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How to Attract Links and Increase Web Traffic – The Ultimate Guide

written by Brian Clark
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How to Attract Links and Increase Web Traffic – The Ultimate Guide

Links and traffic… who wants some?

The number of excellent resources that have come out since the beginning of the year on attracting links and building traffic has really mushroomed. Plus there are some timeless classics that are still very relevant today.

I think it makes sense to compile the very best in one handy location and share it, so here’s my entire collection. If I missed your link and traffic resource let me know and I’ll take a look.

Now, it doesn’t matter if you like the term “link baiting” or not. It’s the process that one goes through to attract links that matters, not whether you prefer to think of your content as bait for links. I like to think that creating content that increases web traffic and builds links simply falls under the general social media optimization marketing buzz phrase that is gaining in popularity.

So, here’s your ultimate “how to” guide to creating content that attracts links and drives traffic in the social media environment:

101 Ways to Build Link Popularity in 2006 | SEO Book

101 Web Marketing Ideas and Tips | SEOpedia

25 Tips for Marketing Your Blog | Online Marketing Blog

10 Remarkably Effective Strategies for Driving Traffic | SEOMoz

13 Link Building Tools SEO Experts Needs to Know | Traffic Think Tank

8 Reasons Why Lists Are Good for Getting Traffic to Your Blog | Problogger

7 Ways to Get to the Top of the del.ico.us Popular Page | Problogger

3 Ways to Immediately Increase Search Engine Traffic | Performancing

How to Get Traffic For Your Blog | Seth Godin

The Art of Linkbaiting | Performancing

The Art of Blog | SEO Black Hat

What is Linkbaiting? | Modern Life is Rubbish

SEO Advice: Linkbait and Linkbaiting | Matt Cutts of Google

Problogger Link Baiting Series | Problogger

Secrets to Beating the Sandbox 2.0 Revealed | Link Building Blog

What Makes a Site Link-Worthy? | Eric Ward

Using Digg to Attract Hits | Slate

Social Bookmarking for Traffic | SiteProNews

The Sandbox and Delicious | Graywolf’s SEO Blog

Unleashing the IdeaVirus | Seth Godin

Viral Copy | Copyblogger

Building Traffic to Build Your Fan Club | Copyblogger

Trust Rank and Your Domain | Link Building Blog

Generating Buzz With Link Baiting and Viral Campaigns | Search Engine Watch

Linkbaiting for Fun & Profit | Search Engine Journal

Link Building Guide | Jim Westergren

Link Baiting & Effective Link Building | Search Engine Journal

Link Baiting and Viral Search Success | Search Engine Roundtable

How Much is Link Bait Worth? | Cartoon Barry

Link Baiting (How Nick Wilson Created SEO Even Seth Godin Could Love) | Stuntdubl

Link Baiting Case Study from Search Engine Journal | Search Engine Journal

Link Bait | SEO Book

Building Traffic With Article Marketing | Copyblogger

Link Building Blog | Text Link Ads

Link Building Wiki | Text Link Brokers

Advanced Link Building Tactics | SEOMoz

Let me know in the comments if I missed something that isn’t covered by one of these resources. Happy reading!

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Reader Comments (560)

  4. Lee, your first one is already up there… don’t think I would leave you out. 🙂

    I’ll look at the other two as well… these have just been my bookmarks I’ve collected over time, so I’m quite sure there are others that qualify.

  6. Though I appreciate the list (and I’ve filed it away for future reference), the sheer volume of stuff is a little daunting.

    I’m wondering if from a “blogging strategy” perspective, you would have gotten more people to read this if it had broken up into smaller “chunks”. Or, a “best of the best” list.

    Then again, who cares about that, it’s useful the way it is. 🙂

  11. Maybe this is covered, but a good tip for building links is setting up a spot on MySpace. It’s free. That website is one of the popular online, so just having a link back to your site will help your page ranking in the search engines.

    This month, I just started taking SEO seriously. Thanks for the post.

    John

    http://www.realitycopywriting.com

  12. John:

    The SEO benefits from a myspace profile are minimal unless the particular profile also gets backlinks. The search engines know to discount links on popular sites that anyone can make an account on. The trick is to find sites that the Search engines have Not yet discounted and put your links on those sites.

    But a myspace profile is a good idea from a branding prospective for many sites.

  17. Thanks for the Article Marketing tips. I reckon it really pays to have everything sorted out for your resource box so you can convert as many visitors as possible.

  33. Put this in a book, sell it, and we’ll all buy it and read it. I’ve been using some of your tips and I find them productive and useful. Thank you so much.

