How many of us pour our heart and soul into creating snappy looking websites, inspirational photo blogs, image rich presentations and then find out the only people visiting our sites are family and friends, or the occasional waylaid visitor?

I’ve been there and done that, and it’s not much fun. You become disillusioned REAL quick with just a dribble of traffic to your websites. It’s like a healthy, growing plant… if you never water it, eventually it curls over and dies. Please don’t let this happen to your website, especially if you’ve spent a LOT of your time on it.

So, what are we going to do about it then? Well… I read that there were only 3 ways to grow your business, and here they are…

• Increase customers.
• Increase the transaction value.
• Create a backend product/create more products.

So, let’s focus on the first one. How we can increase customers, or increase website traffic?

Before we jump into that, let me say that the whole ‘normal’ process of getting ‘bums on seats’ or visitors (traffic) to your website is not exactly a walk in the park. In other words, it does take quite a bit of effort on your part.

In this case, we’re focused on ‘organic’ traffic, or ‘search engine traffic.’ In a roundabout way, that simply means I want you to find my website (or blog) in the first page of Google when you type in specific photo marketing or photography tips related keywords. I personally focus on Google, but Yahoo also works well for some niches too.

In the articles on this photo marketing blog you can read about many of the different ways to increase website traffic, including a free download-able guide about Article Marketing (click to download), so I won’t get into all the methods here.

But thankfully there IS an easy way… a method that allows me to get a whole bunch of my websites on page one in Google, for a number of different photo related keywords…

Basically I use a service called 3 Way Links ($47 per month). I won’t go in to the mechanics of how it works exactly (you can read more at the 3WayLinks site) but it sure has made it a LOT easier for me to hit page one in Google much faster (and with very little work on my behalf – all I did was add one page to my blog).

As you could imagine, a page one in Google for a few particular (highly searched) keywords gives me a LOT more eyeballs, plus get more sign ups to my ezine, etc.

Having said that…

• You need to choose your keywords right.
• You also will want to know how to monetize your website or blog effectively whether that’s with Google Adsense or other methods. (That is, if you want to make some money from this!)
• You also need to post regular content (often) to your website or blog (that’s why blogs are SO good for this!)

So if you’ve got a nice little WordPress photography tips themed blog or brand spanking new website, and you’re struggling to increase website traffic… then at least consider the 3WayLinks method. No matter what niche you’re in, this ‘set it and forget it’ method is one way that makes getting that highly desirable page one in Google rather attractive, and very achievable.

Read more about 3WayLinks here.

Image via Wikipedia

One of the most important things I study and constantly watch is the amount of traffic or visitors that flow through to my websites. With my SiteBuildIt (SBI!) site I don’t need to worry too much about how to increase website traffic – I just focus on creating LOTS of content, and let the SBI! submitter engines purr away, working like magic to get my web pages discovered in the search engines like Google and Yahoo.

If you want an all-in-one solution (for $299 a year) then SiteBuildIt wins hands down.

So, if you’re the type of person that just wants to focus completely on creating your web pages, over delivering with great content and helping your visitors get what they are looking for, then SBI! is for you.

Click here to find out more about SiteBuildIt!

But if you don’t have a SiteBuildIt site then there’s other options available out there too. In fact, I use a variety of different tools to increase my website traffic – the newest is this one. (This is one tool so darn valuable that I’d prefer to keep it secret – but I’ve decided to reveal it to the passionate photographers that are reading this!)

This amazing software tool (created by Jon Leger) has allowed me to score 4 top ten rankings for specific ‘photo niche’ keywords in Google within 36 days (since I’ve been a member). And I have no doubt there’s many more top ten rankings to come.

Was I reluctant to fork out $47 a month for this? At first, yes. But it all depends on what you’re selling or offering, and what you want to achieve. One digital photo book sale, a few days of Google Adsense earnings, or a few stock photo sales and you’ve covered your membership fee…

So, from that perspective, it’s definitely worth it…

Click here to read more about this amazing tool.

The other way to attract visitors – and increase website traffic is by writing articles. (The resource box at the bottom of your article will link back to your website or blog). This is the ‘slow and steady wins the race’ method that also works wonders. Of course you need to put the time in to actually writing the articles to make this fully effective!

Click here to download a great free guide called Article Marketing Strategies by Alan Cheng that’ll teach you how to write the articles, where to submit them, how to get ideas for your articles, and LOTS more great info…

OK, that’s 3 digital photography tips that I use to attract visitors to my photo websites (including this digital photography business blog). You can easily take one of these methods and use it to get started. Go for it.