You’ve spent the last few weeks (or months) creating a brand new website. You’ve officially launched it and have submitted the new website to the major search engines… but you’re not getting much (if any!) traffic.
This is a typical scenario in today’s world on the web. After all, hundreds of thousands of websites are launched every day and there is a lot of competition out there… a lot.
Remember that UPS ad from year’s ago where a company launched a new website and cheered as orders started coming in within minutes … then, as the orders came in faster and faster, the staff realized that perhaps their website was becoming too successful, too fast and they might need help filling and delivering all of the online orders?
Well, that sort of thing is rather unlikely today. Web traffic doesn’t just happen anymore, especially through standard search engine organic searching. Chances are that a new website won’t get completely listed, let along start coming up well, in search engines for months. Launching a new website today can be quite difficult and getting web traffic takes time and effort.
So, what can a new website do to generate some traffic? Referrals!
One of the best ways for a brand, new website to generate traffic, while also building a network of quality backlinks (which will help with your on-going SEO efforts), is through referrals.
In very basic terms, you need to get other websites to mention & link to your website. This could come in the form of journalists and bloggers who write about things pertaining to your industry. It could also come from content syndication – where you work to get your quality content on other websites.
Of course, you can’t disregard SEO on a website (new or old) and you should continually work to optimize your website content and your search engine rankings. SEO should be a long-term and on-going part of your marketing strategy for your website. But, especially in the beginning phases of a new website launch, working to get referrals to your website from quality sources with influence over your target audience is a good way to generate traffic to your website from the get go.
