Getting traffic to your website is likely one of the biggest challenges small business owners face online.
You know that there is a great deal of opportunity to grow your business through generating sales and leads online, but just how do you tap into that online market? Here are a few tips that will turn your website into a business generating tool.

1. On Page SEO.
   In order to gain the attention of search engines, your site must be able to communicate with them.
   This is called On Page SEO or search engine optimisation.
   You need to make sure all of the key elements are in place within your website.
   These include proper coding to meet the web standards, proper use of meta tags, heading tags and link structure.
   Getting the keywords and keyword density correct will ensure that the search engines understand what your site is really all about.
   
2. Off Page SEO.
   Also known as anchor text link building.
   This is another way of communicating to the search engines and letting them know that others see your site as being related to your keywords.
   The more a search engine finds your website linked to your keywords, the higher up the ranks it will place your site.
   
3. Link Popularity.
   Getting others to link to you with one way links will also tell the search engines that your site is relevant and that people find the site to be worthwhile.
   One of the easiest ways of getting links on other sites is through social bookmarking, commenting on blogs and posting in forums.
   These methods not only speak to search engines, they also invite that site's visitors to click on your link and come to your website.
   This can bring a good amount of traffic to your site.
   
4. Publishing Articles.
   Writing articles and submitting them to article directories is probably one of the easiest and fastest ways to bring traffic to your site.
   These articles are available to other bloggers, ezine publishers and newsletters to use as content to pass along to their visitors and readers.
   They are required to include the author credit whenever they re-publish your material so you can gain traffic and links at the same time with this method.
   
5. Create Videos.
   Now this is one area that some people are not comfortable with, but it is one of the most effective.
    Creating short videos to host on sites like YouTube can generate a ton of traffic.
   If you are not comfortable in front of a camera, do screen capture videos or a quick Animoto-style video with just audio and pictures put together in video format.
   

These 5 tips will get you traffic if you commit to implementing them on an ongoing basis.
The real fact of the matter is that driving traffic to your small business website is not a one-time job.
It is something that requires your attention consistently.
If you aren't able to do it all on your own, it is worth it to hire it out to someone who can keep the momentum going to build traffic for you on a steadily increasing over time.