Most people have been able to successfully create their own free website using the Wix.com website builder. It’s obvious that Wix.com allows users to create dynamic websites without having any knowledge of web programming or development. This is all great but we must ask ourselves, "What good is a website, even a great website, if no one is looking at it?" By this we mean, a website is a waste if there is no traffic being directed to it. Let’s take a look at a few strategies that are extremely effective in driving traffic to your website.

Article Marketing

The term "article marketing" is very popular in the world of online marketing, but most people don’t truly understand how it works. This marketing strategy requires the individual with the website to create valuable content (articles) and submit them to article directories, which are then published and left for the world to read.

So how does submitting articles to directories increase your website’s traffic? These articles, which are written by you or someone you hire, are all based on topics related to your industry. Article directories allow you to create an "Author Resource" box at the bottom of the article which is a little blurb that tells about the author and includes a link to your website. The basic idea of article marketing to impress readers with valuable content so that they are compelled to click on your link and see what else you have to offer in regard to the particular topic.

PPC Campaign

Unlike most online marketing strategies, Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns allow you to advertise your website to a very targeted audience and produces results in a very short amount of time. In short, a PPC campaign is when a website owner pays a company, like Google, to put up an advertisement with a link to your website. You are only charged a flat fee when someone clicks on the link, meaning that they have now seen your site. PPC campaigns are able to target visitors that are likely to be interested in your services or products because your advertisement is strategically placed depending on what a person enters into a search engine. For example, if you are a lawyer in Los Angeles your advertisement will only come up when people enter keywords like "Los Angeles lawyer" into search engines.

Link Building

Using link building as an online marketing strategy has been built on the same idea as article marketing. In essence, you want to provide potential visitors with valuable information in hopes of convincing them to visit your site. Link building also is effective when it comes to increasing your website’s search engine rankings.

The term "link building" is very broad and can be effectively executed in a variety of ways. You can contact other bloggers and ask them to put your link on their blog (which is usually based on the same topic/industry as your website) and you in turn will put their link on your blog. You can scan blogs and forums related to your industry and participate in conversations with other readers. After you have built your credibility as an expert on your topic, through dialogue, you can insert a link to your site within your comments on posts in forums and blogs.

There are just so many ways to go about link building. If this strategy seems like something that would be effective in driving traffic to your website then you will need to do some heavy research in order to find out which link building strategy will be the most effective for your website.

Blogging

You may think that a blog is just another website. Why would you create a website in order to promote your primary website? The answer is simple. One of the unique characteristics of blogs is that they are incredibly easy to add content to. Unlike most websites, you can write an article or a news piece about your website and post it on your blog in no time. You can think of blogging like article marketing except for the fact that you are posting your content on your own blog, rather than submitting it to article directories. Blogs also allow readers to comment on your posts, which most websites don’t give readers the opportunity to do. This can be valuable because you can actually communicate and interact with your readers. In short, a blogs main purpose to generate information and excitement in regards to industry/topic and encourage visitors to visit your website.

These strategies are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to online marketing strategies. You can use one of these strategies to market your website or you can use multiple strategies in combination with each other. The choice is yours and you will only find what works best for your website by experimenting with each strategy.