More website traffic is what everybody who owns a website wants, but with every increasing amounts of websites to choose from it has become necessary for webmasters and site owners to fine tune their sites and provide some reason why visitors and potential customers should visit their site rather than the rival and competing sites.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has become an industry in itself with plenty of companies, small and large, offering to change and tweak your website in order to make it easier for search engines to analyse it, to increase its page ranking, and draw more visitors to it. Naturally, the fees such companies will charge you will vary from the small to the large too, and there's no guarantee that the traffic will start flowing nor that it will remain constant even if they succeed in generating some.

So what can the site owner do that is both free of charge (or at least low in cost) and which is proven to improve the chances of generating new traffic, encouraging former site visitors to return, and which will make the site more appealing to search engines? The answer is - plenty. There's a lot you can do without spending a penny. All it take is time and a little thought.

Here is a list of ideas to get you started. You may find more as you go along and research these techniques. New initiatives emerge all the time so this list is by no means exhaustive, but if you can put half of these things into practice then you will have developed an advantage over many of your competing sites.

1. Add plenty of fresh and original content to your site. Keep adding it on a fairly regular basis.

2. Write articles about things that resonate with the theme of your site and submit these to article directories. Your author bio at the foot of the article should contain a link to your site.

3. Swap links with sites that have something in common with your own. Choose the better quality sites i.e. ones that appeal to you and which you would be glad to associate with.

4. Visit blogs that write about your site's subjects and leave comments on them. Most comment forms allow you leave a URL so you can add a link to your site there.

5. Register at forums that are in the same vein as your site's topics and participate in discussions. Add a signature to your profile containing a link to your site. Don't add too many as this can be considered poor netiquette. A discrete signature containing two or three links at most.

6. Post adverts in classified ads websites like Cragslist, Gumtree, or Vivastreet.

7. Look out for review sites and endorse products. You might be able to add a link to your own site from there.

8. Add a blog to your site and write reviews, tell stories, share ideas, and otherwise 'talk' to your audience.

9. Use a domain name that is both easy to remember and that also describes what you're selling.

10. Add something to your site that is free to download. Use a loss leader to draw traffic.

11. Compile a mailing list by having subscription form clearly visible on your site.

12. Send regular, professionally produced mailshots to your mailing list and measure the results.

13. Learn how to use the mailing list account fully and adjust future mailshots according to the results of those previously sent.

14. Optimise your site's code. Verify it according to a recognised standard and remove anything superfluous.

15. Familiarise yourself with Google's Webmaster's/Site Owner's Guide and act on its recommendations.

16. Join Facebook and make use of the free to use Facebook pages, and/or create a Facebook group and use that to market your site.

17. Join other social and business networking sites and use them i.e. create and expand your network.

18. Use good old fashioned business cards, leaflets and posters on notice boards to advertise your site and its services or products.

19. Advertise your site on promotional merchandise like car stickers, mugs, key rings, pens, and calendars.

20. Start an affiliate program and keep in constant contact with your affiliates.

21. Get someone to proof read your site. Make sure the content is correctly spelt and punctuated and that it is grammatically correct.

22. Submit your site to search engines and web directories. Make sure it's added to the correct ones and not worthless sites or those which are in the wrong niche.

23. Configure a 'tell a friend' link in your site. Make it easy for visitors to tell others about your site.

24. Configure a signature in every email account you use. Make it discrete but interesting.

25. If you've added a blog to your site or you have one that refers to your main site then submit the blog to blog catalogues and directories.

26. Write press releases a few times each year and submit them to the free PR directories.

27. If you're site is a blog or contains a blog, enable RSS feeds so that visitors can keep up to date without returning to the site.

28. If you're site would suit it, add a forum to your site so that visitors can discuss your products or services. You can also use this list bugs and beta releases, to encourage feedback, and to provide support.

For example, you have business selling spares for yachts, and presumably you want your site to appear on the first page of results whenever someone types in "yacht spares" in Google (preferably at the top of page one!). SEO is how webmasters tweak the fine detail of your site code and content in order to achieve that result.

If you want to start learning this skill for yourelf you can download a free search engine optimization eBook that explains how to get high search engine rankings.

This FREE eBook covers everything from an introduction to search engine marketing to tips and tricks on how to improve your order page. If you apply all tips and tricks that you learn in this ebook to your website, it is almost guaranteed that you'll get more visitors and more sales.

You could pay a lot of money for an Internet marketing eBook, or you can benefit from the proven methods that are described in this eBook for free. The free eBook covers all important aspects of search engine optimization on more than 160 easy to read pages. Download your free copy now.

Online Business Promotion

There are a lot of tools available on the internet that promise to promote your business and to bring thousands of visitors to your site. Many fail to live up to the marketing hype and it's easy to waste your money.

We use just one tool: IBP (iBusiness Promoter). Why? Because it does exactly what it promises to do; it's kept up to date; the support is excellent; and it's easy to learn and to use.
It shows you how to get into the top ten search engine rankings by examining your website content and comparing it with that of your competitors, then it shows how different keywords and phrases can work best for your target audience.

Still not convinced? Then download a free trial and see for yourself. You won't be disappointed.

Optimise Your Pay Per Click Campaigns

It can be easy to waste money by paying for advertising that fails to bring visitors to your website. One of the most widely used tools for PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising is Google Adwords, and properly used it can bring a good return on your investment of both time and money.

Axandra.com's Successful Advertising with Google AdWords will teach you how to use Google AdWords to its maximum potential and how to get more visitors (and therefore more sales) at less cost.

Successful Advertising with Google AdWords is available for immediate download. You can try it for free for a full thirty days, so you have plenty of time to evaluate it for your business.