Getting traffic to their new website is one of the main challenges for any business. A company’s website is the most important channel for promoting a business today. However, without s traffic, you are not likely to benefit from your website.

Some time back I had written an article on 55 ways to drive traffic to a website. In this article we will take a look at 5 simple yet effective techniques for driving traffic to a new website.

1. Comment on Blogs

Commenting on influential blogs in your niche as well as blogs of other competition businesses is a quick and easy way to obtain back-links and referral traffic. If you add value to the discussion, you will get noticed and users will click on your comment link to checkout your site. In addition to contributing to your authority and influence, this can turn into a steady stream of traffic to your new website.

Here are Some Tips:

• Try to be the first few commenters.
• Comment on a combination of new and popular posts
• Try to make it to the Top commentator widgets on blogs
• Write quality comments
• Use Technorati.com to identify influential blogs
• Take advantage of these blog commenting tips

2. Share Links On Main Social Bookmarking Sites

Social bookmarking is a great way to build back-links and traffic fast. They have the potential to drive huge traffic to your website. In addition to leading social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, focusing on social bookmarking sites like Stumble Upon can get tons of visits to your website within a short time.

Here are some tips:

• Use multiple sites
• Use a combination of general as well as niche social bookmarking sites

3. Video Marketing

Videos are very popular on the web. Video marketing offers the potential to get huge exposure and traffic for your new business. Best of all, you do not need specialist skills to create a good video these days. You can take advantage of free services like ScreenR to create branded videos quickly and share on several sites. You can also use screen capture tools like SnagIt to create presentation style videos.

Here are some tips:

• Include link and other branding elements in your videos
• Submit videos to several video sites including YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe, and more.
• Consider re-using existing content to create presentation videos
• Use optimised video titles and descriptions and don’t forget to add link to description
• Vote, like and comment on other videos relevant to your niche
• Don’t forget to post videos to your social profiles

4. Press Release Distribution

Setting up an active blog and focusing on other content marketing methods can take time and effort and very effective in the medium to long term. In the short term however, I find press releases to be one of the most effective ways to promote a new business or website.

Unlike other content marketing methods like articles, eBooks, etc that can take time to promote, press releases are indexed very fast on search engines and can provide immediate benefits. Due to this, press release is one of the favourite methods to promote a new website among marketers.

Here are some tips:

• Distribute press releases every month to promote your new website or business
• Use several press release sites
• Make sure to include a back-link to your new website

5. Don’t Overlook SEO

SEO is far from dead. Only the methods have changed to in line with recent changes to Google’s ranking algorithm. Over the past couple of years, the focus has moved away from aggressive link-building, article marketing and other old SEO tactics towards content marketing and other inbound marketing methods.

SEO is an integral part of any successful website promotion strategy. As SEO takes time and effort to implement, it is best to focus on it from the start. It is still the best method to get traffic to your website.

Here are some SEO Tips:

• Use Google Keyword Tool to identify keywords
• Don’t try to cheat search engines with methods such as keyword stuffing
• Optimise each page on your new website independently
• Target one or two keywords only per page
• Focus on link bait techniques to generate one way back-links

The Best Way Forward

SEO and Internet marketing have changed significantly in recent years. The focus is increasingly on inbound marketing methods that focus on producing quality content regularly to attract visitors towards your website.

You can take advantage of the methods above to promote your new website but in the long run you will need to focus on implementing a good content marketing plan to promote your website. This is the only way to beat your competition and promote your website or your business in the long-term. E-Books, articles, blogging, reports, white-papers and infographics – are all part of it.

What About You?

What methods do you use to promote your website? Are you taking advantage of  the methods above? We would like to hear from you. Please add your response by leaving a comment below.