My clients always ask, “What are the SEO trends?” or “Any new ways to generate traffic?” Well, a SEO trend is to optimize your site for the users so they would bookmark it and include it into those social bookmarking portals. But this is a topic I will comment upon another day.

Today I’d like to tell you what works to get more traffic: the same things that worked in the past. Now, what would you like to have? Free traffic or paid traffic?

Bet you want free traffic. Well, that comes from the search engines, link exchanges, email advertising, virally from ebook links, forum postings, blog comments and so on. (By the way, you are welcome to place a link to your website in your comment, but, your site needs to be children safe and ethic - no adsense sites, no link farms, no porn, no racist site - otherwise I will reject it. Thanks for understanding.)

My traffic comes from Google, MSN and Yahoo in this very order, from forum postings (yeah, I am active in a few web development related forums), article directories (especially Ezinearticles), websites I’ve created for various clients, my blogs and miscellaneous sources.

Well, Google rules the Web since a long time already (in Internet years 10 is “old” – because this is a continuously evolving environment). So: optimize your site for Google and you’ll not go wrong. (But do understand that Google is a user focused search engine, so optimize your site for the users first.)

Affiliate programs will send you tons of ready to buy visitors – and that’s free, because your affiliates will do the advertising and the marketing for you (their interest is to sell your products and get a percentage out if the sales).

Write an ebook and give it away free. Make it a good one and people will understand you are an expert in your field and will definitely be ready to pay for other ebooks. Include enough links to your website and products in the ebook and you’ll get more traffic.

Write newsletters (don’t spam!) send them to your clients and they’ll come back on your site to see what’s new. There are thousands of websites online offering exactly the products you offer. It’s a good idea to remind your clients, every now and again, about the benefits they get when they order yours. I don’t write newsletters so often – only once a month, if I really have something important to say. Most of my clients are familiar with my blogs and with the article section on my website. They know there’s something new posted there regularly, so they get their info if they need. They are my “returning” visitors and, to my surprise (and joy!), they do return regularly.

This happens since I’ve redesigned my website, making it more clear, providing extensive information about what I offer and explaining clearly the services. So one thing is clear so far: focus on the user and you’ll get the “returning visitors” traffic that shows Google (especially if you use Google Analytics) that your website is popular and worth a good position in the SERPs.

Now, paid traffic has some advantages, especially if it’s well done (managed by a professional company). This includes pay per click and banner advertising. But most recently it also includes pay per blog. This is a nice paid advertising tool. Why? Simply because you pay to have your link (and a review about your website/products/services) in one of the social bookmarking resources. But don’t expect solely positive advertising. There might be negative comments and critique. You pay to have your link displayed in a blog, but you should not expect the blogger to go against his/ her believes just to make you look good. Blogging is about private opinions and freedom of speech.

Well, this pay per blog is a controversial subject. Some bloggers are pro, some contra. But bottom line is: it works. So give it a try!