So You need to Get Traffic to Your Website?
Website Owners everywhere are crying out for more web traffic, but all web traffic varies in quality and you have to ensure the type of traffic you are generating is suitable for your website. The last thing you need is traffic which merely uses up bandwidth but serves no other purpose.
Different websites have different goals. One may be to build a brand, another may be to sell a product while yet another may be to build a list from leads. No matter what the goal, tracking should be done to see whether the traffic generated from various sources is actually helping to achieve that goal.
In some cases, it is easy to see the difference between various traffic sources. For example, it is usually much cheaper to buy Pay Per Click (PPC) ads for a content network than for a search network. On a content network, ads appear on related web sites while on a search network they appear as the result of a user keying in specific search terms.
In general it’s considered that most people who click on content network ads tend to be researching their intended product and in the main are looking for free information. It’s been proven that on the other hand searchers who type in (especially long tail) specific keywords are further down the buying funnel and are more likely to click the buy now button. Inevitably this means that to advertise in the Search Network is more expensive but often more effective.
Pay per Click advertising is fine as a short term solution but careful control over costs must be kept and also conversions have to be tracked avidly or costs can outstrip revenue which then defeats the objective. The better but more long term solution to traffic is SEO or Search Engine Optimization which when done properly can get the website high up in the organic search results for relevant keywords. SEO means optimizing individual web pages for certain specific keywords using on page factors such as keyword density and off page factors such as inbound links. This is a more long term solution to Pay Per Click which is virtually instant. Initially a good balance need to be found between the two.
Its very hard to rank highly for more generic keywords especially in popular niches where competition is fierce so aim for long tail keywords or “low hanging fruit”. There are lots of good keyword tools to help you find these and they are much easier to rank for so if you can build a significant list of these and optimize your pages accordingly you will get ranked and also get significant traffic from these.
Article marketing is under utilized and can produce good traffic as well as a significant number of quality links back to your site. Other options include joint ventures and email marketing but remember your primary objective should always focus on Not paying for traffic that isn’t generating sales.
Filed under: Internet Business