How to get a massive amount of traffic to your hub or website

I previously created a hub on how to get traffic to your hub. I am currently working on a website on Indonesia and looking for new ways to build traffic.

I have been experimenting with Web 2.0 community websites with some success. If you don't what this means, basically it is a website that has a community of users all sharing ideas and content, not unlike this website. Facebook is an example of a web 2.0 community website.

These websites are hot property at the moment and get tonnes of traffic. It would be impossible for individuals to compete with them, so I say, if you can't beat them - join them! The idea is learning how they work, becoming a member of the community and finding ways to promote your websites, without just spamming them.

Without really knowing how it works I installed the StumbleUpon tool bar, gave a post on my blog a big thumbs up, and it brought in over 6000 visitors in a day! The traffic has since levelled off, but I got plenty of new links to my site, comments and now some regular readers. Of course, the content needs to be good, but if it catches on in the community it can spread like wild fire.

Digg is another hot web 2.0 community that can potentially bring in a tonne of traffic to your website. It is a tough nut to crack though. The audience is generally made up of 18-25 male geeks who are into computer games, apple, ipods, web design and technology.

Take a look at the front page and see what stories are listed there. The community of digg decides what makes it to the front page by voting or 'digging' a story. It can help to try and build a small community of 'friends' in digg to help promote each other's stories.

It does take some time to learn how it works and even more time to write an article that appeals to that particular audience, but your work will be rewarded if your story becomes popular. Of course your site will need to be handle the traffic if your site gets 'dugg', but that's a topic for another hub.

YouTube if didn't know already is a video sharing service. It is now owned by Google so you can be sure that they will be integrating it more into their search engine. Already you can see some videos appearing in the search results.

No matter what your topic of your site or hub is, you can use video somewhere in it. One simple way is to record a session of how to do something on your computer. Some people find it much easier to learn things from video, rather than going through a technical manual. Camtasia is the software which most internet marketers use.

You could create a video on how to create Hub page for instance.

WIth YouTube, you can create your own video channel and even include the URL to your website. I also put in the URL of my website at the start and end of every video I make. YouTube is a community, so you can get more people watching your videos by watching and commenting on other videos and joining groups relevant to your niche. It is also important to add relevant keywords and descriptions to your videos, for your video to appear in Google's search results.

Facebook is becoming the place to be on the internet. It does have a large college audienc, but more business people are using the site to network and connect with colleagues and friends. If you haven't joined up yet, you will probably be surprised at all the people on there that already have profiles.

Facebook is a cleaner, less spam version of Myspace. In your profile you can add links to your website. Like anything on the internet, you will need to get out there and market yourself by joining groups that you might be interested in. There is eve a group for Hub pages! Like all of these web 2.0 properties, you need to join, participate and become a valuable member of that community before you can start promoting anything, otherwise you will be known as an evil spammer and no-one will want to know you.

And by the way, if you are on Facebook or have just joined up, please add me as a friend!

Update: A new feature which you can use to market your site is to create page to promote your business or website. I set this page to promote my Beijing Olympics website up a little while ago and without even doing any promotion, I already have over 90 fans!

Twitter is less well known than some other the web 2.0 sites already listed. Basically, people sign up and write whatever they are doing at the present time. You follow friends and people you like and your friends can read what you are doing.

People have different opinions about the usefulness of twitter, but it is becoming a place where sometimes big news breaks on the site. I think for now it is worth signing up and making contact with other people.

You can follow me here.

Blogging Zoom is a relatively new site. It is a digg-like site for blogs. It is fairly new, so it shouldn't be too hard to make it to the front page with a bit help from your friends!

Yahoo 360 is place where people with no web design or technical skills can put together their own web page. You can also add picutres, links and an RSS feed. I recently just created a page so I don't know how effective this is, but I am sure it will help get some extra love from Yahoo.

When I say email, I don't mean spam! If you happen to create some great content whether it is a video, pictures or an article, find some sites or blogs that are in a relevant niche. Send the editor of the site a friendly email, telling them about some great content you just produced.

You don't need to ask for a link! If they think their audience will like it, they will write about it. Bloggers are always on the look out for interesting content and sites to write about. Don't send the same email to everyone - customize it to suit the website you are trying to a link from.

All of the methods I have described so far are great for getting a big burst of traffic. If you can get producing content that gets "dugg" or stumbled that is great, but for most of us they are more irregular events.

One technique is to build a collection of solid information articles on your website. These articles become the corner-stone of your site. This content makes your site useful and keeps people coming back. Writing creative and fun articles is a good way to get bursts of traffic, but steady long-term traffic is what you really want to build.

If you write some great content that does get stumbled, you will get a few people who link and write about your website. This is one way of getting links. The more incoming links you have to your website, the higher your site will get ranked in search engines.

Another way of getting links is simply emailing webmasters of other websites and asking them if they will link to you. Of course you should try to get listed on websites that are relevant to your niche.

One technique I use is Yahoo Explorer. Yahoo explorer shows inbound links of a given website. I find a related website to mine that has been around for sometime and find what sites link to them. If you have a good site or piece of information you often find other sites will happily link to you if you ask.

Some of the links in Yahoo explorer will be directories. Generally I ignore all paid directories and directories which require a link back to your site. When you ask for a link don't just spam webmasters. Explain to the webmaster how linking to your site will benefit their readers. Say how great their website is and at least one thing you like about it (all webmasters love hearing compliments!). Create the text for the link in the email so all they have to do is copy and paste it. Include the text you want to rank for in the anchor text of the link (of course you need to make it relevant to your website).

Build links slowly over time. Don't try to get a 1000 links in a day as they might flag your website as spam in the search engines. Make link building part of your overall website marketing strategy.

Utilizing web 2.0 properties can be one of the best and quickest ways to bring traffic to your website. You will need to write an article that is original, interesting and possibly funny. It probably needs to appeal to a younger, tech savvy audience. These communities however, are pretty savvy to internet advertising and don't click on ads like most internet users. So while you may not make much money in the short term, at least you will be able to get some links to your site and improve your rankings.

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This hub has become pretty popular. Thanks for everyone's support! I will keep trying to add new ways to build both short term and long term traffic to your website or hub. More traffic, more fun, more motivation and more money!