7 Traffic Generation Pitfalls to Avoid

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If you are someone who likes to read articles on traffic generation tips amongst the millions of internet marketing articles out there you will be familiar with the common traffic generation tips to help you in your business website or blog. Let’s just say there are 7 different ways to generate traffic for your website (although there are more) and I’ll list them down below:

• Keyword optimization
• Guest Posting
• Social Media or Social Networks
• Blog/Forum Commenting
• Article Marketing
• Link Building
• Advertising

You might be thinking, I’m following what the gurus say and this is what they told me to do! But… still where is the traffic??? And you might be on your way to get a refund and start sending complaints that it’s a scam. It’s no surprise if you are thinking along those lines because you might be practicing common pitfalls while applying those 7 traffic generation tips. So let’s look at how to avoid them under each heading.

1. Keyword Optimization

Everyone tells you to use Google Keywords or Wordtracker to get good keywords or keyword phrases. So what is wrong? You might even be using keyword tools like Market Samurai. The common pitfalls that almost everyone falls into are these traps:

• Optimizing for keywords that NOBODY searches
• Optimizing only a few keywords for a page/blog/post/article
• Keyword Stuffing
• Adding keywords in the body of your content. You need to add keywords in the first and last paragraph coz that’s where the spiderbots crawl!

2. Guest Posting

Guest posting remains one of the best ways to work for me in terms of getting good QUALITY traffic. Most of the other ways don’t get too much specific groups for my niche. But there are a couple of things to take note of when guest posting:

• Sending Non CC (Creative Commons) images or non free license images.
• Failing to link to your sources i.e if you are quoting someone else’s work.
• Failing to link back to your website or blog which means less deep linking/backlinking.

3. Social Media

Social Media remains one of the best ways to get traffic. But it doesn’t mean that if you have 20000 fans on Facebook or 100 000 Twitter followers, you are sure to get all the “right” traffic. Some of you might think that numbers are a factor but I’ll tell you why you must not focus on numbers and more social media pitfalls to avoid:

• Getting targeted followers is a much better option. Remember, quality trumps quantity.
• Failing to interact with your followers. Sending blind tweets is practically useless. It only increases your “bounce rates”.
• Inconsistent in “socializing” with your followers.

4. Blog/Forum Commenting

You would have heard that you need to find blogs or forums to comment and stay active. Sure but are you also doing it the right way? Let’s just look at some common problems:

• Inconsistent in “socializing”, pretty much the same like the previous point.
• Poor contributor i.e just taking in what you see and not sharing what you might know.
• Confining yourself to just a couple of bloggers in your niche.

o   You really need to spread your wings! Don’t just stay in once circle of friends. Join more circle of “blogs/forums” and be a regular active member of all your “inner circles”.

5. Article Marketing

Article marketing is one of those traffic generating methods that have lived long enough to see the internet started from its early days till the now booming social media landscape. It never dies IMO and will continue to work but what could you be doing wrong?

• Thinking that you could slack off and forget about it totally
• Submitting to junk article directories.
• Failing to link back to your website

6. Link Building

I’m sure you’ve heard that link building must be consistent and its one of those ways to get good rankings but what are the common pitfalls:

• Buying links. THIS IS AN ABSOLUTE NO NO. Check out Google Webmaster Guidelines if you think I’m kidding.
• Link exchange with crap websites.
• Restricting link building to just websites/blogs

o  Building links with RSS directories, Blog directories and Social sites

• Building links with irrelevant websites/blogs
• Not varying your link building efforts. Again, like I mentioned before, expand and get noticed everywhere!

7. Advertising

Advertising is a tricky thing and I must admit that I’m no expert in this. I’m still trying to learn to maximize my advertising but in my experience this is what I can share with you.

• Don’t Use Google Adwords for search engines

o   Use it for content networks

• Inappropriate placement of ads at non targeted sites
• Doing all the work yourself.

o   What about telling your friends to help you advertise on their website too especially those with higher traffic?

So there you go, 7 pitfalls of 7 traffic generation tips for you to ponder. What do you think of it? Let me know and drop me a line. Oh, and if you have better points to add please leave me a comment and I’m happy to have a discussion with any of you.

You might also consider reading these 2 articles to familiarize yourself with traffic building:

• John Paul Aguiar on his 7 Steps to Build Traffic For a Blog Post here
• Tran Trinh on 10 Surefire ways to Boost Blog Traffic here

Related articles on Traffic Generation Tips and Tools

• How To Promote A Website Through Link Building
• The MEGA List of Free and Paid SEO Tools the Professionals Use
• Do It Yourself Search Engine Optimization Tips
• Get unique one way link building

Tagged as: advertising, article marketing, backlinks, blogging tips, building traffic, forum commenting, keyword optimization, link building tips, PPC advertising, social media, traffic generation