I receive traffic from numerous sources; from my e-books to YouTube, social networking sites you name it.

But when I look at my traffic stats and review my top two sources, they have been the same for many years…

1) search engines

2) bookmark traffic

Of course, the percentage of traffic I receive from these various sources has changed. For example, my bookmark traffic has increased by quite a bit over the past few years.

Nevertheless my top three sources have typically been search engines, bookmark traffic and voluntary inbound links.

So I thought I’d open up a discussion about traffic here. What are your top two (or three) sources right now and how have they changed over the months/years (if at all)?   Noticed any patterns?

Let’s talk!

When you’re first starting a website, it can be tempting to seek new advertisers, build a community (forum) and add other features/additions that can generate revenue and make your site look appealing.

The problem is, if you don’t have enough traffic, your site will end up looking vacant, smallish and unimportant.

So I thought I’d make a list of a few things new Webmasters should avoid when starting a site.

Don’t Look For Advertisers… Yet

Most serious advertisers know what to look for when searching for sites to advertise on. They’ll check your Alexa Rank, PageRank, PageStrength and other tools to get an idea for how much traffic you’re getting.

So don’t throw up “Advertise Here” message unless you have the traffic and advertisers to support it.

If you do this prematurely, it lets everyone know you don’t get enough traffic because the “Advertise Here” message continues to display, yet you have no advertisers who choose to advertise with you.

Don’t Launch a Forum or Other Community-Based Applications

Many members on my forum, WebsiteBabble.com ask about starting their own forum. Yet, I always caution them to make sure they have enough traffic before doing so.

It doesn’t look too good when you launch a forum that gets 1 or 2 posts per week. People won’t want to participate in a forum that looks inactive.

I’ve found that the best way to establish a forum is to build a website or blog that generates a good amount of targeted traffic (500-1000 unique visitors per day). Then use that traffic to help promote your forum.

Incorporate links to your forum in popular web pages and blog posts. For example, if you have a heavily trafficked page on how to develop a site with CSS, you could invite your visitors to post questions about CSS in your forum.

Also, don’t be afraid to create a few fake accounts and post some starter questions and answers to get your forum going.

Once the activity picks up you won’t need to do this anymore, but that’s a great way to encourage participation in a new forum.

However, if your traffic levels are low, hold off on the forum for now.

Don’t Display Your RSS Feed Subscribers

With the popularity of FeedBurner, many bloggers opt to display how many people have subscribed to their feed.

This looks pretty impressive when you get into the 4-digit arena, but not quite so good when the number is under 20 – especially if your subscriber rate is not increasing much.

It doesn’t look too good when someone visited your blog on January 1st when you had 20 subscribers, and four months later they return and you have 22.

Sometimes it’s best to keep your numbers to yourself.

The Moral of The Story

Notice the above points all revolve around one thing… generating enough traffic. That should be the first goal for your site.

I know it’s tempting to add user interactivity, forums, chats, make money from advertisers, etc. but without traffic, your site becomes a collection of features that no one is using.

It’s much better to spend the early days learning how to generate targeted traffic to your site. Then once the visitors come, you can start thinking about adding such features.

View my traffic building tips page to read about some of the ways I’ve brought traffic to my site over the years. See if there are any methods you can implement yourself.

Building traffic to a site or blog is an ongoing process that takes time. And over the past 10 years, I’ve learned it’s about the sum of the little tasks you do often.

For example, you may not think much of that 3-paragraph blog post you wrote this morning, but two years from now that very post could bring you a few hits per day from Google.

Don’t laugh. I know a few hits doesn’t sound like a lot, but what if 150 of your archived blog posts brought in an average of 5 hits per day? You do the math. That’s 750 hits. And of course I was just using an arbitrary number. You could very well do better than that.

And remember, this is just from old blog posts floating about the search engines. I’m not counting the traffic from your website, recent blog posts, current articles etc.

It’s about the cumulative effect of small tasks completed over time, and as a Webmaster you should always be thinking of ways to build and diversify your traffic.

When I review my website stats, I always notice I’ve received traffic from articles I wrote 5, 6 or even 7 years ago. Work I did way back then is still paying off today. You can do the same. So here are 5 tips you can use often to add to the cumulative effect of building traffic.

1. Yahoo! Answers

I have gotten a decent amount of traffic from this, especially when you consider the small amount of time I’ve put into it.

Yahoo! Answers is exactly what the title suggests. You simply post answers to questions posed by other users. As a Webmaster, the best way to get the most from it is to find questions related to your niche.

For example, if you have a site on fishing, you could do a search for questions related to this pastime and answer as many questions as you can find.

Now the key is not to just rush through this. Craft thoughtful, useful answers that provide value to the person who posed the question. If you impress the viewers, your profile may get a few clicks. And guess what you can put in your profile? You guessed it…

Your website address!

I know a lady who sold a Site Build It! subscription through Yahoo Answers. She responded to a question about working at home and she casually mentioned she used Site Build It!.

