You get traffic by putting up ads. Plain and simple.

Let me explain the obvious overtone, and follow it with the counter intuitive undertone reality.

It’s not as complicated as we make it.  This was a huge realization for me though when I saw it in this simple perspective.

There are at least 4 steps for someone to get to your website:
1- They have to get online

2- The have to either type your website into their browser, or click on something to get them there. (Even if they google your domain name and click on the link in google, they just took two steps.)

3- Most of the time, they’re clicking on something to bring themselves back to the site.  These links are called ads.

4- Every link that brings someone to your website is an ad, to get traffic all you have to do is learn the rules for getting the right links in front of the right people.

Let me explain and it will get even simpler.  Unless people are turning on their computer, opening their web browser, and typing in your domain name, they are going to get to your website from something that prompts them, reminds them, helps them, or tells them to do so.  In other words, probably almost every single person who ever comes to any website you own, is probably going to get there by being somewhere else first, and then clicking a link in that place and arriving at your site.  If they don’t come in by clicking something, they’ll come because they heard about you somewhere or from someone.

So, these links are ads.  All  you have to do is learn the rules to get your links in the places the people who you want to talk to, are.

Example: SEO is an ad, there are a whole bunch of rules and stuff about the page, the other pages that link to it, the keywords, and the whole bit.  Bottom line, getting that link into google is an ad, there is a complex set up rules to get it there.

Twitter traffic?  Yes, little tiny ads, lot’s of unspoken and spoken rules about what works and what doesn’t.

Email marketing, same thing.

Paid Traffic: This is my favorite because it actually has the least rules – give ad network money, an actual “Ad” like we would all define it, and tell them who you want it shown to.  Then, you get traffic.

So, money + ad + targeting = traffic.

I know this all sounds too simple, and to a certain degree it is.  But that’s the truth, if you think about it.  Pretty much everyone who ever comes to your site, is coming from somewhere else for some other reason.  How do you put your links there.  Learn the rules, and repeat the process over and over and over again, and you’ll have lot’s and lot’s of traffic.

Here’s the counter intuitive more complex way of looking at it:

The real way you get traffic, is to make a sales process that converts and gives people something they want bad enough to pay money for.

The equation is:

VALUE PEOPLE WILL PAY FOR + PROPER PERSUASION = MORE TRAFFIC THAN YOU CAN HANDLE

When you do this, people want to link to you, you can afford to buy ads everywhere, affiliates want to promote for you, and the list goes on and on and on.  The way to get a lot of traffic, is to have something that is not only worth talking about for interest and curiosity’s sake, but because it’s profitable to do so.  When you do this, you have scalability problems, not traffic problems.