To successfully make a profit on the Internet you need traffic, or rather, Traffic (which is how I spell Targeted traffic). Every thing you read about making your company successful should always, at least mention, the importance of generating traffic.

We all know that traffic is a core essential to a successful internet based business along with having a consistent supply of great product to sells and good conversion rates. But, so many times people neglect to spend the time generating traffic.

If you already have an online business even if it is only one Web site and you're not getting the traffic that you need to be successful, then its time to consider what else you can do.

If you’re in a very competitive business, you should always be a step ahead of your competition and increasing your traffic should have been done yesterday!

There’s nothing like good timing and when generating traffic the right time is to be days or months ahead of your competition. Here are 7 "can't miss" ways that you can use to increase your traffic quickly:

1. Pay-Per-Click

There probably isn’t a faster way of getting lots of traffic in a short period of time then using Google’s AdWords pay-per-click program.

Although this is a surefire way to increase traffic it does cost you some money but you can minimize that with proper AdWords campaigns.

While many shy away from spending money to increase traffic, they are making a mistake. A proper AdWords campaign will easily pay for itself but even if you just break even you are getting additional prospects and customers from which you can mine additional revenue.

2. Use Viral Marketing

Viral marketing allows you to use an Internet version of “word of mouth”; this is a marketing method that can quickly get your name and Web site out to hundreds, thousands or more people in a short period of time.

The way it works is you just put your company’s name, and link onto something that is interesting or entertaining and give that thing away. This can be a valuable report, a funny video, some useful software, an entertaining game or even just an interesting blog article that you give rights for people to copy.

People get it, like it enough to want to pass it around and quickly everyone who’s anyone has it and your name and Web site have spread “like a virus.”

3. Do What I Am Doing Now: Write Articles

Write some article and submit the articles to article directories and Web sites; of course, those articles should be interesting, valuable and be related to your products or services.

For example, if you sell dog supplies then write articles about pets, various pet issues and pet supplies. Attach your name and Web site link to the resource box so that if people find your article useful and are interested in you or what you are selling they can easily go to your Web site.

4. Use Social Media Sites

In the last few years social media sites have become an awesome way of getting lots of traffic quickly; Google and the other search engines love them.

Content put up on Facebook, Squidoo, Hub Pages, YouTube, Digg and a whole slew of other sites will be indexed faster and be given more weight than just about any other place on the Internet.

So write fun, useful and interesting articles and put them up on the social media sites putting a link or two in the article and also in your description and profile. This will give you very similar results to what the article directories provide.

Not only will the search engines like it but you’ll get a lot of traffic direct from the social media sites themselves.

5. Properly Using Keywords and Tags

Search engines match the search terms people enter with the keywords and tags of your articles, Squidoo Lens’, blogs and other content you produce and show results that best match.

If someone searches for certain keywords and you have those keywords attached to your content then they is a greater chance that your content will rank in high in search engine results.

Please note that there is other criteria they use also but keywords are very important.

6. Join Forums and Other Online Communities

This may sound like an old way to do it but forums were really and earlier form of the current social media sites and they are still a quick way to get links and traffic to your Web site.

Post helpful comments and answers to questions and also post interesting questions that get lots of feedback.

As before, make sure your have a link to your Web site but this time put it in your forum signature and include that signature in all your forum posts.

7. The Double Whammy: Create an Online Newsletter

As people come to your Web site, offer them the chance to sign up for an online newsletter.

Not only will this be building you a list, but you’ll also be getting a constant flow of traffic from the people who are getting your e-mail. A good number of them will also tell other people about a great newsletter so you’ll get traffic from that too.

Just make sure your newsletter is very good so people want to continue to get it and to talk it up.

Conclusion

As you can see the “can’t miss” ways of getting lots of traffic to your Web site is getting lots of useful and interesting content out to as many places as possible.

The more you have, the better the results – just don’t sacrifice quantity for quality though; hundreds of mediocre articles won’t attract anyone.

Author:
David Husnian
The Shameless (but Ethical) Marketer
http://www.FromTheDeskOfDavid.com
David, the creator of the "3 Pillar of (Guaranteed) Success", is a successful marketer who provides a unique perspective on marketing, Web traffic and copywriting topics.
You can get more great information, free products and a free online Web traffic course from http://www.StreetGuideToWebTraffic.com