Just about every website owner wants to get more traffic to their site. You might hire a SEO company to “optimize” your site or you might spend money on advertising, whether its pay-per-click (PPC) or other mediums. Like many others, I routinely look at my Google Analytics to see how these things affect my traffic, hoping for that upward trend line that lets me feel like my website is doing something for my business (umm, especially since my business is web design).

A little while back I saw this huge spike in traffic. From one day to the next, my traffic went up 500% and sustained at that level for two weeks. What was it that brought all these glorious new people to the land of YellowWebMonkey Web Design? It was a CraigsList ad I had posted, looking to hire some part-time data entry help to finish a backlog of projects.

That peak got me thinking, “what are some other EASY and FREE ways to get more traffic to my site?” Doing some more research, here is what I came up with:

JOB POSTINGS

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the economy is slow and a lot of people are looking for work. That is a large population that are actively searching numerous sites looking to learn more about businesses that are hiring. If you have openings, that makes it easy. Some free places to post job listings are:

• CraigsList.org
• Misc Job Boards (search “free job listings ”)
• College and Alumni Boards
• Local Newspaper website
• Professional Association pages
• State commissions (such as Texas Workforce)

Even if you are not looking to snatch up another full or part-time employee, you might have “gigs” that you would pay money for.

Some gigs you might be able to post are:

• Office Cleaning
• Shredding
• Handing out flyers or other promotions
• Handyman work
• Copywriting for newsletters/blogs
• Translating in Spanish

POLLS/CONTESTS

Now, polls and contests are not really a new idea for attracting people. However, here is a new spin on it. When I was working on Austin Music City's website, I looked at the page views for their different articles. Most band reviews and announcements had about 300-500 page views. However, their monthly monthly band poll for the best new song had around 70,000 page views. That’s quite a difference. That is because that page gave other people a reason to promote the page for Austin Music City. You may not know a status update from a re-tweet, but your goal is to that audience that lives on Facebook and Twitter to do it all that work for you. Come up with some type of contest, relevant to your business and let the “contenders” market your site for you. Come up with a topic, have a time period when people submit to win (preferably with a note that lets you know how much they want to win which correlates with how hard they will market), choose finalists, and let them do the work. Here are some ideas:

• Lawn Care: Best Lawn or Best Christmas Lights
• Promotional Items: Funniest/Weirdest Logo
• Contracting Company: Best DUCT tape fix
• Car Wash: Dirtiest Car

(Send other good ideas in the comments of this blog)

GIVING TESTIMONIALS TO OTHERS

Almost every business has done business with another service-related business. Reward those that have provided quality services with a testimonial from your business. Just ask that when they put it on their website or print it, that they include the link to your website. Especially in the case of web/graphic design, because any of their potential customers will click that link to evaluate that company’s work on your site.

USEFUL REFERENCES

Content is King. If your website only has a paragraph saying how great your business is and your contact information, it is going to be much harder to get hits from search engine results. Not to mention, you give visitors no reason to go back to your website more than once. If you haven’t already spent the time to write out a description of your target client, then you should take five minutes right now. Once you have that, think about what type of information those people might be searching for.

Here are some ideas:

(Send other good ideas in the comments of this blog)

HELP A CAUSE

What will motivate people even more than trying to win something? Trying to help a good cause. (ok, ok, it will motivate some people more). How many times have you gotten an email asking to you help find a missing child, help raise money for a good charity, or donate items. You can use your website to provide an easy way to help a good cause.

If you have an employee that is competing in an event to raise money, add an article highlighting what they are doing with a link to sponsor them for a certain amount. You might also consider some incentive like matching funds or saying if they can raise $2000 (or whatever), then your company will donate an additional amount. That will encourage others to forward the link out to get more people to come to your page.

