Okay, I am a new web master that is learning the ropes. Now that my web site is done for my first customer, I need to follow up with a good speel of how I can start driving traffic to their web site. I see a lot of "Gimmicks," and sites that assure travel in a matter of hours for the lower price of $100000000000000000000000000.00. Okay, give me a break! What is the real story and the truth about promoting a web site? Is it secret pages with meta tags that redirect vistors to your customers or what?

Preston3271
"I could have been a contender!"

Hi Preston,
First of all, before you start giving out spiels on driving traffic to your customers' website, I would suggest you learn a bit about SEO (Search Engine Optimization). What do the search engines look for? Of course, if you decide to follow one or two search engines and their algorithyms, you'll end up going crazy since they change them all the time. But try learning the basics of SEO first. I am a firm believer in "Content is King" approach plus good keywords, although many would debate this idea.

Have you reached an agreement with your client as to who will be maintaining their website? I mean, is it your responsibility to bring traffic to their website? I know for me, I cannot promise 'traffic' to anyone's website. All I can do is make it conducive to the keywords and key phrases of the particular subject of the site. I'll submit to various 'free' search engines as part of my contract, but the rest is up to the client unless they've paid me to do more.

Here's some good info to start with on SEO, also, check out the SEO area within this forum. It's very good.

Here's some of my favorites on SEO you might be interested in:

Spider Food
SEO Papers
SEO Scene

Hope this helps.

Just my 2 cents,
DianeD

i think, if eg ur a web designer, make free stuff and upload it to HUGELY vistied sites, etc. you get a lot of traffic that way, I KNOW.