Often people ask how to best market their website or blog to get instant traffic. Well folks, there isn’t a way. Unfortunately for most of us there’s no ‘instant’ in the on-line vocabulary, unless you’re talking about how your computer ‘instantly’ crashed, or your server went down ‘just for an instant but long enough to lose that big customer’.

The sad truth is that like most things in life, online success takes time. But there are a few ways you can get things hopping, which I’ve included below. By no means is this an exhaustive list, but some of my favourites that will help you in the long run and aren’t all that hard to achieve in your own spare time.

1. Choose a niche and make it tight. No-one wants to hear your carry-on about the neighbours dog cr*pping on your front lawn if your niche is interior design. They do, however, want to hear all about your neighbours dog if you’re writing a blog about daily life in suburbia and you have a knack for telling an interesting story. So, choose your niche and make it tight. Focus, people.

2. Choose your keywords carefully. Make a list of what you think are the top 20 keywords. Then go to Google AdWords and see if you can find any under-saturated alternatives that you can target. Choose 10 of these as your main keywords, and then include these in the titles of your blog posts, your blog description, and the first paragraph of each new post where they are relevant. This will be easy if you follow step one and focus your niche.

3. Diversify your media. Use photos, videos, audio, links and text to create interesting posts. Upload your photos to Flickr and your videos to YouTube as these are the sites your readers identify with when they’re looking for pictures or movies. Create communities in both these locations who will come to visit your site and, eventually, comment on your blog. Look for photos and movies that you like and include them in your blog, making sure you comment on who wrote them to start that community building.

4. Link your blog to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Then, each time you blog these sites will then automatically update so make sure you make your headlines ‘click-worthy’. While Facebook actually publishes the whole article on your blog to it’s servers, you can get around this by creating a fan page that you can redirect back to your site. Again, this is all about building your community. Use your Facebook Fan page to run competitions or ask questions to get the conversation happening.

5. Spread the word about your blog. Digg it, bookmark it (and other relevant sites), and offer RSS feeds to make it easy and fun for people to share the information you present. By becoming an expert (through narrowing your niche), you’re creating a resource for people – blogrolls and links to other relevant sites. If you make your blog a ‘one-stop-shop’ then people are going to come back because ultimately, they’re lazy. Make it easy and they will come.

6. Submit your blog to search engines. Google has it’s own blog directory so list yourself there, and check it once a month (or so) to make sure you’re still indexed. Do this with the other main search engines, and also search engines that are specific to your niche.

7. Market your articles through Ezine or Suite101 but make sure you re-work your articles so as not to create duplicate copy. Sites like these make it easy for you to both build communities and become an expert. If you can provide interesting copy that answers peoples questions about your niche, then you’re on your way to stardom.

8. Write How To’s and Top 10 lists. If you do a bit of research you’ll know that top 7 is received better than top 10, but it’s up to you. I honestly don’t think people care as long as it’s easy to read, makes sense, and doesn’t take up too much of their time.

9. Build your community. Find other blogs relevant to your niche and post comments on them. Invite their authors to reply to articles on your blog. Thoughtful comments that encourage interaction are always going to be well received and if you find something particularly interesting, write about it on your own blog, include questions, and ask the original author to help you find answers. Everyone loves a bit of flattery, and what’s more flattering than being written about?

10. Submit to Google AdWords. If traffic is really important to you, spend a few hours creating a well thought out AdWords campaign. It’s only as expensive as you want it to be, and I’m yet to find anyone who it hasn’t worked for.

Well, that’s it! If anyone else out there have a favourite SEO or SEM technique that they’d like to share, post it below!