How to Quickly Gain Traffic to Your New Web Site  

By Herman Drost 

The problem with a new site is that it often takes a long 

time before it is indexed by the search engines. This means 

you are missing out on getting traffic and making sales.  

Google places new sites in the "sandbox" which means 

they are on "hold" for a period of time before they rank. 

Here are some ways to generate immediate traffic to your 

web site: 

1. Start a PPC (pay per click) campaign - you can begin a 

Google Adwords campaign and start generating visitors the 

same day you set it up. Of course it is going to cost you 

some money but you can set a limit for how much you wish to 

spend. You will soon get a good idea what keywords produce 

the most clicks for your ads. You can incorporate these 

keywords in your site when you optimize it for the search 

engines. 

While you run your PPC campaign get busy with preparing 

your site for the main search engines. Once you have been 

indexed by the main ones such as Google, Yahoo and MSN and 

start moving up in rankings, you can scale back the amount 

you spend on Google Adwords. Your goal is to eventually 

rank high enough that you won't have to use PPC anymore  

because you are getting enough visitors. 

2. Optimize your site for the search engines - the keywords  

that generated the most clicks from your PPC campaign,  

should be included in your web pages. Research alternative 

keywords using utilities such as Wordtracker or the 

Overture Suggestion Tool. You can determine the popularity 

of those keywords by seeing how many Google Adword 

campaigns are running. You accomplish this by entering the 

keyword or keyword phrase in the Google search engine and 

see how many ads appear on the right hand side of the page. 

If there are a lot, that means the keyword you chose is 

very popular and in high demand. 

Integrate a few of your best keywords within the text on 

each of your web pages. The home page should contain the 

keywords which have the highest demand (most searches) with 

the least number of competing web sites. Then proceed with  

the other pages in descending order of  keyword popularity. 

Make sure you also include these keywords in your meta 

tags, title, h1-h3 tags, links and file names. Don't overdo 

it for you may get penalized for spamming the search 

engines. 

3. Increase link popularity - this refers to how many 

external and internal links are pointing or linking to any 

particular page. External links include those that come 

from web sites other than your own whereas internal links 

are those that come from within the same domain name. Link 

popularity is not based on the "quantity" of links but the 

"quality" of those links as well. Therefore increasing link 

popularity does not necessarily require having a large 

number of links pointing to your site but rather a good 

number of quality links. 

4. Submit to the top search engine directories - many of the 

top directories have good link popularity that can be 

passed on to your site. They also have specific category 

pages that are related to the nature of your site. The 

major directories include The Open Directory, Yahoo and 

Zeal. 

The Open Directory is one of the largest that is still 

free, however it can take months or even years to get 

listed. If you become an editor for Zeal you can get your 

site listed free. Yahoo costs $299.00/year to be included. 

It is worth it if you can afford it. 

Here's a couple of articles on how to properly submit your 

site to the search engine directories: 

http://www.searchrank.com/resources/art007.htm 

http://www.searchrank.com/resources/art015.htm 

5. Submit to specialty search engine directories - you may 

wonder why I haven't mentioned submitting to the major 

search engines. When you work on building the link 

popularity of your site, it automatically places you in the 

main search engines. Once you have submitted your site to 

the main directories, find specialized directories related 

to your business. Here's a good resource: 

http://searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156351 

You can also research the link partners of your 

competitors' sites by entering your favorite keyword in the 

search engines. Once you have found a number of top ranked 

sites, download the Google toolbar and check their back 

links. This can save you a lot of time researching other areas  

to find quality links. 

Once your site been indexed by the search engines and 

included in the directories, focus on adding more content 

and continue building your link popularity. This will help 

you to maintain and/or increase rankings with the result 

of gaining more traffic to your new web site. 

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Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) 

owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com . Affordable 

Web Site Design and Web Hosting. Subscribe to his  

"Marketing Tips" newsletter for more original articles. 

mailto:subscribe@isitebuild.com . Read more of his in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles  

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