Ever see a kid play “Whack a Mole”?

The game starts out pretty mild – this little puppet thing pops up out of one of a dozen holes, and the kid bops it on the head with a little sledgehammer thing. (OK, probably not the most animal-friendly message to pass along, but they seem to enjoy playing it.)

As the game goes on, more of these moles pop up – sometimes at the same time, and the kid has got to really have some good hand-eye coordination to whack them before they disappear. They get all excited – the faster these things pop up, and the more of them that pop at once, the better.

What would it be like to have traffic that came to your website like that? (Of course, probably not a good idea to hit your visitors with a sledgehammer.)

It’s not that hard to create a multi-stream jet stream of traffic, really. Increasing your traffic numbers – as long as your conversion rate is good – will instantly increase your subscribers or sales. Think that might be worth your attention?

There are five major ways of drawing traffic to your site:

• Article marketing

This one’s a favorite for two major reasons. One, they’re really easy to outsource. Between Guru, Elance, and a few other freelance writing sites, finding a good content writer is easy – and you can expect good quality original 500 word articles for around $25 each. Be sure to run them through Copyscape – at least until you get comfortable with your writer. Look for a writer who’s got experience working with keywords; it’s a bonus if they’ve worked with internet marketers, because they’ll understand what makes a good article people will read and click through.

Two, once your articles are posted out there on the big distribution sites, they’re there forever. Unlike with PPC, where for some reason if you stopped paying for a campaign, they stop running your ads. It’s the opposite with article marketing – you pay once (if you outsource them) but your article’s presence and effectiveness continues to grow the longer it’s out there, as other directories and site owners republish it.

• Ezine advertising

First, identify ezines your target market reads, and then look into the possibility of advertising in them. Some ezine publishers accept ads, and some don’t, and the rates vary greatly. You’ll put your business in front of highly targeted prospects, and depending on the diligence of the list owner, prospects who have a history of buying.

This is a great way to reach your market at a time when they’re actively focused on your niche – as they read, they may be more open to clicking on a relevant ad. However, it’s best to have your ad lead to your landing page, rather than to your sales page. While they were thinking about your niche when they saw your ad, they weren’t actively looking for something to buy at the time.

• Social marketing

Social marketing is a great way to drive traffic to your site for a few reasons. It’s generally less expensive than other methods of advertising. In fact, the only real expense is your time. The mindset you want to have as you work with social networking sites is that your goal is to share, to give, and to connect. If you slam all your connections with a constant barrage of sales messages, you might as well turn that sledgehammer on yourself.

Instead, think viral, and give, give, give. You want to stir up their interest, drawn them to want more information, make it so your update is the one they go looking for when they log onto the site. Social marketing can take a while to bear fruit, but because they come to you out of having already experienced what you’re like, they’re likely to be very high quality leads.

• PPC

Pay Per Click – still one of the fastest ways to get traffic to your site. Fast traffic is essential for testing and tweaking your site, and is a crucial element to any online business’ success. You want to learn how to create and manage a search network campaign before you tackle one on the content network – and there is definitely a learning curve.

But PPC is a solid traffic generation tool that, once you master it, works like clockwork. Knowing how much each conversion adds to your bottom line makes running your campaigns easy and efficient.

• Forum marketing

This one’s a lot slower than PPC, and works a bit like social marketing – but it can yield an absolute onslaught of traffic if you do it well. Search for forums where your target market is likely to hang out. There are people who become so attached to their favorite message board or forum that they’re there literally all day, checking in with their friends like they’re sitting on a stool at a diner.

Again, you don’t want to be aggressive; you want to make friends, to be a giver. Forums are a great place to position yourself as an expert, to help other users by answering questions or letting them know about resources they’ll benefit from – not always yours! You mostly promote your site on a forum by using your signature box. You need to be pretty active on the board in order to become known and to see results. Be patient, because once you create a presence, you’ll see a huge boost in your traffic.

Now of course, all of these methods are for driving traffic to your site – and that assumes you’ve actually got a site.

If you’re still struggling with what’s probably the biggest obstacle for any beginning internet marketer – choosing a niche – you’ve got to move past that hurdle first. Bookmark this post for later, when you’ve chosen a niche and built your site. Then come back and create a traffic generation plan using these tactics.

Once you get them going, you’ll be surrounded by traffic coming from every direction, faster than you can ever imagine.