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I’ll be honest, that’s the most common question that I get asked. Over, and over and … over again but there’s an easy answer, hard work and determination. Far too many people put up a website and assume it’ll be easy to build a loyal reader base or start a blog and sit back, waiting for the income to roll in. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works which of course leads me to the first important lesson about websites. If it was easy to make money on the web, web designers would never be available for hire, we’d all live in Whistler.

So, you have your domain name registered and you’ve setup hosting. Maybe you’ve already installed a great package such as WordPress and of course, you did this all by reading my great article called Can You Put Up a Web Site for Less Than $100? but now the moment of truth, how do you drive traffic to your website?

What is the value of traffic?

A few years ago I was sitting in a board room with the CEO, VP of Marketing and online marketing manager for —– Corporation. The marketing manager was just wrapping up a presentation and explaining that in order for the companies website to make money, they needed to drive 1,000,000 visitors a month to the site. Her math was based on the old rule of 10’s. For every ten people who come to your site, one will look around. For every ten who looks around … blah blah blah, anyways her proposal was that we needed to buy lots of ads (surprising since her department was in charge of buying ads) and then we could sit back and rake in the cash.

During this exchange I must have chuckled or snorted or something rude because the CEO turned and asked me if I had something to add. I then explained that we didn’t need 1,000,000 new visitors to the site, we simply needed 10,000 people interested in buying our product. In fact, I went as far as to tell them that for a fraction of the proposed marketing department budget ($100,000 a month) I could drive a million people a day to the site. How you might ask? Simple I would reply, buy $100k a month work of banners that simply read “Want to get f—-d? Click here.” … only without the dashes.

Obviously, my advice wasn’t well received but the fact still stands that getting traffic is not what you want, or at least it shouldn’t be what you want. I have a web template on my site that gets 30,000 hits a month … not one of those visitors converts into a lead. So, before we talk about how to get traffic to your website, the more important question is … what type of traffic do you want to get to your website?

How to generate traffic to a website

First off, let me go against every piece of advice you’ll find on SEO websites and tell you to forget Google. Heck, search my own website and you’ll find out that I’m back peddling on my own advice but maybe I’ve been drinking or something. My new, improved 2009 advice still stands, forget Google. If you want to build traffic to your website, focus on what really matters … content, content, content. Write good content, follow my next advice and respect your elders.

Build a strong site structure

We live in a world of RSS, smart phones, Wii surfers (280 of my visits last month came from Wii surfers), Sony PSP users, Mac users, people on Internet Explorer, FireFox and a ton of other systems. Don’t design a website to look good in a web browser (somewhere a designer just cried a little), instead design a website to function effectively in all browsers. This will help your site be accessible to the blind, perform well in automated crawlers and be readable to users. 

Be a positive part of the community

Use your website to help improve the internet, not take away from it. An old boss of mine gave a lecture once, he spoke about being assertive vs. being aggressive. Don is a brilliant speaker, he simplified the two words by defining assertiveness as  being willing to standup for your rights, while being aggressive required you to take away the rights of others.

This point really hit home for me and made me think about websites. Build assertive website, boldly proclaim your place on the Internet and stand for your believes but don’t be aggressive, there’s no reason to try to tear down others or over power them.

Give a little, get a lot

I wrote the other day about how I got a Google PageRank of 5, what I didn’t really touch on was the importance of giving back to those around you. The Internet is filled with some really remarkable people, some great websites and a lot of amazing blogs. Most of these people write daily, with little feedback from those who read their blogs. Take the time to comment on their articles when you see a piece of interest, thank them for advice and question them when you disagree. This doesn’t just give them a reason to keep blogging, it also gives your website some great exposure. My most popular incoming links? Those that link to an article on my own site, supporting a point on another blog.

What’s the lesson here? Contribute to every forum, blog, newsgroup, message board, social networking website and social discussion you can add something positive to but remember … nobody likes a self promoter, so make sure you have something positive to say.

Finally, read.

The best investment I ever made in my business was an RSS reader. Now I can’t live without it. My iPhone chirps away all day long, pulling down excerpts of articles by some of the Internet’s top performers … they’re literally giving away the secrets to their success, if only you’re willing to read.