She did not spam Yahoo! Answers by putting a link to SBI! in her reply, but someone clicked her avatar along side her answer, viewed her profile and emailed her specific questions about SBI!. After a few email exchanges the curious surfer bought the software and she was $75 richer.

Will you get hundreds of visitors per day from posting at Yahoo! Answers? Probably not, but remember it’s the little things that add up.

Plus, Yahoo! Answers are always appearing in the search results. Imagine all the people who may stumble upon your well-thought out replies to various questions.

2. Forum Posting

A few years ago, forum posting was often a top bullet on the “How to build traffic” list because it was a great way to build backlinks to your site. Using a sig file with your posts created a ton of inbound to your site and Google often rewarded Webmasters with a higher PageRank, more traffic, etc.

While forum posting may hold some backlink benefits, it’s effect has been downgraded tremendously. And I certainly wouldn’t waste your time flooding forums trying to build this number up.

The best way to use forums for traffic is to develop a good reputation with other forum members and subtly promote your site by way of your signature (sig) file. Much like Yahoo! Answers, the more useful your posts are, the more likely others are to respect your advice and visit your site.

Use Search It! to find forums in your niche or simply go to your favorite engine and type in “your_niche + forums”. This will likely bring up a nice selection of forums related to your subject matter.

You can start by posting in my forum, WebsiteBabble.com. Not only is it loved and indexed often by Google, but the members are friendly, fun and smart!

3. Blog Comments

I think this method is highly underrated and forgotten by a lot of Webmasters. Posting useful comments regularly on high-trafficked blogs can really bring in good traffic over time.

And with all the cool plug-ins available, many blogs entice people to make comments by allowing them to add pictures, their website address and more.

4. Broadcast on YouTube

I just started doing this 5 months ago and my videos have received over 100,000 views (combined). And just like regular SEO for your content, you can optimize your videos to be found in the YouTube search results.

My main goals for the videos were to add personality and create credibility to my site. I never dreamed this method would generate the kind of traffic it has in the last 5 months.

Think of content you can put in video form for your audience. It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate. A 3-minute video can be highly effective if presented well. Just organize your key points, speak clearly and publish!

And of course YouTube makes it super easy to add the video to your site. Just copy and paste a few lines of code and you’re done!

Some people learn better by hearing than reading. Your audience will find this method of delivery quite refreshing, especially if you have a tutorial-based site.

In a Web with so many faceless, cold sites developed by Webmasters who prefer to remain anonymous, adding videos to your site and YouTube could work well in your favor. Credibility is key with making money online and what a great way to build trust with your audience.

And to generate traffic from people who find my videos in YouTube, I use Windows Movie Maker to display my website address during the video.

Read my article on how to broadcast yourself and your site on YouTube.

5. Check Your Web Stats

Ever check your traffic stats and find certain pages have been found in the search engines for keywords that were not the main focus on the page?

For example, say you have an article titled “How to Create a Blog” that contains a few paragraphs where you review Blogger.com. You check your traffic stats and find that page shows up #12 in Google for “Blogger review.”

Instead of settling for the trickles of traffic that keyword phrase brings, why not build a page that focuses on “Blogger review” that can obtain a much higher rank for that keyword. And to help that page’s positioning, you can link it from the original article since the content is related.

Not only are you building another content-rich page with potential search engine traffic, but you’re providing your audience with more useful information they can use.

Dig deep into those traffic stats. You may find some untapped keywords that are a potential gold mind.

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So there you have it – 5 easy tips you can implement to build long-term traffic. And as a Webmaster, this should be a goal that remains at the top of your list.

While there are hundreds of other ways to build traffic to your site or blog, I wanted to focus on something other than SEO fundamentals, blogging, link exchanges, PPC, etc (yawn). Plus, you can start executing these strategies now.

Building traffic takes time. And as the old saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Just know that the little things you do today can evolve into long-term rewards of a lifetime.

Happy traffic building!

You know about search engine submitting, blogging and writing/submitting articles for other sites. So what do you do when you’ve done all these things and still can’t get enough traffic?

The video below discusses topics which often get overlooked when people create websites. While some of it may seem like common sense to you, why are you and so many people still neglecting these key tasks?

http://www.youtube.com/v/pUeHGloqEyI

There’s a nifty little tool out called “Page Strength” and it takes Google’s PageRank to a new level. It offers more insight into how valuable, important and popular a site or page is as compared to others on the web.

Check it out here.

Here’s a book I wrote on traffic building. It’s called “20 Ways to Build Traffic to Your Site”. In this eBook, I discuss various methods (most of which I still use) that will help bring in more visits to your website.

I’ll admit some of the tips are pretty elementary if you’ve been marketing on the web for a while, but it’s amazing at how many people still ignore the basics.

You’ll also find a handful of innovative ways to promote your site that you should take advantage of (screensavers, contests, etc.)

If you have a website, you’re free to offer this book as a free download from your own site.

Download it today.