way.
7. Submit to directories – You will find alot of free web directories out there that do not require a reciprocal link. Submit your website to them in the appropriate category. Do not oversubmit because it will be considered spamming. Submit-and-forget.
8. Take part in auctions – I am talking about the local private schools who do auctions to generate money. Do you offer a product or service that you can donate? Your business will be promoted in print materials and possibly their website.

These are just a few tips that can generate a huge amount of traffic. Keep plugging away and you will be fighting off server bandwidth fees in no time.