The reason that every website is created, is for an individual or organization (be it a company, nonprofit, a club or personal) with a similar world view to share and view what that entity regards as note worthy on the subject or what they offer with regards to a specific subject or a product. This being said, all sites require a basic ingredient - traffic. Without this, no site would be successful. With this in mind, the most effective sites are those that are found most appealing to the largest audience. Commonly, most sites are found by using a very few methods.

Search engines, directories, and recommendations are but some valuable traffic ideas. Let us explore these methods below.

1. Search engines are exactly as they sound, software that finds specific words or phrases from sites to coincide with those terms used.

2. Directories are lists of sites grouped together for ease of search.

3. Recommendations are exactly that, when a person or site recommends to a searcher another site that they feel offers what the individual will be looking for.

The best way to ensure that your site gathers the viewers in largest numbers is to ensure that your site is listed on the highest number of search engines, with almost all search engines providing a way to have your site listed free in their index.

The same applies to directories, as usually directories want more people to list with them so that they will be seen more often when people search for a specific term that they have content for.

As for recommendations, this can be viewed in a couple of different ways. Personal recommendations ("John told me...") and through the utilization of links. Although all sites desire this, there are some that charge, or require reciprocal links before allowing your site to be listed in their link section.

In general, these are the most important and popular form of website traffic ideas. There are of course services available that will charge you a fee to use them to place your site in a favorable position high in site rankings for your search term. This can give you more traffic; however, with the number of sites out there it's questionable if any service can truly deliver on a continuous basis to place your site in the position that you desire.

Of the many methods that allow sites to be found the only true method is that of organic placement. This implies that the site has been found by copious numbers of individuals, that it imparts to the searcher what they were looking for and that the placement has been achieved by no artificial means, or in other words, it has not paid to be found in that specific position.

Bearing this in mind, there should be no reason that, through diligent application of the three above mentioned traffic ideas that a site should not, over time (as none of these methods are instant) be found in a high level on any and all search engines, thus bringing to your site the numbers of traffic to make it a success.

You can also add to these most common methods other simple on-site website traffic ideas such as opt in newsletters, viewer feedback forms, 'viral' site awareness programs, affiliate marketing, blogs, videos, RSS feeds, and the myriad other social networking tools, your site will indeed become a sought after destination within those communities searching for you.