There are many effective ways, to increase your online traffic, out there on the worldwide web. But some are more effective than others! I'm gonna take you through some steps, that are guaranteed to make your unique visitor count shoot way up. With a little time and patience - webmasters, and internet marketers. You will see an increase in your sales, and your online traffic. Let's get started here's some tips that work!

What Works To Increase Your Traffic:

1. Let's start out with one of the most important free thing that any webmaster can do. Search engine optimization - optimize your website for the search engines. If your not to familiar with search engine optimization, read up on it. Just a basic understanding of seo, can do wonders for increasing your online traffic. It is very important for free, long term, organic traffic, that will last for years. So make sure to optimize your websites - people!

2. Writing articles - Writing online articles is another great way to increase your online traffic. Writing articles, that are also optimized for the search engines. Can build you long term, free traffic, that will last for years also! Most article websites - here's some examples of the major players ezinearticles.com, ehow.com, hubpages.com, ideamarketers.com, buzzle, and goarticles.com. These are some of the top article directories on the web, and they get tons of traffic! Most article directories will let you put your website, or affiliate link in your resource box. With the exception of ezinearticles, you can only put a website link, affiliate links are not allowed with them. But there is an easy way around it, if you are an affiliate you can link to your squidoo lens, a classified with your affiliate link, a blog, etc... Tips: Article directories have a high page rank so it's easier to get more traffic to your website, or links.Use them to your advantage.

3. Writing classified ads - This is a free and very effective way to promote your website, blog, or affiliate links. Some of the bigger online classified sites I would recommend are craigslist, u.s freeads, kijiji, backpage, and I also really like webleeg. Every classified you post will also give you a backlink to your website, if you link your website to the classified ads you write. Great for a simple free search engine optimization technique. Tips: If your having success with a particular classified ad you write, such as a lot of traffic, or sales. Try feauturing that classified ad for even more exposure! U.sfreeads charges $12 dollars for a 3 month featured ad, backpage charges by the particular city you want to advertise in. Usually only a few bucks. Webleegs charges $5.00 for a featured ad, that also will appear on there homepage.

4. Forum posts - This is another free very effective way to increase your online traffic. Most forums will let you have a signature. A signature is basically a link to your website, or affiliate links. They will show up automatically with every post you make, in there online forum. Find forums related to whatever your website is about, for targeted traffic. Tips: Always think of a good title for your forum posts, so you can generate more, free traffic from the search engines. Google bum marketing to understand more abou what im talking about!

5. Video Marketing - Sites such as youtube, can be extremely effective in generating herds of hungry, money in hand buyers, to your websites. Again pick a great title for the videos you make. Tip: Put a link to your website, or blog, on your youtube profile page. So when people are watching your online videos, they have the option of clicking on your website link. Advantage of video marketing - is the high page rank, and your videos should receive high listings in the search engines, for the titles you choose.

6. Social networking sites are huge - My personal favorites are myspace, myyearbook, tagged, and of course facebook. Set up a profile page, for each one of these social networking sites with a link to your website. Add some friends, and this is guaranteed to increase your online traffic. Benefits of social networking are, high pagerank links back to your website. Millions of free potential online customers, and a good way to meet new friends online.

7. Social bookmarking websites: My 2 favorites are stumbleupon, and digg! Bookmark all the pages on your website, also bookmark and ping every article that you write online. This will increase your traffic too, just with this little step. Plus don't forget all the backlinks you can get pointing at your website from just doing this!

8. Pay per click - If you have a little extra money to work with. Pay per click can be great, while your waiting for your website to achieve some good organic rankings for the chosen keywords your going after. Pay per click involves bidding on keywords related to whatever your selling. It's extremely targeted, and works very well to increase your online traffic. But buyer beware if you don't research pay per click a little bit, and jump in without getting your feet wet a little bit so to speak. This form of online advertising can be a very costly mistake. Tip: Bid on keywords related to whatever your trying to sell that are searched at least 1,000 times a month. You can use Google Adwords keyword tool to do your research.Find keyword phrases that are relatively cheap like .5 to .10 cents a click if possible. You will get more bang for your buck, and more potentialsales without spending a fortune.

9. Email marketing - If you have a website, you really need to start an email marketing campaign. Just think of all the targeted customers you are missing out on, if you don't. Starting an email list, and watching your double opt-in subscriber base grow, is a very effective way of increasing the traffic to your website! Just think of all the targeted people, that you can send an email to, promoting your products over and over again. Benefits, a lot of quick easy sales that converts very well. Repeat customers, that you can sell to over and over again. Starting an email list, is a must have online service. If you want to make some really good money through your website, or affiliate links!

What Doesn't Work, From My Experience In Generating Quality Online Traffic That Converts

Beware of traffic exchanges unless your just trying to build up your email lists. They can be good for building up subscribers to your email lists. But from my experience, the traffic doesn't convert into sales very often. Reason: there surfers are just trying to build up credits, so you will look at there website. Tip: Most people surfing traffic exchanges don't have much money to spend anyways. That's why there looking for a cheap way to advertise there websites. So I would recommend you stay away from traffic exchanges, unless your just trying to build up your email list! And if you are, I would pay the $5 or $10 dollars for the month to get the free visitors. You have better things to do than sit around all day looking at websites!

Paying for guaranteed traffic like for example 10,000 visitors to your website for $5.00 bucks. Let me tell you from experience, when i was starting out about 4 years ago I fell for this. Your better off taking that money, and throwing it in your trash can. The traffic is garbage traffic, Im not even sure were they get it from. But believe me when I say stay away from these type of services. You won't get 1 sale out of those 10,000 hits so buyer beware! Save your hard earned money...

I hope you enjoyed this article on how to increase your online traffic - Feel free to post more traffic tips, that I may have left out, in my comments box! Good luck everyone...