If there is a cause that is encouraging people to write their congressman, etc (and is not a topic that some potential clients would not support), you can add an automated form to your site to make it easier for people to submit their comments. A good example of this would be the expansion of I-35 through Central Texas. Most people are very supportive of getting more funds from the TX Dept of Transportation to help the area grow. A local organization called 1000 Friends of Waco have a page about this issue with a link to make comments to TXDOT. If you add something similar or an actual form for comments, you will get others actively marketing your site to others.

Another idea is to collect items for a cause. On your website you can provide information about the cause and the specifics of what is needed. Some examples might be:

• Clothes donations for a family whose home burned down
• Canned goods for a food drive
• Toys for Tots

You will get the extra traffic from people looking for information and can add a good-news story after you turn in the donations. This is an especially good idea if you have a business where you would benefit by getting more people to walk in the front door.

All of these causes help get more traffic to your site as well as help your reputation as a business that contributes to the local community.

CONCLUSION

If you think these ideas sound good, but you have no idea how to implement them; consider using a web developer as a consultant to figure out how to make your website work better for you. You can find ones that will help you develop a plan, help train your employees, or build a package to provide those services for you. Many companies like ours will write eNewsletters, blog entries, setup contests, and maintain social networking accounts for our clients for a monthly fee. Most fees are less than most companies spend on YellowPages advertisements and lets be honest, the phonebook is disappearing about as quickly as phone booths are. The good news though, is that the majority of people that used to use them, are now walking around with their own cell phone that they could look at your website on; if you give them a reason to.

ALPHA BETA GAMMA DELTA EPSILON…you know the rest. The Greek alphabet has taken on a whole new meaning on campuses across the States and beyond. And YellowWebMonkey wants to know why most Grecian chapters haven’t expanded their reach to the Internet. As students, the Internet is one of our primary tools of communication.  We e-mail our teachers with excuses, we check grades through Blackboard, we socialize through Facebook, we Google at the first hint of ignorance…so when are Greeks going online? Some good reasons:

Putting on a good face.

Effective chapters of Greek organizations are all about business whether they are social or professional. Events, meetings, and internal organization must be run with efficiency. When things are running smoothly, it is that much easier to get to the fun. When potential recruits or campus officials or employers Google a fraternity or sorority to check what they are all about, your chapter should be represented; especially local Greeks that do not have an umbrella national website.  Here’s your chance to post all of the “good” pictures, list recent projects, and give information about current members and officers in a controlled space, i.e. not Facebook.

“I didn’t check my email/get the text”.

Getting the word out last minute can be a hassle. What would you do if you could send mass text messages to an entire list of phone numbers…one list for members, one list for recruits, one list for alumni?  What about sending internal e-mails through the site? Message boards and calendars, anyone? With a website the customization possibilities are huge. Get what your organization needs and then add a few extras that are just plain cool.

Paying up.

Everyone’s got to collect them. Why not cut those chapter meetings short a bit by collecting them online? Got fines? An email notification system complemented by a website that keeps track of payments. Make the treasurer’s job a little easier and life simpler for members. The same system can be used to receive donations from alumni! The website could serve as an easy way to keep in contact and allow them to support particular projects or add to the general fund.

Keeping track of the hundreds of performers, gigs, and full-blown concerts that occur every month in the weird live music capital of the world is a difficult task.Austin Music City does even better; it tracks the best few out of the hundreds. With CD reviews and blog entries and YouTube videos culled from the masses, Austin Music City keeps lovers of live music up to date on the new and eclectic.

A site with so much content needs a dynamic display to reflect the creative bent of the service it offers. Yellow Web Monkey recently set out to create just that. The new AustinMusicCity.com was unveiled with newsflashes that jumped off the screen with reader-grabbing headlines and links to full articles. The RSS feed summarizes the latest AMC articles that complement the bold slideshows Yellow Web Monkey added. One of the most useful new features is the interactive calendar that gives locals a quick update on the where and who and visitors a rundown of where they should be.

As Greg Roberts can testify, the results are tangible.  See Greg's testimonial about his experience with YellowWebMonkey.