How To Use Trading and Auction Sites To Increase Your Website Traffic

 I am always looking for easy yet effective ways to drive more traffic to my website, Dravenstar Paranormal Research Team, and my blog here at Hubpages. Recently I worked up a very resourceful means of getting the word out about my site as far as locally goes. I designed bookmarks that have my site address on them and a catchy little phrase to draw attention. I simply place these in strategic locations such as next to cartons of soda at the local grocery store, or maybe next to a movie about ghosts at the video store. I also operate a library so I place one bookmark in every outgoing book and it is not uncommon for me to leave a few laying around the computer area. These little cardstock beauties are bringing in some good hits for the site and are really cost efficient as well.

It did not take me long to start thinking how can I utilize this to get more hits. While researching the various possibilities I came across three sites I have been using for some time and suddenly it clicked. I could combine the sites and my little bookmark and away we go. The bookmark was the beginning. I discovered many ways to get traffic on these sites. So now with no more delay let us explore the three sites and their traffic driving power.

Game Trading Zone (GTZ) is a site that allows users to trade and sell everything from games and movies to books, and electronics. If you can ship it than you can trade it over at GTZ. The site is well constructed and maintained greatly by it's own members. I have been a member there for almost 10 years and I have had one bad transaction to date, so it is a very reliable place to trade goods on.

The site has a very structured forum with a multitude of key tiopics and threads that can range from die hard serious to humorous. These forums are prime hunting ground for advertising and promoting one's sites. You have to do this right though. I don't suggest spamming the forum with your site promotions at all.

If you do reviews of products, you could possibly place one of those up on the site's forums. Let's say you just reviewed 10 Wii games. That would be a good addition to the Wii forums over at GTZ and then you can go ahead an reap the benefits of the traffic. The site has a very large amount of members and the potential for hits is very high.

I like to post my youtube videos there from time to time or if I have done a wrestling blog I will hit the wrestling forum up and post it up. Not only will you get hits you will get feedback from members. I admit some of them are typical trolls but the majority are very honest and helpful people who might be able to give you a few ideas that will in turn make your site or blog better.

GTZ offers another way of getting traffic. You will have your own profile page listing. You will have three spots to list website on. This is a great way of generating backlinks to your site or blog. I use 2 of my three spots to promote my site with Dravenstar and my hub here. There are even some people who include links in their descriptions.

Yet another opportunity exist for generating traffic. I use the bookmarks I mentioned earlier on GTZ. When I sell or trade an item I will place one of the bookmarks in the package. This may or may not generate a hit from the user who receives my item but what have I lost? So far it has been a great way to get some traffic and some of that has become repeat visitors to my site. If you are interested in GTZ you can sign up here. My profile can be found here.

 Running a library was a sure fire bet I was going to use this amazing book swapping site. In simplest terms users use credits, which they get for mailing books to other users, to buy books. If I want a book someone has and I have a credit I simply request the book and they mail me the book. I get my book and they get a credit to use to swap for a book they want. It is a great concept and has proven to be a very successful site over the years. The forums here are a little more lenient with posts so it opens a big door to promoting a site or blog. I still suggest that you do not flood the forums.

You may want to browse some threads and if one appeals to your site or a blog entry you have made link it up in your reply post. The folks at PBS are friendly and always eager to make a new friend.

You also will have a page for your listing and once again this is a great way to generate a backlink to your site. Remember backlinks are the key to promoting a site to the fullest of it's ability.

As with GTZ I use my free bookmark tactic here as well. Every book I ship comes with one of my free bookmarks and a bookmark I bought from a store. It is kind of like I give a gift with each book and hopefully the user will check out my site. PBS is an amazing site and really has a lot to offer, especially for those who write blogs. I try to post a link to at least one of my blogs weekly and I get a great amount of hits from the fine crowd in the PBS forums.

If you are interested in joining Paperback Swap go here.

Listia is a bit rougher to get advertising going on. This site allows users to post stuff they no longer want and they can auction it off for credits, much like paperback swap. Listia does not have a forum which limits a great deal of website promotion abilities but what it lacks there it makes up with in sheer fun! Once again I use my free bookmarks to spread the word of my site. Every item I ship contains one of my little freebies. I use a very cool and inexpensive trick here. Most of the items I ship are sticker related, so I can easily mail them in a stamped envelope. I usually get 200 to 300 credits for these items so they are paying for themselves several times over. For about 50 cents I will turn a profit of several hundred credits and possibly a hit to my website.

Another very useful tactic is to auction off items in your niche. I will give you an example. My site is a paranormal research site so I try to look at what items I have that would fall into that. Recently I auctioned off a disc of white noise. Instead of describing how to use it on Listia I simply linked my Blog here to the description. I also put my site on there. The links are text based and are not clickable but they still get the job done and I saw a good deal of traffic come from my Listia auction. In the end I received a few hundred credits and I sent out one of my freebie bookmarks.

Listia really sets a scale for niche marketing and will be a great way to generate hits from curiosity.

You also have the ability to comment on items other people have listed. In my case I saw a green light used for ghost hunting. I commented on how cool the auction was and how my team had used these. I left a link with the site url of my team in the comment section. This started an ongoing conversation on ghost hunting which kept a steady flow of traffic to my site.

If you are interested in Listia you can sign up here. This link will allow you to help me out by giving me referel credit and in return you will start with more credits than normal. Thanks and sign up here.

These three sites are not the only of their kind. I am sure Amazon, E-bay and a stack of other sites offer the same chances for promoting your site. I strongly advise you to respect the rules and guidelines of each site and be professional. Don't just use the site to advertise, try and enjoy it. Each one of the three sites I mentioned offers some great chances to meet nice friendly people as well as assist you in many ways. I hope I have helped you in some way. Thanks for reading.