Ask the Blogger!

How Do I Get More Web Traffic?

I’m just getting started, what’s the best way to get traffic to my website?

This is a tough question to answer. Why? Because there is no easy answer. Building website or blog traffic is hard work, and takes time and comittment. To truly get the audience and readers you want, you’ll need to build a high-quality website or blog and fill it with more high-quality content and information that people want. All of that can take a while.

However, in the meantime, there are some tricks to building traffic…

Solve Problems & Think Of The Reader

The best websites or blogs solve problems. People come to the Internet mostly for that reason, to have problems solved. Maybe they need a chicken recipe for dinner? Maybe they need to know how to put up drywall? Whatever, people like to get answers online.

So does your website or blog solve problems? If not, why are readers visiting your site? What are you offering them that they don’t have? Put yourself in a reader’s head. What do they want to know… then give it to them.

Try Digg

Digg.com is a fast way to get attention. Essentially, you write some content on your website of blog that you think is interesting. Then you submit it for free to Digg.com, where it could be exposed to hundreds of thousands of readers if it’s good enough. If it is, watch out, you can see thousands of visitors to your site very quickly, helping you build an audience.

Link Unto Others

Don’t be stingy with your links. If you want to get more traffic, you should be exchanging links with other websites or blogs that match your content. People follow links as that is the nature of the web.

Social Networking

Open up a Myspace.com and Linkedin account and network with similar people in your industry. Don’t spam people, but really go out and introduce yourself and make some friends. Ask those friends to visit your site and build relationships with them.

Things To Avoid

Stuff like traffic exchanges and webrings don’t really work. Sure, they’ll get you some hits, but what they don’t get you is targeted hits. Avoid trying to build a quick audience with tools that claim you’ll get “XXX” # of hits in “XXX” days. Usually it doesn’t work.

Don’t forget, you can always Ask The Blogger for help anytime!

Bonus! AsktheBlogger Video On How To Get More Web Traffic

Why Is My Google Page Rank So Low & My Alexa Rank So High?

How come my Alexa ranking keeps going up lately and it’s now at 305,686 but my Google PR is still blankety-blank? My site is sitemapped and verified. Guess it has to be a lack of links?

Alexa has nothing to do with your Google page rank or indexing. In fact, most any website or blog can get “into” the Alexa directory in days if not faster as Alexa simply works that way.

Getting “into” Google isn’t so easy.

I’m guessing your page rank is still at zero because your site is still in what search engine marketers call the “Google Sandbox”. The Wikipedia defines it as such.

The Sandbox Effect is the theory that websites with newly-registered domains are placed in a sandbox (holding area) in the indexes of Google until such time is deemed appropriate before a ranking can commence.

What Does That Mean Really?

It means that it’s going to take awhile for ANY new website to get into the regular Google listings.

Now, if your website is not new, and you’re not getting any Google page rank, there is most likely a problem, and one of those problems could be that you have a lack of backlinks, in other words, other websites or blogs who link back to you.

Here are a few articles to help you out on your quest for more information.

PageRank Explained – Keeping SEO Simple

Alexa Traffic Ranking Versus Google Page Rank

I highly recommend these two products from Dr. Ralph Wilson, web marketing guru.