Traffic is one of those aspects of being a webmaster that new people to the industry never seem to think too much about. In fact if you asked a brand new webmaster where he planned to get his traffic from, he would probably look totally lost, wave his arms around vaguely and change the subject.

New webmasters may not think too much about traffic and may not understand everything that comes with it, but if they want to survive and grow in this industry it is one of the concepts that they have to come to grips with very early in their career.

"Think outside the box and pursue traffic as if your life depended on it because in this business ... it does."

I've talked about traffic before, looked at where it comes from and what to do with it once you have it so I don't want to go over those points again. Instead, I want to suggest some other sources of traffic that new webmasters may not have considered.

These ideas are not for the very beginner but are more suited to the webmaster who has reached the stage where he or she turns out at least three or four free sites or galleries on a weekly basis. It is not so much the experience that is needed here but a reserve of sites or galleries to use.

The first idea is what is commonly called a hub. A hub can be as simple or as involved as you like but it basically consists of a page built around a list of your sites in a particular niche. Add some sponsor links to it and even mix in some sponsor sites among your sites and you have a hub. You can even add a bookmark script so that surfers are only a click away.

It doesn't have to conform to anyone's rules because it won't get listed anywhere but search engines so you can have blind links and consoles and blurs and whatever you think will make you a sale.

Each time you build a site in that niche add it to the hub.

Give the hub a page title that includes some high end keywords, optimise it for the search engines and submit it. Of course search engines aren't going to send it a lot of hits overnight so you need to do one more thing to start feeding your hub some decent traffic.

Each time you build a site in that niche, on the final page, right down at the bottom, place a small text link that will direct surfers to your hub. You don't want that link to draw surfers away from your sponsor links so keep it small and at the bottom of the page. When you include a link like that, just remember the link list rules that limit the number of outgoing links you can have on your page.

Keep in mind that surfers will follow that simple text link and visit your hub so make sure that they are confronted with plenty of sponsor links when they arrive.

Another way to generate your own traffic is with your own link list or TGP. Now the last thing the world needs is another one of those – there are hundreds of link lists and thousands of TGPs and more of the little buggers keep popping up every week.

Aside from the sheer volume, there is also the fact that running a link list or thumbnail gallery is hard work and the return on the time and money spent on setting up a real one is minimal. I hope you noticed that I used the word 'real' there because what I am suggesting is more of a faux (that's just a fancy word for fake) list. It looks like a link list or TGP, it even has a recip button or text link but it is populated entirely with your own sites.

Be sure to optimise it for the search engines and submit it to every engine you can find. Put together a simple recip button and/or text link and include the link in every recip table on every mirrored page on every site that you build.

Once again the link list or TGP can take whatever form you want it to because it is your site and you don't have to abide by anyone's rules but your own. You can even build it as a hybrid list and include both your free sites and thumbnail galleries. If you don't have any galleries if your own, you can opt for those that are provided by sponsors.

Give the surfer an opportunity to bookmark the site and don't treat him too roughly with full page ads and consoles because you really do want him to come back to get more exposure to your advertising. If you do it right, you just might end up sending more traffic to yourself than some real link lists.

These are just a couple of ideas on how to start getting control of your traffic. There are many other legitimate ways of doing it besides what I have given you here. Think outside the box and pursue traffic as if your life depended on it because in this business … it does.