As much as people are told that building links leads to more traffic, there is a clear distinction in the processes in which traffic and links are built. Sure, there may be some overlap between the two, but when push comes to shove, the two are pretty much different methods. So, which one do you do? Both, of course. However, you dedicate different amounts of time to them and determine what your true goals are. Do you want fast bursts of traffic or do you want slower, consistent amounts of traffic?

Building Links

Building links can be done a lot of different ways. Here are some:

• Posting on blogs with your link in the comment so that you can get a backlink. You do this a lot and it results in a lot of links
• Buying links on sites within your niche. This obviously gives some ranking.
• Submitting articles to directories with the hope that other sites will take it and then use it for their own site thus giving you more links.
• Submitting your URL to web directories. You submit even the deep pages so that you can get more than just the home page indexed.

As you can see here, little is cared for about content because all you’re looking to do is build bulk links. You want to get as many as you can so that you can rank more successfully in the search engines. It’s a good move, but is it the best?

Building Traffic

Building traffic can be done a lot of different ways. Here are some:

• Write a really good article for your website and then submit it to Digg and StumbleUpon. Getting to the front page of Digg will send thousands of visitors to your site all at once and then the StumbleUpon traffic will roll on in. A lot of potential traffic.
• Write a guest blog post and give it to the largest blog in your niche. If it is posted, a large amount of traffic will suddenly be sent your way because you get a little “about the author” section at the end.
• Make a video and submit it to YouTube. If it is picked up, the viral traffic will be amazing and the visitors will come rolling in.

So, which do you do? I suggest a mixture of both. Obviously build your links so that you can rank well in the search engines. However, you want to get traffic as fast as you can. The building traffic should be your short term gains and the building links should be your long term gains.

As you probably know by now, at Tampa Web Design, we are more than capable to do a lot of different work for your company. One of the things that we can do is video production. Video is a fantastic way to market your website and the honest thing about it is that it is becoming the growing method in which people are giving information out on the web. It used to be text, but more and more people are doing video podcasts to give information out because they’re relatively easy to make and you don’t have to be an amazing writer.

However, let’s say that you don’t want to make a podcast because that takes too much of your time. Instead, you just want to get a video on YouTube.com that has a “find out more at our website” section at the end. In essence, you just want to get a ton of people to see your video and then want to know more, so they type the URL of your site into their browser. That’s a great idea and a lot of people do it to build traffic.

There are two methods in which you can market your site with video:

* Provide honest and worthwhile information. Make a video that provides a solution to a problem. The best marketers are able to solve a problem. People want to know solutions, so if your video provides it, they’ll love it. Let’s say you own a blog all about blogging. You might make a video about how to install WordPress the long way. This is an honest video that provides information. If people start to spread it around, you’ve got a viral video going.
* Do a humorous video. This is the other method. This can be sarcastic or just humorous. In this method, you create a video in which the point of it is to be funny so that it is spread around. CollegeHumor.com is great at this. They make videos that are hilarious, they get spread around and then people go back to the site looking for more. That can work for you too.

Video is a great way to market your site and you should be using it as often as possible. Don’t overwhelm YouTube with your videos, but if you could get one posted a week, that would be a great way to push a ton of traffic to your site. Try one out and see how it goes.