What do you think it is?

I haven’t done a survey, but I have been around for a few years it seems to me that there is one topic that just keeps coming back.  Like safety in motor racing or brain damage in boxing this one doesn’t go away.

There are certainly fads and trends that take us away from the topic in its raw form.  But, at the end of the day an internet site is nothing without it.

I’m sure you’ve guessed by now.

When you look for a location to build or buy commercial property as a retail outlet or other business that requires your clientele to visit you.  A big consideration is the number of people that walk or drive past your property.

It’s the same with a web site.  You may as well not have bothered creating a site if people never see it.  The buzz word then is… traffic.

And if you want to be more specific, it’s targeted traffic!  That is people visiting your site that are interested in what your site is offering.

We’re just building a web site for a dancer and model.  The aim of the site is to provide agencies and other people interested in hiring a dancer or model enough information to want to contact him for audition.

It’s nice if I visit his site.  But given that right now I have no need for a model or dancer, I wouldn’t be targeted traffic.

In fact, given that ‘bandwidth’ is one of the commodities we pay for on the internet you might argue that I’m bad traffic.

So, how do you get targeted traffic?

The reason that this topic just keeps coming back is that 1) there is no single answer, 2) people invent new ways all the time and 3) there are always new sites cropping up that want targeted traffic!

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is one of the areas that addresses targeted traffic – and it’s an alluring one.  After all, if a search engine delivers you traffic it’s typically both targeted (people were searching for something relevant to your site) and free.

Because of this allure SEO gets a lot of bandwidth!  My only advice when looking for an SEO solution is that if the promise looks unbelievable (we guarantee number 1 on Google) then it probably shouldn’t be believed.

I’m sure there are exceptions but as a rule of thumb there is probably plenty of small print behind a statement like that.

You can find some of my own thoughts about traffic using SEO on one of our experimental sites: SEO Articles at OnlineMarketersChoice

One of my favourite techniques (and importantly some steps on how to do it) is covered in this $7, 14 page article by Gordon Bryan.

Finally, here’s a list of 10 traffic generation ideas, many of which I’m sure I’ll expand on in the future and all of which have been expanded on by somebody!!

1. Write and publish articles
2. Use pay-per-click advertising
3. Traditional marketing – how many of Jay Conrad Levinson’s 100 Guerilla Marketing Wepons are you using?
4. PR, do something interesting enough for journalists to write about it
5. Contribute to community sites (bulletin boards, newsgroups, blogs)
6. Use search engine optimization techniques
7. Create a great affiliate program
   Find and work with other businesses through joint ventures
8. Use Email Permission Marketing
9. Make it easy and compelling for current customers or visitors to tell others about your services through viral marketing
10. Oh yes, and, write a blog!

Take care,
Mark

Mark Quirk is a director at Know It Use It Ltd
http://www.ValuedClientSystem.com - From Prospects to Customers to Valued Clients
http://www.VCSHosts.co.uk – Create Your Online Business In A Box

This entry was posted on Friday, March 9th, 2007 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Observation, Recommendation, Traffic generation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.