    I’m going to each and every site you’ve recommended and I’m going to read all of them.

    But where is the time. I’m up to midnight, every night, and I feel overwhelmed at times. It’s worth it. I’d rather blog with flair and fun, than blog like a boring hack.

  35. I read your site almost everyday! Great list of How to’s. Thanks for participating in the Group Writing Project. My How To is up also.

  42. Great post – I plan to look at 2-3 sites per day and pick up new tips along the way. Is there one tip out of all of these that you would say is the most important/rewarding?

  47. >>Very useful links! Some of them I knew. But I think the content is what that matters.

    Uh, every single one of those resources says that the content is what matters. That’s what “creating compelling content” means. 🙂

  49. I totally agree with the ideas you have mentioned. But I got another suggestion for bloggers to find blogs that are of similar topics and ask for link exchange. They could go to blog directories (e.g. http://blogannounce.info) and then go to the category their blog belongs to and then visit other blogs. Post comments and then contact the blog owner. I like this method because similar blogs tend to attract the same targeted groups and thus are more likely to lead referrals. And by the way, bloggers could submit their blogs to directories and get more traffic.

  52. Huge list of info, but is something I need, and for that I might say thanks.Now I’ll study this list for a few hours.

  73. Thanks a lot for theses links. Most of them I’d never tried before; now I’m confident I’ll double or triple my traffic.

    RS

  75. I regret not finding this article earlier, thank you so much for writing it! So much useful information and so many precious links at once.. I hope to digest it asap and start promoting my blog in the “wise” way.
    Cheers!

  82. just curios….how many visitors and links you get from practising above steps ? but one thing sure, you have successfully bring my attention for it. 🙂

  87. woooooohoooooo, now that is an ultimate guide. I haven’t had the pleasure of reading through them yet but I am defiantly going to get on it. Thanks for everything and hopefully I will learn a thing or two.

  88. i hve no website but am trying to find out about making money –getting paid for directing hits to other websites–i am totally in the dark about this–i think it is called web linking–i would have to learn how to make a website and all the rest–any advice on going about all this–from scratch–perhaps a good book–would be appreciated–as i said i am total neopphyte. hope to do this from outside united states

  89. […] came across an article on “How to Attract Links and Increase Web Traffic – The Ultimate Guide” written by Brian Clark who is better known as the “Copyblogger“ […]

  90. Very thorough list. I like these and have been seeing them around more and more.

    Once thing I will be curious to see more of in the future, is people giving more details in these lists than just the link and title of post.

  93. I didn’t know about this method until now.
    Although Google visit my website everyday because of the method that I’m using, I am still going to try this link bait thing!

  101. All SEO now is building links… Links matter more than content itself – content is hard to recognize as an original text without good incoming links. And Google can do nothing with this.

  103. Great article, I was reading and I can say that a lot of web marketing information are available through those links, specifically the SEOpedia one. This article describes very well the way to use titles and meta description tags, a good way to improve the visibility of a website in search engines.

  111. Thanks so much … However, most of the links refer to blogger sites. Can you offer some suggestions for increasing traffic to established sites with hundreds of pages and heaps of content?

  120. I have been surfing the net in search of ways to build traffic to my blog. I’ll need weeks now to sift through all of these resources. Thanks for collating them. Happy new year.

  121. Awesome collection.All these are i think the best links at one place.Great job.I was looking for such a list for a long time.

  122. Hi, I’ve tried lots of tricks to increase my blog traffic: technorati, technorati tags, digg.com, traffic g, registering on blog listings like top blogs, etc. I find that as soon as I take a week off of posting, even though I have tons of content on my blog, my traffic drops off dramatically. http://jmorrow50.wordpress.com.

  126. I have been using Google adwords and Yahoo search marketing to advertise my site http://www.collegecreditbuilder.com and have found that the keyword traffic is very expensive, but results in actual click-throughs, whereas the content match feature can burn through you daily budget with many clicks, but no actual click-throughs. I know there are click-fraud lawsuits pending, but it seems like something is still not right.

  131. brian,

    you’ve put an excellent effort in coming up with this list. it will take time before i read all of the articles found behind those links but i think it will be all worth it.

    thanks for the valuable info.

  138. Great tips you have there. My blog is somewhat similiar to the one you have here. Of course I hope to have the same kind of popularity for my blog like the one you have here. I did come up with a couple of articles with regards to blogging. Hope you can drop by to give a comment or two about my article. Many thanks in advance. Here are 2 articles that I have written.

    http://4u2invest.blogspot.com/2008/03/making-money-from-blogging-part-1.html

    http://4u2invest.blogspot.com/2008/03/want-to-start-blogging-part-2.html

  143. This post is exactly what I was looking for. With out Website ranking in spot number 3.5 million on Alexa.com, I need all the help I can get to get the traffic up. Cheers!

