Traffic generation
This will include search engines but consideration should also be given to links from other web sites, pay per click campaigns, email marketing, blogs, signature files, referrals and other, more traditional and conventional offline marketing techniques (advertising, URL promotion etc.).
Any web site, however well designed and feature-rich it may be can only be successful according to the amount of good quality traffic it receives.
Generally speaking, this is not “the numbers game” where success can be achieved based on quantity of traffic rather than quality. Hundreds of good quality online visitors are worth thousands of the wrong sort of visitor with little or no interest in the offer.
The challenge for every web site owner is to focus on the quality, and to not get caught up in the race for traffic. Volumes of traffic are relevant in a small number of cases, for example when the web site is about attracting advertising sponsorship but, even then, advertisers should be asking for evidence of quality rather than headline numbers.
How search engine friendly is your website?
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It is not difficult to drive traffic to web sites. What is infinitely more challenging is driving good quality traffic to a web site. This takes time, knowledge and a clear understanding of who the target audience is, and how to reach it.
Relying on search engines as the holy grail to web site traffic generation is, generally, to become obsessed with trying to achieve a top 10 ranking for particular keywords and phrases.
This is frequently unrealistic and can absorb resources at an alarming rate.
Links
Good quality reciprocal links from other web sites are good, but not as good as inbound links, though these are more difficult to achieve.
Good quality links are those which have a high Google page rank and are in complementary lines of business.
Email marketing
An excellent, and cost effective way of reaching out to your target audience. Be wary, though, of buying in email lists. Use your own whenever possible and ensure (particularly when emailing consumers) that you have permission to use them for proactive marketing.
Paid search
Paid search schemes include YahooSM, Miva and Google’s Adwords. An excellent way of driving good quality traffic to your site but choose keywords / phrases carefully, and make sure your web site is built so as to engage with the visitor when they land.
Online forums
An often overlooked technique to promote your website. Take time to identify appropriate forums and chat rooms. Join the groups, and post messages, getting a feel for the style and protocols before attempting self promotion. Very effective if done properly.
Blogs
Consider setting up a corporate blog as a way of creating inbound links, and as an informal way of communicating regularly to your target audience.
