Undeniably, the hardest thing to get online is traffic. What's more...it's the most important part of any online business, whether you're selling bracelets or a web hosting service.

I have to admit, when I first started out, getting traffic seemed just impossible. I could build web sites, I could write fairly decent copy, I even had all the technical tracking set up but getting traffic somehow seemed to allude me.

It was only when I really started to knuckle down at one method of traffic generation and learn everything there is to know about it did I start to see results. I chose article marketing – I literally spent hours and hours speaking to people, researching online, buying information products, talking to my mentor and taking huge amounts of action...Within a couple of months, I was earning a full time income from internet marketing, and my traffic had reached levels unprecedented.

I always feel the need for social proof, so here's a screenshot of one of my web sites (it's pretty hard to see, but that top number is actually 5,000 visits per day):

There Are So Many Traffic Generation Methods!

It's easy to get distracted when there are just so many different ways of driving traffic to your site. Here are the main ones worth paying attention to:

1. Search Engine Optimisation
   
   
   An art by itself. I see SEO as a nice-to-have rather than a must have. Why? Google can swipe that carpet from under your feet at any time they choose. Not the kind of business model I particularly like! Resources:

   http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleWebmasterHelp
   http://www.seomoz.org

2. Syndication Marketing
   Guest blogging, high profile article marketing, ezine article writing, carnivals, tutorials, ebook submissions...The list goes on. Hands down my favourite method of getting traffic. Can be hard work if you're not clever about it though! Resources:

   http://www.directoryofezines.co.uk
   http://www.docstoc.com
   http://www.tutorialised.com
   http://www.changethis.com
   http://www.ebookjunke.com
   http://www.getfreeebooks.com
   http://www.thefreesite.com
   http://www.ebook88.com
   http://www.docstoc.com

3. Video Marketing
   Largely untapped - those who are taking full advantage of this medium are clearing up. I was speaking to Mark Anastasi about this at a social media event in London recently...Long story short - there is still a bucket load of space in video marketing! Resources:

   http://www.tubemogul.com
   http://www.trafficgeyser.com

4. Social Network Marketing
   Powerful stuff when done correctly. Social bookmarking has brought me a substantial amount of traffic; not really well versed in many of the social network sites - certainly not my forté! Resouces:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

5. Social Media Marketing
   Twitter are like autopilot traffic generating machines when the right systems are put in place. I've made a few sales from social media and plan to do a full blown case study later on this year. Resources:

   Anything from Paul O' Mahony and Milli Ponce.

6. Buzz Marketing
   Press releases and stuff - ermm, that's all I know about it! Not something I concentrate on, but really should! Resouces:

   http://www.prweb.com

7. Viral Marketing
   Such a fascinating area and one that ranges from the "recommend a friend" approach to viral video marketing and widget creation. Resources:

   The most successful viral video ever...!

8. Integration Marketing
   A really great, underused strategy to generate traffic consistently. The most common form of integration marketing online for internet marketers is autoresponder message trading. I plan on partaking in a couple on my lists over the next few months. Hugely powerful both offline and online.
9. Joint Ventures
   Another one of my favourites. JV's can be a huge traffic generator and one that I love to use for product launches. Create a great product, find someone with a list of 200,000 to promote it and watch the sales roll in.

   Adswaps are also great for building a list size of a couple of hundred into thousands.

   Resouces:

   Sohail Kahn, Gina Gaudio Graves, Willie Crawford & David Preston have everything you need to know at:
   http://www.jvuniversity.co.uk

10. Pay Per Click
    Who doesn't like traffic on demand. If you know what you're doing, know your numbers, track everything and know how to split test and multivariate test then by all means PPC like crazy. If you're new to the game and think PPC is an easy way to get started - think again. You'll lose your shirt if you're not careful! Resources:-

    http://www.finchsells.com
    http://www.cdfnetworks.com/the-10-ppc-network-smackdown/

11. Pay Per View

    As above really; you need high click through rates to make this worth while!

12. Youtube Buying

    YouTube gets more searches than Google and has a huge capacity for traffic generation. In YouTube's search algorithm, videos are ranked according to many factors including video views and backlinks. Buying accounts of people with highly ranked videos can be great for traffic, especially as a lot of channel owners don't know the true value of what they have because they're not looking from an internet marketing perspective! Resources:

    http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/29967442
    http://www.reelseo.com/youtube-seo-tips/

13. Email buys

    There are both online and offline companies with huge lists through which you can promote to. This is hugely powerful (especially the offline to online arena) and I'm going to be spending a bucket load of time learning about this over the next three months.

    Taking the email buy to the next level, you can also buy tweets from those on Twitter with a massive following.

    http://www.goldentwist.net/promote-your-website/
    http://go.twitpub.com/twitpub/buy/

14. Paid Reviews

    Hire a top site in your niche to review your new product or service. Not something I've ever done yet, but when I launch "Article Marketing For Profits" next month, I'll be doing a case study on it!

    http://www.sponsoredreviews.com/

15. JV Giveaways

    If you have a list size of a couple of hundred or more, then this is a very quick way to grow that list into the thousands. Of course, the real winner is the giveaway event organiser!

    Facebook Giveaway Notified Group

Learning All Of This On Your Own Is Difficult

I have to admit that learning the ins and outs of just one of these methods is highly taxing, difficult and at times mind boggling. If I can invest a bit of money to save thousands of hours of research time then to me that's money very well spent!

That's why I decided to get my hands on the most comprehensive traffic generation course on the market. Hats off to George, he's done a great job!

And I've just spent half an hour today implementing something from the course that I have a sneaky feeling will likely double the traffic to one of my niche sites which means I'll earn the cost of the course back in the next couple of days. It's something anyone can do, too - very powerful.

What have I missed? What other traffic strategies are you using?