In 2007, Google updated their webmaster tool guidelines to reflect a change in their approach to paid text links. In the past, you could purchase text links to help your website do better in the search engines. But be careful, this practice could now get your site banned from the search engines:

Some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.

Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:

• Adding a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the tag
• Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file

As good as it feels to get mad at Google about this, the fact remains that hundreds of web sites’ Page Rank were penalized at the time. Since then it has become clear that you are certain to lose traffic from Google if you don’t comply with Google’s new terms. It may be next week, next month, or further down the road, but let’s just assume that it will happen, because Google is saying it will.

So instead of venting, we all need to make a few choices, either:

Keep the paid links and lose the traffic

Dump the paid links and lose the revenue

Either way, there is one thing that we should all be choosing to do right now:

Decrease the percentage of traffic that Google sends to your site in the first place

I don’t mean to purposely decrease traffic from Google, nor do I mean that you should not optimize your site for search engines. If you haven’t done the basics of SEO, you should – because there ARE other search engines besides Google, and it still is one of the best ways to find new visitors to your site.

What I do mean is that we should be actively working on increasing traffic from sources that are not search engines.

27 Web Site Marketing Ideas

So, without further ado, here are 27 ways to increase traffic to your website or blog that have nothing to do with Google, search engines or SEO. But the bonus is that all of these things will indeed help you rank better in the search engines, too.

1. Social Bookmarking
   (Digg, Mixx, SU, Sk-rt, Sphinn, etc.)
2. Social Networking
   (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.)
3. Forum Participation
   (I shouldn’t have to say that you go there to add value, not just get traffic!!)
4. Blogging
   (If you aren’t doing this already this should be priority #1)
5. Linking Generously
   (What goes around, comes around – & referral traffic generally sends the best and most qualified visitors to a site)
6. Advertising
   (Even a small budget of $50 a month can get you started with a company like BlogAds or with PPC)
7. Email Marketing
   (An art in and of itself, but most email marketing providers can get you started for free & can cost as little as $15/month)
8. Directory Listings
   (There are lots of free niche directories, and some good paid ones, like BOTW)
9. Flyers
   (Get local and make flyers to post at local cafes and other community bulletin boards)
10. Yahoo Groups
    (I’ve had long-term success building communities through email discussion groups – really highly recommended if you have the stomach to be a good moderator)
11. Listservs
    (Hosting your own email discussion groups is a little more involved, but if you need a branded option to Yahoo groups, it is worth it)
12. Press Releases
    (Really important to raise the visibility of your site – it’s a new priority for me as well)
13. Video
    (I can’t go anywhere without hearing how important it is to get into video. ARGH!)
14. Twitter
    (I haven’t been very active there, but have heard that it can be a huge traffic driver I am now very active on Twitter and it IS a huge traffic driver!)
15. Conferences
    (A quick search for “Wendy Piersall” and “SOBCon” brings up an astonishing 1200 results. ‘Nuff said.)
16. Meetups
    (Real-life networking is crucial to your long-term success)
17. Blog Comments
    (Leave them, respond to them, encourage them – love them!)
18. Associations
    (Being involved with my local internet advertising community has been critical to my professional success)
19. Widgets
    (BlogRush kind of fizzled, but MyBlogLog has been the 12th top referrer to this site in 2007)
20. Memes
    (I find it hard to participate in them much of the time, but long-term they can be a great source of links and traffic)
21. Blog Carnivals
    (I never had a lot of traffic from carnivals, but I do think they are important, especially for beginners)
22. Craigslist
    (Some of my potential advertisers have done extremely well on Craigslist – not just getting traffic, but traffic that converts)
23. AdLandPro
    (I couldn’t handle this place – but it is indeed a forum dedicated exclusively to letting you promote yourself – mostly for free)
24. Contests
    (Just be careful that you don’t set up the rules so that you get banned by the search engines – unless, of course, you are already banned & don’t care )
25. Article Marketing
    (Some people swear by it, others say it’s dead – I think it’s worth mentioning and testing, as different things work in different niches)
26. Use Email Signatures
    (SOOooooooo important)
27. Feature RSS feeds prominently
    (Once you get them hooked on your content, keep them coming back by making it easy to subscribe to your feeds! A large, prominent RSS button DOES increase subscriber numbers)

So, what website marketing strategies would you add to the list?