  147. At last, great to see so much useful information in one place. Have started working on some of the guides already. Thanks for the list Brian.

  148. Really a great set of resources, i dont need to bookmark all great post on link building, i am just going to bookmark your post, this way i can read all the great post by accessing your page only.
    Thanks for putting everything together.

  153. Impressive list, definitely one of the best post I have seen so far on the theme of link building. Will definitely bookmark this one

  162. I definitely will be bookmarking your website. You covered most of the social media marketing areas and there seems to be so many, I can’t catch up. However, the most effective ones I found are twitter, ever.com, livejournal.com, myspace.com, facebook.com, mybloglog.com, and squidoo.com

  166. I haven’t read everything on this page, so maybe this has been mentioned. But a free program that came out late in 2007 or early 2008 is a GREAT high ranking blog finder for most any niche. It’s called Comment Kahuna (I found this blog through CK!). You can attract traffic AND receive high ranking inbound links. Extremely easy to use and huge time saver in terms of searching for quality blogs. Just look up Comment Kahuna in Google and download!

  168. Getting 100,000 website visitors to your site quickly and easily
    This is the best way to build huge and continuous traffic to your site

    Easy to setup, and it works forever
    Never spend one more cent buy traffic any more
    You can even sell your excessive traffics

    Any time you want visitors, just run the software.
    You don’t have to buy traffic any more.
    You can even sell your excessive traffic to others!

    its free you can download from the link

    http://www.ziddu.com/download.php?uid=aauempqpabKemJqns6yZlJyiZbCWlZir5

  172. Holy Cow!! – that’s a huge list
    looks like I’ll be busy for the next few weeks!!

    The term “link baiting” does have some negative connotation associated with it, but what is being implied accomplishes what is intended – relevant and qualified linking.

  176. Thank you for compiling all this great stuff, it really helps on getting more traffic especially for a new blog.
    I LOVE THIS BLOG…….

  178. There is alot of good info that you share with us from this blog. But you really should take a looat this free toolbar. Just follow the link from above.

  180. Thanks for the resources. These all are of great help.

    Making links are like making a spider web to trap visitors. but you pose a risk of getting trapped yourself too. The most important key to link popularity is developing good content. if you have good content your link will no doubt will be popular.

    Regards
    Shugle
    Life is not a joke

  182. Hello Brian

    Sure is refreshing to see copywriting being written about…..

    I am always in the process of learning about the three core principles of creating profits online – traffic generation, list building, and sales copy writing……everything falls into one of those principles…….

    Sincerely in Integrity

    Leo

  188. There is much needed valuable information throughout your recommendations, thank you for getting me on the right course in my internet career. You have allowed me to assemble my own increase online traffic course over time, take a look for my version on how to increase online traffic.
    Increase Online Traffic

  194. Hi,
    Thanks so much for providing such a valuable and useful information about how to increase traffic on your web. It will be very beneficial to follow these instruction. I have one more services also like as- On-site Add-ons include a fantastic Knowledge Base, free branded software and several free videos on PC Repair tips and techniques. For more information please visit its website at http://www.askpcexperts.com. You can choose your plans at http://www.askpcexperts.com/registration/chooseplan.php

  203. Richard,

    This was a great post! There is a lot of useful information here. Linking is very important to vitals of a site and the resources you have provided are invaluable.
    Thank you for a taking the time to present this ino!!!!

    Regards
    Sean

  208. Good read. I am interested in starting a green building resource list for my niche market. Any ideas would be appreciated.

  212. Hi Sean,

    This is a great post given by about web site traffic. Even i have read about website traffic, its is very useful in all terms to get traffic to your website.

  216. This is really a great list that you have compiled, although I’ll be reading it until the 12th of never:-) I really enjoy your site, I get a lot of great info from it and I am totally feeling Thesis. I think it’s time for me to make a change:-)

  219. Great list of resources! In general, the best way to drive targeted web traffic is to provide great, relevant content. But of course that is time consuming. As long as the reader benefits and gets value, that is what is most important…

    -Brett

  225. Wow, these are some great tips on building site links. I own a carpet cleaning business and I am trying to move myself up on the Google page in Portland.

