Seven steps ...  

... to generate traffic for your websites

First of all: Submit your websites to Google, Yahoo and other popular search engines. Search Engines generate approximately 75% of todays traffic.

Beside the search engines take advantage of the social networks. These websites, once known as dating portals, have experienced a renaissance in recent months. MySpace, for example, has been received two and a half times the traffic that Google is generating for its search engine. If you can tap into this vast network, you’d have an avalanche of traffic waiting to be unleashed. All you have to do is to create a profile in the said website, gain a lot of friends, and invite them to your own web page. Friendster and Multiply are similar social networking websites that also deserve a second look.

Web logs (Blogs) are online journals that have commanded a lot of following. They have their own audience. A lot of blog directories exist to help blog "addicts" find a web log they can religiously follow. By setting up a blog that will promote your business website, and pinging the blog directories every time you publish a new entry, you’d be informing hundreds of thousands of blog aficionados about your blog, and you can generate tons of traffic to your website.

The newest kid on the block, the tag and ping method is the hottest way of harnessing traffic for your blog. Websites like Technorati and Del.icio.us are blog directories that act as user-driven search engines as well. Instead of keywords, they use tags. Tags are words or phrases you can use to classify your blogs and blog entries. You’re in control. Every tag will have its ownlanding page, and the newest entry to be submitted will be found on top of the list for that page. This is an excellent way to achieve prominence for your blog, and eventually, for your business website.

The website digg.com is like a repository of the best articles in the Web. Articles can be submitted to this service, and readers can vote for the articles they like. The articles which receive the most number of votes will appear on the main page, and this will drive tens and thousands of traffic for your website. One article can have a temporal effect when it comes to a traffic spike, but submit articles regularly and you have a goldmine with this service.

Viral marketing. Distribute an eBook, a special report, a software program or even a novelty digital item for free. Make sure that such a freebie will carry your business message, for instance a link to your business website. If such a freebie is valuable enough for Internet users, they will distribute the same to the members of their own network. The result is an exponential, unceasing spread of your viral message to potentially millions and millions of people at such a rapid pace.

In case you want to sell things online: Use a payment processor that has its own shopping system. Since you will need a means by which you can accept credit card payments, might as well choose a third party payment processor that will give your online business the exposure it needs. Clickbank and 2checkout are two such payment processors that have their own shopping areas. The fact that they’re quite renowned would also allow you to garner some affiliate who will help you sell your digital goods.