Rachel asked:
What is the best method for long term traffic?
This is a simple question with a very long and complicated answer.
But in a nutshell the best way to get long-term traffic is to build a community. Your most important visitors are the ones that keep coming back. They are the ones that will leave comments and give you feedback. They are the ones that will tell you if your website is down or if you had a misspelling on your website.
Because they keep coming back they are more than just random strangers visiting your site. You end up building a relationship of trust with them and become friends.
It’s your community that will help spread the word about your website and get you traffic.
I’ve received a ton of traffic from stumble upon in the past few months because of my community.
They are the ones who will help you achieve your goal.
If your goal is to sell your product online it will be your return visitors that will buy what you’re selling because they trust you.
If your goal is to raise awareness for a cause it will be your return visitors and the community that you built that will help you spread your message.
This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about in the past few weeks. I’ve even considered writing an e-book about it. It seems that almost everybody has a very short-term perspective on things (including myself). Perhaps what we should be asking is how do I get traffic long-term.
