As we all know, there is no point in having a website, unless someone is going to see it. Especially if you try to sell something on your website, no website traffic is a guarantee for no sales. Actually, even if you don't have a website of your own, but you work as an affiliate, still website traffic is essential.  If you have a brick and mortar business, someone may see it just by walking on the street, but no one will ever see your website if you do nothing to make it happen. Well, here is a variety of methods you can use to make it happen. Here is a brief description of these ways to get traffic.

Get your website traffic through ezine ads

This is a paid method to get traffic. There are virtual e-magazines with hundreds or thousands of devoted subscribers that deal with almost any specific niche you can think of. There are different kinds of ads you can put on such ezines. The cost and the traffic you will have differ accordingly. The bigger your ad is and the more its placement is central, the more you will pay, and the more attention (and probably traffic) you will get in return. Click for more information about ezine ads.

Get your website traffic through SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

This method for getting traffic can be paid for or free -- depends on the time, money and the kind of technical knowledge you have. The idea is that most people looking for information in the internet by searching through search engines. Generally in response to a search they will get a long list of website addresses with related information. The list will be spread sometimes (if the subject is popular) on hundreds or thousands of pages, but the common man will enter only the websites that are on the first, second or third pages. Most commonly he will not go further. So if you want to get traffic through search engines you should make sure that your website will rank highly on the search engines (especially the most common ones – Google, Yahoo, MSN), under the keywords that are relevant for your website. There are various ways to do it, but the most common things that improve your ranking are a right measure of keyword density on your website's pages, the meta tags on your website's pages and one way links to your website from other websites related to your keywords. Some of the following methods of getting traffic stands for themselves, but also help your search engine ranking, because they produce links to your website (like forum advertising and article writing). 

Get website traffic through Forum advertising

This is a free way to advertise and have traffic to your website. The idea is that you should join a forum, dealing with your niche, a forum that allows you to add a signature file. A signature file is actually a few lines where you tell a little about yourself and your related interests and place a link to your website or squeeze page. These lines with your link help you both drive traffic to your website and improve your SEO. While participating in a forum try to always ad value; see what people are interested in, what their questions and their needs are, and try to come with an answer or a solution. In this way position yourself as an expert/helpful, then people would like to see what you have to offer. Don't spam the Forum, no one wants to buy anything from a spammer, and you will ruin your reputation. 

Get website traffic by writing Articles

This is a free way to drive traffic to your website. Write worthy articles with great value and related, of course, to your niche. Submit your articles to article directories and include at the end a resource box with a link to your website (similar to the forum signature mentioned above). If your articles are valuable, people will consider you an expert and will be tempted to see what you have to offer on your own website. There are hundreds or even thousands of article directories – some deal with specific niches and some include a huge variety of niches.  

Get Website Traffic by Submitting your website to web directories

This method of driving traffic to your website is generally a free method, and is related to SEO. In order to make sure that search engines recognize your website you have to submit them to web directories. There are websites and software that enable you to do it, and you can also do it manually. Different websites and software offer you different directories for submission. Make sure that the software or service that you use includes submission to the main search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. The submission has to be redone every now and then but it depends on the directory – some directories will ask you to do so, and some will punish you if you do so. So it's best to check it before resubmitting.  

Get website traffic through JV partnership

This method is useful for marketers who have their own product, and that is the way the big gurus use to make their money. It can be good also for marketers who market a PLR product, as their own. A good way to start a partnership is to join a forum of internet marketers, look for marketers in your niche and offer them a good deal for marketing your products to their customers. They will drive traffic to your website in exchange to commissions in case of sale. 

Get website traffic through Affiliates

This way of getting traffic is specific for marketers who have their own product and need help in selling it. It is of course a paid way to get traffic, but you pay a commission to the affiliate only after you get paid by the customer. In addition to the specific product you sold, you can offer the customers (on your sales page) a free bonus in exchange to their email address. In this way you can cultivate your customers, or potential customers and sell them more products in the future. If they're satisfied with the first product they bought, they will buy from you more willingly in the future. For the additional products you will not have to pay additional commission. So affiliates do all the advertising for you, and bring you not only website traffic but buying customers, therefore you should try to keep your affiliates satisfied, and give them a fair percentage of the product price as a commission. When it comes to virtual products generally the commission is about 50% of the price. For physical products the commission is generally lower, because there is a fixed cost for producing each product and delivering it to the customer. 

Get website traffic through PPC (Pay Per Click)

Of course, this is a paid method to drive traffic to your website. It can be a way to lose money much faster than you thought, but if you know how to do it right, it can generate highly targeted traffic. It’s the quickest way to gain (and loose) money on the internet. Learn about PPC advertising. 

Get viral traffic to your website

This method is generally free. Viral traffic is traffic that increases due to word of mouth or sharing. Very useful tools for getting this kind of traffic are social networks, like Facebook, My Space, Twitter, Bebo, Digg, where you can gather a whole community of people with the same interests, or YouTube.com where videos are sometimes watched thousands of times, because people are sending them to their friends, who send them to their friends and so on. When it comes to YouTube you should create a video that will be nice to watch, and have something special (so that people will like to pass it on to their friends), and it should also inspire people to visit your website.  

Get website traffic through traffic exchanges

This is a free method (unless you chose to pay) and the easiest way to advertise. The idea of traffic exchange is that members view others' members' websites for certain amount of time (10-20 seconds) in exchange for traffic credits that can be used to get traffic to their own website/s. Find here more about traffic exchages.

Get traffic through safe list advertising

Safe lists are double opt-in lists of people who agreed to receive emails from each other. This method of getting traffic can be free or paid, depends on your decision and how attractive are the paid deals. If you join such a list you can send email once, twice a week or even more (depends on the list and your type of membership) to the other members, in the mail you can inspire them to visit your website, or to send a link to a product that you sell as an affiliate. Find here some more about safe lists. 

Get traffic through list Builders

This is some kind of safelist, just that you receive mail only from your upline and can send mail only to your downline. Generally there will be some possibilities to upgrade, and get some downline for payment. It’s worth to do it, instead of trying to recruit a downline.  Find here some more information about list builders. 

Get traffic through Press Releases

Press Release is a way of getting traffic that can be useful for marketers who have a new product or service of their own. It can be also useful for marketers who hold conferences, seminars and webinars. Here you can find more information about press release.  

Some of the methods mentioned here are better for beginners and some for more experienced internet marketers. Choose what's right for you, according to your experience and budget.

As you can see Getting website traffic can be a very hard and time consuming work. For internet marketers who do not have their own products, it may be the main work. Therefore tracking your ads or advertising efforts is extremely important, because it enables you to efficiently invest your resources (be it time, money or both) in a way that produce for you the best results.