No matter what your real purpose is for having a website, the fact remains that you want traffic to it. Perhaps you put up a website to establish an online venue for your friends and family to get together and share messages, photographs, and whatnot. Or perhaps you're an online entrepreneur looking to market your business' products or services to Internet users. Whatever its purpose, a website needs traffic - the more traffic, the better.

But a perennial problem remains: how do you increase website traffic? Aside from shelling out money for those "traffic building" packages or paying for links (which is getting to be really hazardous to your website's page rankings and overall standing with Google), there are still several strategies for driving traffic to your website - and keeping them there. I'm going to present you with a few good ones:

Keyword Searches - There are several keyword tools on the Internet that can help you increase web site traffic, if you know how to use them properly. I'm talking about tools like Yahoo!'s KW Selector Tool, Wordtracker, KWDiscovery, and Google's KW Tool, to name a few. Using these tools, you can search for high-traffic keywords or phrases that have some relevance to your business or website, but with very little or no advertisers using them at all. Effective keyword research will enable your business' brand to develop and give your site more exposure in the search engines.

Just be sure to provide your visitors with the kind of content they're looking for - whether in the form of listed resources, articles, multimedia, or the like. Doing so will help your site get the best kind of publicity there is in the form of viral marketing - where word of mouth about the quality of your site spreads like wildfire, bringing more traffic to your website and keeping them there.

Controversy is the Key - Sometimes emotions get the better of people, especially when they see, hear, or read about something that they strongly feel about. Why not use these emotions and put them to use to channel traffic to your site? Your main targets will be impassioned and (sometimes) overzealous Internet users who harbor strong feelings about a particular topic. Just generate controversial content using articles, blog posts, videos, or statistical reports (whichever method is applicable).

Once your content is ready, you must be prepared to make blog posts and comments in other venues such as forums, that may be appropriate or useful. If done effectively, this method will increase web site traffic for you through various sources, but most of it may come directly from the individual or organization you challenged. Make sure that you handle all feedback and discussions in a professional manner, though. Doing so will allow you to develop a respectable persona online, even with those whom you are disagreeing with.

Get out and go to events - The type of event may vary depending on your interests but they are a great place to find sources of traffic. Gaming expos, tech shows, the like - all can be taken advantage of to bring great and updated content to your website, and droves of traffic along with it. Try to cover the event as much as possible by taking pictures, shooting some videos, making new friends and acquaintances, and taking detailed notes all the while.

Of course, make sure that everyone knows you're going to feature all this stuff on your site within the next few days (the sooner the better). You can really increase website traffic through this method, and the amount of traffic you can get may vary from hundreds to thousands, and maybe even tens of thousands. It all depends on the popularity and size of the event itself. As an additional tip, underground or exclusive events make for better coverage - but be sure to get permission first.

There are countless ways to increase website traffic. Many of them are probably familiar to you. Effective use of these methods will allow you to see a boost to your website traffic for a long time to come.