In the offline world, the big thing is, and has always been, 3 words for success…location, location, location. Remember hearing that?
Well online there is no location. Your website is floating around somewhere in cyberspace, and so to get people to come to you, you must do the things necessary to either direct them to you, or to get in front of where they are looking in the first place for the information that you’re providing.
Of course, the best place to be is always where they’re looking in the first place right? This way you don’t have to be chasing…you are actually right where they’re looking.
Essentially, you’re being chased.
It’s common sense to think that the more traffic/visitors that you get to your website, the better your chances are for success. That is mostly true, but the thing that you really want to focus on is getting targeted visitors to your sites. In other words, you want the people who are most likely to purchase your products, or join your opportunities.
So, in other words, massive traffic is nice, but laser focused targeted practice is even better unity come to my sites than people looking for a networking solution for their companies computer system. See the difference?
The key to getting targeted traffic is by use of keywords. Keyword research is paramount to getting pinpoint targeted visitors to your site. It’s like the difference between having a taco stand on a glacier in Alaska, or a taco stand on the highly trafficked corner of Sunset and Vine in Hollywood, CA. Where do you think you’d sell more tacos? That is unless Eskimos and polar bears eat tacos I guess. But you get the point.
There are two primary ways to get traffic online. Free or Paid. That’s the main breakdown, but it goes even further than that. With paid search there is PPC (pay-per-click) traffic , there are banner ads, you can pay to simply place your ad on someone else’s website, there are ezine ads, solo-ads in ezines, co-registration, lead buying, etc. Of those pay per click is definitely the most popular and widely used, and when used correctly most effective.
Of course free traffic is the best that there is in most people’s minds, especially if you’re just starting out. (There are those in the PPC world who would disagree with that notion though since they’re having huge great success with paid traffic).
Free types of traffic include SEO traffic (search engine traffic), article marketing, traffic from signature files in forum posts, blog posts, and other places where you’re allowed to make comments, there’s social networking traffic, and then there’s also Joint venture and affiliate traffic (assuming that you have your own product with an affiliate program of course).
Of those the one to strive for is definitely SEO traffic, but this takes time to put into place, and depends on a well optimized website in most cases. Yet, the time that you spend can be well worth it in the long run considering that when someone goes to a search engine such as Google (the biggest there is with about 65% of all search traffic), and they type in the keyword or search phrase that you’re listed under, they are distinctly looking for exactly what you’ve got. That’s the ultimate way to get yourself right in front of them.
Regardless of which type you use, paid or free, the key is that you want targeted searchers coming to your sites. Using the right keywords again is how you do that. There are a number of tools out on the market for you to use to do keyword research, with probably the best being Google’s own keyword tool.
There’s not enough space here for me to write all that entails when it comes to website traffic, but hopefully this article has given you a more clear idea on the type of traffic that YOU want to aim for, and that fits your monetary and time budget best right now.
No matter what, the more you learn about getting targeted traffic to your website, the greater your chances are for massive success.
