# Surefire Ways To Boost Shop Traffic



## cyclonearts (Jul 8, 2007)

Traffic: Sucks on the road but does wonders on the net. If your shop's doing great its probably much thanks to all the traffic your getting. If your shop isn't doing as good it may be because you're not getting enough. If your traffic sucks, you need to do something about it now. Here are some surefire ways to boost traffic to your shop.

*Optimize your shop for search engines.* Search engine optimization is one of the most important factors to boosting traffic to any online destination. If you're shop lacks optimization and you haven't mastered the search engines, you need to learn how.

*Have reciprocal links to your shop.* Links to your shop help increase your search engine ranking and your online visibility. Try link exchanges. The easier it is to find you the more likely a customer is to visit your shop.

*Become a regular in relevant forums.* Have a link to your shop in your forum signature and participate often in forums related to your niche. This will increase your visibility to your target audience and show them you are a regular person who chats online from time to time.

*Realize the potential of social networks.* Sites like Myspace and FaceBook are being used as tools for promotion by many big name companies. Since you're probably already on MySpace, promote your shop through your profile and to your friends.

*Join the social bookmarking community.* Bookmark sections of your shop on social bookmarking sites that allow it. If your shop or one of your t-shirts was reviewed on a blog or website, bookmark that page too.

*Get reviewed by blogs.* Bloggers are some of the most influential people on the net. They're always looking to write good reviews but won't hesitate to hurt feelings, so as long as your shop is up to par you'll benefit from blog reviews.


What techniques for boosting traffic have worked for you?


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## etctees (Oct 11, 2007)

I honestly think my biggest boost in traffic has been due to having links in my signatures at forums that I visit, and on my Facebook profile. In addition to this, I have ~50 contacts online my MSN list at any given time. I occasionally go through and have a short chat to all of these people, tell them about my new tshirt designs, tell them to tell their friends, etc etc. 

I have only very recently come aross social bookmarking sites but am persuing these intensely. So far StumbleUpon has generated some hits to my site.


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## mikelschwarz (Apr 12, 2008)

Great points cyclone. 

One of the reasons I picked the shopping cart software we're now using is because it uses SEO friendly URLs. Hopefully that will help drive page views.

Also, I've found certain key phrases that people are using to get to our site as a result of testing some AdWords marketing. If available, I buy the domain name and put up a webpage with relevant content that ultimately points back to our website. By doing this, our key phrase domain names show up on the first page of a google search results for that key phrase.

Going to start working on additional link-building activities soon as well.


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## Fresh Mode (Apr 9, 2008)

Gaining relevant outside links is one of the best ways to increase natural search placement. Keyword selection and the actual way your site is coded have a lot to do with it as well. Don't forget about Meta Data either!. This site is a great resource for anyone who wants to bone up on SEO >> Search Engine Marketing Services - Marketleap: Trust, Search, Succeed


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## qcumber (Sep 11, 2006)

Try Entrecard . You allow a small 125 x 125 ad on your site. Entrecard members will come to your site to click on the ad. Each time they click earns you and them 1 entrecard point. So this forces you and other members to go visiting as many sites to click click click. Will get you traffic, but will also get you high bounce rates.


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## Buechee (Dec 22, 2005)

How do you subscribe to a post? I like this. Knew some of it, but thanks for the new stuff. I'd like to keep this on hand.


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## queerrep (Jul 18, 2006)

Buechee said:


> How do you subscribe to a post?


Marc: If you want to subscribe to a thread without posting, click on the 'thread tools' and select 'subscribe to this thread'.











cyclonearts said:


> What techniques for boosting traffic have worked for you?



Of the ones you listed, getting reviewed by blogs & reciprocal links.

But one thing you didn't list is affiliates – 80% of my sales come from them.


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## BrandOfTheFree (Feb 1, 2008)

Thanks for the tips. We're definitely going to explore social bookmarking.


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## HeatherLHC (Aug 17, 2007)

Thanks for the tips. I am going to look into some blogs aimed toward parents. I'll let you know if I get some hits. I did get some good sales from a free product review on a new mom site. My store was listed and had a nice review.


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## wgwear (Sep 11, 2007)

Great thread going on here. I am far from an expert but I have recently been posting comments on t shirt related blogs and other blogs in some cases that I have searched for with keywords similar to do follow blogs, etc. I have gained several good page ranking links quickly and for free by leaving a comment on these blogs that indicate that they do follow so the search engines pick them up. The spreadshirt blog is a great t shirt blog that gives link love. Check them out.


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## youthedesigner (Apr 24, 2008)

Mmm StumbleUpon.com

Tis by far the best promotion method in my opinion.


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## cyclonearts (Jul 8, 2007)

Yea, Spreadshirt's blog is cool. They recently wrote an entry about my site and have a link to it under 'Links We Like' on their sidebar.


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