Building traffic to your brand new website is complicated by a lot of conflicting advice on how to best go about it. The lack of consensus on the topic is startling and a little disturbing. Other than advertising directly to your new site, the next best option is to build links to your website in order to raise your presence on the internet. But the driver in your decision is whether the exposure you are going to get as a result of building links is going to further your sales goal. For affiliate marketers, presence on the internet in and of itself isn't enough of an inducement.

There are two important components that you can't overlook when you are analyzing your own website traffic. One is that the actual traffic to your page isn't really the most important measure; it is the percentage of traffic that converts into sales (and more practically, profit.) The other key is whether or not your promotional strategies play into the habits of internet users.

A lot of advice about link exchange starts with the conventional notion that the higher your page rank, the higher you appear in search results, the more traffic you will get. You increase page rank by building back links to your website. You might even, by virtue of appearing near the top of keyword search results, attract targeted visitors. That is because users primarily fall into one of two categories. Either they are looking for very specific information (product or service) and keep clicking until they find it - these are the internet users you want - or they are heading for a website that they are already familiar with - these are the users you'll rarely see anyway. And the small percentage of users who are just clicking through a trail of webpages were never predisposed to buy your product in the first place.

So unless your branding encourages return visitors (and most affiliate websites do not in any practical sense) your only option is to cater to the user who is seeking something specific. So with that in mind, consider these options to building links to your site:

a) You can organically grow one way and reciprocal links with other sites by developing relationships with those webmasters.
b) You can buy one way links or join a reciprocal link exchange like indexguy or 3waylink.net.
c) You can join a traffic program.

a) Organic growth
This obviously takes time, a factor that doesn't appeal to anyone in the sales world. And likely, you are doing this over time anyway.

b) Reciprocal link exchanges
The only benefit to these cooperatives is the creation of back links to your site (starting the chain reaction of gaining a higher page rank, getting closer to the top of keyword search results, and eventually targeting traffic organically.)

But there is no secondary benefit. The actual links themselves get buried in a directory (or 4,000 directories, it makes no difference) so that most internet users are never going to see them. Even one or two chance referrals from the directory link isn't going to make a dent in your sales pattern.

c) Traffic programs
Traffic programs seem self defeating. In order to initiate visitors to your own site, you have to visit someone else's webpage for a specified number of seconds, thus exposing yourself to their sales pitch. Then, in return, someone else lands your webpage, waits until the specified number of seconds has passed, thereby theoretically exposing them to your sales pitch. There are at least two very well known products out there that automate this whole process, but think about it; if everyone who has signed up to a traffic program has automated their page views, who is actually looking at your website?

And even if they don't have a script running to do the work for them, is anyone really looking carefully at your sales pitch as they cruise through page after page? This is not targeted traffic, and really, the whole system is so arbitrary, the benefits to you are dubious.

There are other no cost ways to raise your presence on the internet (ezine itself being a good one) but unless you can afford to wait six months to a year, presence isn't enough to keep your business afloat. You have to make decisions about promoting your website bearing in mind that your goal is always going to be sales conversions. Understanding how internet users utilize the web is important, too. Put it altogether, and though the advice may still be confusing, you will be better equipped to make decisions about how to build traffic to your new website.