  229. Good information is hard to come by. It’s apparent you made good information available to the public just by looking at the number of trackbacks to this blog. Thanks for taking the time so some of us can benefit.

  233. wow! this item is recommended by Chitika in their recent post about 4 factors for success on your site 😀 yay!

    I should be reading all the tips that you’ve linked in this post 😀

  234. i really enjoyed reading about increasing traffic and read a few deep articles per your lists. I truly feel that the best way to not only learn about tips that you might have missed and or remind you of things you might have forgotten about. great info.

  237. We are trying hard to increase the traffic to our site. It’s great to find the know-how here. Thanks for sharing. 🙂

  239. Nice list of resources. I am stuck at around 100 visitors per day and cannot increase my traffic. I will take a look at these link and hope to find some really working tips. Thanks!

  240. Nice information and a great list:) ! thanks for sharing man!
    I want to increse my traffic to 200 unique visitors/day to 1,000
    I think what you write will help me a lot!

    Thanks again!

  248. I am so glad that I found all of these great resources to check in to. I have been reading so much that my eyes are killing me. And I am only a quarter way through! Thanks for some great stuff to read and learn more from.

  249. WOW! I just saw this when i was searching for the phrase “how to increase traffic”. I think I will spend a week spending on the links you have posted here. Thanks for this, great links, great post and good explanation.

  250. Great Info. about bringing traffic to my wesite, I will try the read every link you suggest. Thanks.

  251. Hi Brian, great list but I got even more from all the comments, yours included. I found many good resources here and will be following them all up as time permits.

  258. Interesting post……..traffic is the backbone of every business. Without it we won’t make money online. So, whatever site we have, the most important to to are find the ways to generate massive traffic to our sites.

    Read similar articles on my blog: http://on-mark.blogspot.com

  260. Some fantasic tips here for us newbies, seems we all have to keep learning more as linkbuiling changes all the time.

  271. Wow! What a post, you could spend your whole life going through all these!

    Its true theres a million ways of doing everything on the Web – with the time I have I can only concentrate on a small number of things.

  273. Great post on gaining traffic to a blog or website. Theres a million and 1 ways to do this on the internet as its such a vast place. Good to see one professionally done.

  280. Holy crap . . . I’ll never get through all of this. But great article. Maybe I’ll start with the newest stuff, and work my way down . . . great job on all of the research.

  281. Very nice article on how to increase web traffic.

    There was A TON of links here that might take “forever” to read, lol…

    Anwyay,

    As somebody who spends most of my marketing in the free department this really resonated with me! Thanks.

  285. hey, thanks for this wonderful help to us beginners! Ive been trying your tips and it did give me 10% increase to my movie site which is Moomovie 100% free best + latest movies! I’m thanking you not because of a bit increase of my site stat but because your sharing your ideas to us and not keep it just for yourself like others do.

  288. My god is that a lot of resources for increasing traffic! This collection is somewhat of a full fledged course. I’ll definitely be referencing this list more than a few (or a hundred) times in order to help my website take off and grow. While there are plenty of smoking cessation websites out there, I’m certain that I can make it work.

    Seriously though, this post is a freakin’ beast. The content along with all of the feedback made for loooooooong scroll.

  289. Wow, this is an excellent list of seo resources…lots of big names and well known seo gurus. I’ll be sure to bookmark this for future reference and check back. Thanks!

  305. Brian I really like your style here
    Getting traffic to your blog is a great link
    “Learn enough to become the expert in your field.”
    To many people just try to get traffic the easy way.
    If they follow your lead they will succeed at driving traffic to their sites

  307. thanks for providing some useful resources to increase traffic via links. In my experience, it takes a long time and using a variety of methods.

  311. This content is so good I have decided to re-publish and re-tweet 1 random post every three days. Take any post,…it’s good, well worthwhile being read, entertaining, original. In short, not a time waster but a treat!

  314. hi Increase Traffic

    some directories are usefull like dmoz, yahoo and where lnks are less otherwise there will be no benefits for directory submission if its link farms.

  318. Great list and heaps of info on link building. now this will take some time to get through all of these links, will leave a comment once again when I’m done. some nice links on comment section too, thanks to all who contributed.

  319. Nice resource list, thanks for sharing this great post. Off page optimization is depend on quality inbound links only.

  320. I can tell you have spent some time putting this together, it’s one of the longest Blogs I have visited. There is so much information here that you may want to mention what you think is the best and most informative of this information. Thanks for the resource, its bookmarked.

  323. The frustration of google ranking has driven many to quit. My experience has shown it is easier to achieve a higher yahoo ranking due to their less stringent link requirements.

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