If you are looking at ways to increase traffic to your website there are many things you can do. Here are 10 tips to avoid getting ripped off by the mounting army of web traffic experts. Most of them will just take your money and waste your time.

1 - Unless you are particularly lazy or have plenty of money to waste, do NOT pay for information that is easily available FREE of charge. A good place to find FREE web traffic information is http://www.IdeaMarketers.com. Many knowledgeable people post all sorts of valuable information at this site. Just put the word "traffic" or "hits" into the search facility and start reading. Another good site to visit is http://www.searchengines.com/optimization/

2 - Explore all avenues of FREE information and FREE search engine submission before you start spending money. If you do this you will have a "benchmark" of statistics against which you can measure the results of the techniques and information you pay for. Also, implement just one change at a time and monitor your statistics for a few days before making further changes.

3 - If you do something that increases your "hits" and the traffic coming to your site, do more of it. If you do something that decreases your hits and traffic, stop doing it. This demonstrates the advantage of keeping a journal of everything you do.

4 - The more you learn to do for yourself, the less you will have to rely on others to do for you - and the more difficult it will be for others to trick you! There is no more powerful weapon than education. Read books and search the internet for the information you need. A good place to start is to teach yourself HTML (hyper text mark up language). Your education and thirst for knowledge will save you money.

5 - Do NOT, under any circumstances, be gullible enough to believe any of the promises made by persons professing to know how to "drive" traffic through your site. What is promised often does not equal what is delivered. Read past the "hype" to get to the truth.

6 - Check out the credentials of all the self-appointed "experts," "gurus," "mentors" and "web professors." If they have the letters PhD after their name, understand that it probably stands for "piled high and deep." If you find somebody that you think you can trust, ask for some trade references before you buy their wares. Use them.

7 - Before entering your credit card details into that secure server, remember what you had to do to earn the money you are spending. You can spend every cent you have trying to get traffic to your site. There are thousands of schemes and plans. All of them profess to be the ultimate fix. Remember also how difficult it is to lower that credit card balance when the statement arrives.

8 - This is good general advice for anything. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and has webbed feet, chances are... it really is a DUCK! Trust your instincts. Saying no thank you when you are suspicious of something can save you time, money and grief.

9 - Ask friends to review your website and get them to give you an honest appraisal of it. Any negative comments are good because they will show you where you need to improve. Being "too close" to a project can often blind you from the obvious.

10 - A clean, uncluttered site offering quality information will attract some traffic by virtue of its own inherent value. Conversely, a useless, inaccurate, cluttered site can have thousands of dollars spent on it and it will never retain traffic. You want people to keep coming back, don't you? Quality content is KING!

For more details on all of the above read Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 of "A Simple Guide to Analyzing All Those Web Traffic Ideas." You can locate all of these at the Motivation and Self Esteem for Success website at the URL below.

PS: If you think this information might help a friend from falling prey to these dubious practices you can send them a copy of this article (or any related parts) or direct them to the website URL above. Let's get the word out and put a stop to this.

About the author: About the author: Gary Simpson is the author of eight books covering a diverse range of subjects such as self esteem, affirmations, self defense, finance and much more. His articles appear all over the web. Gary's email address is budo@iinet.net.au. Click here to go to his Motivation & Self Esteem for Success website.