3 Tips To Increase Traffic To Your Website Digitally

Increase traffic to your website or blog not only by posting good content often and by submitting articles to article directories but also by using digital methods.

Not everyone likes to read a lot of words. Some people relate more to photos or visual presentations, so why not make the most of the photos that you have. Direct people digitally to your blog or website.

I’m a relative newcomer to blogging, so I’ve learnt a lot from making mistakes. Photos tell a story much better than words sometimes and in nearly every post I use an image or two. I discovered that in a couple of my blogs (like this one), the traffic sources were mostly from people’s searches on images.

So here are three digital ways of increasing traffic that I’ve been learning to use.

1. Photos in blogs
I used to insert an image into my blog without actually naming it e.g. leaving it with the original upload identifier like “IMG_1234”. However, search engines also search on images, so imagine how many images there would be with “IMG_1234”.

Go to any blog or website with a photo on it, right mouse click on the photo, click on “Save Picture As” and you’ll see the title of the image, be it “IMG” or something else. When I first started, I just used the original photo identifier, but now I actually name the photo and add my name to it as well e.g. “Lake Powell, Arizona & Utah, USA – Fran West” (I still have a lot of photos to go back to and name properly).

Another thing that I do to the photo is put my name and website on it so that when people save onto their computer, my details are visible.


2. Slideshare
This is one of the free sites where you can upload various format files of your work e.g.
• Presentations: pdf, ppt, pps, pptx, ppsx, pot, potx (Powerpoint); odp (OpenOffice); key, zip (Apple Keynote),
• Documents: pdf, doc, docx, rtf (MSOffice); odt, ods(OpenOffice); Apple iWork Pages
• Videos: mp4, m4v, wmv, mpeg, avi, mov, mpg, mkv, ogg , asf , vob , 3gp, rm, rmvb, flv

People search in this site but you can also copy the embed code and paste it into your blog. The transcript of the document is printed below your upload and you can also copy this and paste it into your own blog. Make sure that you include your name and/or blog URL somewhere in the presentation.

Here's my Slideshare page - http://www.slideshare.net/AdventurerFran

Utah Parks

View more presentations from Fran West

3. Flickr
I’ve just started uploading some of my blog photos onto Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/franwest. The photos have my name and also my website on them. In the actual description of the photos I include “This photo appears in (the URL of my blogs)” so if people like my photos they might want to read the blog posts which contain the photos. As a newcomer to Flickr, I still have a lot to learn but putting the photos into sets and joining groups related to the photos can lead to more people searching on your website.

These are just three ways to increase traffic to your site but in the end it does depend on how often you blog and what you blog about.

To prove a point, however, I stopped blogging on two of my websites to see if traffic was still coming to the sites and in what form. In both this blog and http://utahparks.blogspot.com, the traffic sources have continued to be image searches, so imagine how much more traffic I could have had if I’d kept posting regularly to the blogs and inserting more photos.

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Natural Bridges Naturally Bridge the Gap

Natural Bridges National Monument, in southeastern Utah, is another fine example of nature's architectural design. The entrance to the park is at the end of Highway 275, approximately 35 miles west of Blanding, Utah, on Highway 95. Driving time from Blanding is roughly 45 minutes.

The entrance sign to the park really accentuates the natural bridge theme.

The next place to stop of course is the Visitor Centre to view the interesting displays and pick up a brochure highlighting the park's features. The Visitor Center is up at about 6,500 feet (about 2,000 metres) but it's still set in desert country and on a sunny day it's hot, hot, hot!

A day or two need to be set aside for this park but as usual for me it was just a quick trip by car around the one way circuit. The lookouts are well marked but parking on a busy day can be a problem. You can see the highlights of the park from the lookouts but this is a park that you need to spend time walking around. The bridges definitely need to be viewed from beneath as well as from above. The different perspective can only be obtained by walking on the trails not just glimpsing from the lookout. Remember to wear a big hat (like my trusty Akubra), put on the sunscreen and take plenty of water. This is very thirsty country.

There are three famous bridges, Sipapu, Kachina and Owachomo (pictured) but I just loved the desert country (maybe because I'm Australian). As well as the natural architecture, the vegetation is worth investigating too. Not just the trees but also the flowers. Reminds me a bit of Australia.

Here's more information about Natural Bridges National Monument.

I've found a few books which might be worth looking into.



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Take Time Out To Enjoy Every Achievement By Going Hot Air Ballooning In Florida

Take Time Out To Enjoy Every Achievement By Going Hot Air Ballooning In Florida. Here's one of my newsletters with Slideshare presentation and text below.

Pilot your life newsletter no. 9: Take time out to enjoy every achievement

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Pilot Your Life #9: Take time out to enjoy every achievement

This year has been particularly busy for me as I’ve already set in motion and achieved some of my goals.

In January and February I went trekking in Patagonia in southern Chile and Argentina. Then, after a week back at home to partially recover, I set off for North America to speak at the Women in Aviation International conference in Orlando, Florida.

Another speaking engagement followed that with the invitation to participate in the Women Fly! program at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

Not a bad start to the year.

While in Orlando, I experienced the joy of flying in a much slower mode than usual – a hot air balloon. The flight ended up being both a time of reflection and a time for reflection.

At the Boggy Creek field, with a definite nip in the air, six balloons launched in the blinding light of the early morning sun. The biggest balloon headed off with two smaller ones, then ours took off with two others following behind.

The launch was so gentle that we hardly realised that we were aloft. Very different to taking off in a light aircraft. No roar of the engine with the plane speeding down the runway before lift off.

Apart from the occasional noisy burst of flame from the gas cylinder to adjust the balloon’s height, the flight was so peaceful. Just drifting along without a care in the world and having a bird’s eye view of the land below.

Quite amazing really that I could look out and down and not feel the fear of heights, particularly as the basket wasn’t very deep and there were no seat belts.

As we floated over the swamp, we saw the reflection of the other balloon below. That in turn sparked another reflection.

I reflected back on my holiday in South America. It involved some quite arduous trekking to reach many of the stunning scenic spots in Torres del Paine and Fitzroy National Parks. Once again this was partly to prove that I could complete the walk despite the knee, feet and back injuries from the car accident a few years ago. But I really just wanted to achieve another goal that I’d set myself. Satisfying yet exhausting.

Consequently, the balloon flight, where I relaxed, did nothing (except take photographs), and just enjoyed the experience, was my reward to me for my achievement in South America.

So, another great tip for how to pilot your life (personal or business) is:

Take time out to enjoy every achievement
Treat yourself to something special and enjoy the moment.
It’s great to achieve goals, but remember to reward yourself as you go.
It encourages you to keep striving for the next goal and success does breed success.

Two of my presentation topics are:

Setting and achieving goals
Success