Let's Look At Organic Traffic

Organic traffic or free traffic is very simple to explain, but a bit  harder to implement. Organic traffic comes from the search engines, other sites that link back to your site and from direct access via other online and offline methods. While organic traffic is usually thought of as search engine traffic, as you can see, it can come from other sources as well.

In the interest of simplicity, this post will center around how to get a steady flow of visitors from the search engines. There is tons of material out there about how to get the search engines to recognize and love your site. However, while there's plenty of opinions, what I've found to work for me consistently is onpage SEO.

Getting Traffic To Your Website

by Judith Allison, Guest Poster

You have just finished designing what you think is the perfect website on a topic that you think is important to the Internet community. You have written articles, gathered resources, put up links to relevant references on the web. Your site has photos, videos, articles and commentary. In your opinion, it's a work of art, a masterpiece of form and function that's guaranteed to inform and delight.

Week 1: You check your stats. You have gotten seven visitors to your website, and you are pretty sure that covers your immediate family and a couple loyal friends who would visit any site you put up.

Week 2: You check your stats. It's a great website. People are going to love it. You went out to dinner and talked it up with the restaurant staff. You conveyed your excitement once again to your family. You have gotten five new visitors . . . . probably the waitress, because you inisted she write down the url of your site, the restaurant manager who stayed for less than 30 seconds, your two brothers (because they told you on the phone that they stopped by again), and of course, your mom.

Week 3: You check your stats. 11 unique visitors and Mom and Dad, but he doesn't count because they're on the same computer.

Week 4: You check your stats. 22 unique visitors of which you see a couple are 'bots and not human.