How To Boost Traffic to a Site You Just Bought

By | August 17, 2011

It’s the dangling carrot that motivates so many people who buy domain names and websites: the prospect of increasing traffic.

Sure, you reason, this website wasn’t doing a lot of sales – if it only had more traffic. Or maybe the site wasn’t so great, but it would get more traffic if it lived up to the potential of its domain names.

We have a thousand reasons to boost traffic to a website. More sales, more newsletter signups, bigger audience, more ad revenue – but ultimately, the goal is always the same: get people clicking.

If you just bought a website at a place like WebsiteBroker.com, then you’re probably wondering how you can make the most of your investment. One way to do so is to make sure you have more of that universal Internet currency: traffic. Let’s look at some ways to boost traffic right away.

Spending Money to Earn Traffic: A Good Decision?

One mistake many people make is that the Internet works just like the offline world: you have to spend money to make money and buy ads to find a bigger audience.

Well, the Internet is just like the real world.

And in the real world, advertising is one option to increase business – but not the only option. A website, much like any business, can add more traffic through a number of strategies. Online, these strategies can include:

  • SEO – search engine optimization, or ensuring that a web page is properly “optimized” for high placement in search engines like Google and Yahoo.
  • Great content – like a restaurant that serves great food, a site that offers great content will eventually gain a reputation for quality.
  • Partnerships – Find other websites to partner with and you can find new audiences – but make sure that your site brings some value to the table or else no one will want to partner with you. An example? Writing a guest blog article for a more popular blog with a quick link back to yours.

Spending money, of course, can be a great decision as long as you make a significant return on your investment. And that brings us to the next point.

Is All Traffic Good Traffic?

It’s possible to get a lot of traffic and have your website go nowhere.

It sounds counter-intuitive, of course, but it’s true. Let’s say you run an online cookie shop and you want to attract people who are looking to buy gourmet cookies online. Obviously you have a pretty specific target audience and niche.

But what if you buy a “traffic boost” from an SEO company that delivers you all sorts of web visits – from people who thought they were going to find computer deals on your site? Most of the traffic will exit your site as soon as possible and you’ll be left with high traffic numbers … and no sales to show for it.

That’s why it’s important to take a comprehensive approach to traffic, using strategies to boost traffic we listed in this article in conjunction with each other. Focus not only on finding people, but the right people, and your site’s success will be sure to follow.