How do I increase web site traffic FAST?

My web hosting industry business, HostCompare.com is a resource center that helps people find web hosting providers. The site is incredible (at least I think so). Its been recommended by PC Magazine, CNET, BusinessWeek, and even USAToday!!!!! Seriously! Yet I can't get a lot of money through ads because the traffic is horrible. I'm seriously only getting around 300 unique visitors per day. How can I begin to promote it successfully? Anyone here have an expertise in search engines?

Please get back to me here....... or maybe someone would be willing to "invest" in some form or another in HostCompare.com....

Try rewarding your customers somehow for bringing you new people. It's easier when you're small to not collect unrealized revenue than it is to spend money on advertising. :)

I was going to say the same thing ;)

Affiliate programs are a great way of bringing in visitors. Better make it the kind that you will pay only when you actually get a sale, though.

Of course, you can offer better deals to new customers, or carry out special promotions spanning a week or so. But that might make your old customers a little unhappy that they are missing out on all your offers.

My 2-cents worth :)

Why doesn't your homepage have a google page rank, yet internal pages in your site do? That is very odd. Have you done something to upset the googlebot on your homepage?

Your site is loading slowly for me (I'm in .au).

Otherwise, reciprocal linking is one thing I can suggest. There are lots of webmaster directories and sites that will reciprocal link with you if you do the legwork.

Another suggestion is creating a button link for web hosts to use on their sites; eg, "Featured in hostcompare.com" or "recommended by hostcompare.com", etc.

Extremely slow loading for me, too. I did a traceroute, ping times are not so bad but I had many timeouts!

I also noticed your main page is not ranked by google.

That may part of the reason, your main index page. Most will say is the most important.

I also noticed your main page is not ranked by google.

Where do you do this? :)

Every webmaster needs the google toolbar
http://toolbar.google.com/

:)

It's great. You can use it to monitor your page rank, and also to look at which backward links are pointing to your web site and your competitors web sites. For example, today I was looking at the backward links of one of my competitors. I found a site that had linked to them that I thought was worthwhile; emailed the webmaster proposing a reciprocal link arrangement; and now we have placed the reciprocal links (and he has placed a "recommended" link to my site - bless his soul :p )

Originally posted by freakysid
Why doesn't your homepage have a google page rank, yet internal pages in your site do? That is very odd. Have you done something to upset the googlebot on your homepage? Probably happened on the new Google update, but I've noticed it happen that way either: the home page removed from the index but other pages remaining.

Of course, the structure of the home page -- it's mostly outgoing links -- makes it not likely to be found for many search queries anyway. And some of the other pages have pretty good PR: look.htm, which is linked from dmoz, shows a 6, and most of the other content pages show either 5 or 6 on the toolbar. As long as those pages stay in Google, missing the home page isn't a disaster.

But the PageRank could be better taken advantage of by improving on each page's particular optimization. Page titles, for example, need attention. In general, each page could be improved with attention to such elements, including the content of link anchor tags, etc. The PageRank, other than that of the home page, isn't bad, but PR is only one piece of the puzzle in attaining good positioning.

And of course, search engines are only one piece of the larger puzzle of site promotion. But I was just writing about that in another thread: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?postid=332396#post332396

My site typically draws anywhere from 400-700 visitors a day depending on time of year. This is mostly due to the fact that my site has been around for 7 years and its size (6,000 pages). Anymore, my site typically is based on word of mouth since listing on directories is difficult and expensive.

Originally posted by ngc1977
My site typically draws anywhere from 400-700 visitors a day depending on time of year. This is mostly due to the fact that my site has been around for 7 years and its size (6,000 pages). OK... so your recommendation mattalland would be that he write 5,972 pages of content and wait 7 years?

Seriously, the fact is that building a presence on free search engines like Google does require patience... do it right and keep at it for a year and you'll have something. But more on topic to a request asking "How do I increase web site traffic FAST?" might be that to do it fast requires spending some money.

With even a moderate budget a campaign encompassing Google Adwords, Overture, and Inktomi can have an immediate impact.

Getting, as mattalland mentioned has happened, recommendations from major media sources can be huge, but the problem for a site like this is that you don't get a lot of repeat visitors. If someone read a recommendation in USA Today and came to the site, they found their host and won't be back unless they someday need another one... and even then only if they remember where they went last time. So you need to keep getting those kinds of mentions.

Looking at the site again, too, you really need to put some thought into targetting keywords.