Who Else Wants Massive Traffic Really Fast?

Picture this: you've launched your website for a couple of months now and your traffic has never gone over 100 visits a day, but today, after submitting a link to 5 websites, your server just crashed because it can't handle the traffic.

How would that happen? It almost surely isn't search engine optimization, considering that these techniques take from 1 week to 3 or 4 months for their effects to show.

The answer: Social Bookmarking. Remember these two words, they are going to save your website! Now lets take a look at the top 5 sites that can bring you a ton of traffic when you need it - right now.

1. Digg.com - this is the Big Daddy of social bookmarking. Although not the first of its kind, it surely is the biggest one out there. Getting on the front page will submit your site to the so called "digg effect", which can bring down even dedicated servers.

2. del.icio.us - it may not bring as many visitors as Digg, but it's the second best out there and it still gets the respect of every webmaster blessed with a front page posting.

3. Slashdot.org - this one can bring visitors on par with Digg, but only to tech related articles and sites.

4. StumbleUpon.com - unlike the other sites in this list, StumbleUpon doesn't rely on its website for the browsing but on browser plugins that send stumblers to sites matched to their preferences.

5. Reddit.com - although it's the last on our list, you should still pay attention to it. Reddit has a more relaxed policy on what content appears on its site and with the free tagging folksonomy your content will be categorized exactly how you want it.

Now that you have the list, you'll probably want to know how you can get that craved front page listing. The answer: good quality content.

I know everybody says that, but it's actually true, and here is one idea on how to make great content: think of one problem that has been annoying you for some time and solve it. It doesn't have to be something life changing; no matter how small your problem is you can be sure hundreds or even thousands of other people are irked by the same thing.

Another to get a lot of eyeballs is to attack a well known organization or person. Most times this isn't the kind of attention you would want for your website, but if you think you can weather the bad criticism then this can make your site a traffic hotspot.

With all this potential, sometimes you may ask yourself if gaming the system could be an option. My advice is to play fair and have your links rank high because they're good - being labeled a spammer and a cheater on the Internet is one of the worst things that can happen to your reputation.

Ok, so you know where to get your content seen, how to create that content and what not to do. Now go do it and enjoy the traffic!