10 Ways To Increase Your Targeted Web Site Traffic
By Titus Hoskins (c) 2007

In order to create a successful website you must have
traffic or visitors to your site. Without traffic your
perfect site is useless; it might as well not even exist.

Moreover, because traffic is an essential element of any
successful site, many novice webmasters make the mistake of
believing all traffic is created equal.

Huge mistake.

For if traffic is King; targeted traffic is God. All
traffic is good, but there is a great distinction between
ordinary traffic and targeted traffic. Someone clicking on
a link to your site who is looking for the exact
information or product you have displayed is said to be a
targeted visitor. These are the kinds of visitors or
traffic you must try to obtain in your marketing and link
building.

Why?

Because targeted traffic is often the key to building a
successful site on the web. Targeted traffic will greatly
increase your sales conversions, bring back repeat visitors
and help your site gain a prominent online presence.

So here are 10 targeted traffic building steps you can take:

1. Google Is God!

Only half-kidding but at least where targeted traffic is
concerned, Google is still the all important being you
should be worshipping online. Don't ignore the other two
major demigods Yahoo! and MSN, but Google will deliver most
of your traffic. Your website stats will point this out to
you daily, so you must optimize your site for Google.

As a general rule make your pages Google friendly by only
using one topic per page, include your keywords in the
title, meta description and url for that page. It would
also be helpful to have your main keywords in the first
headline on the page and most experienced webmasters try to
place their keywords in the first 90 words and in the last
25 words. Sprinkle your keywords and variations throughout
the copy but don't keyword spam, just let the engines know
this is what your page is about.

2. Target The Right Keywords

You must target the right keywords in order to get useful
traffic to your site. You must first check the number of
searches and amount of competition for your chosen
keywords. You can use software like Keyword Elite or sites
like http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/ which
will give you the Overture and WordTracker monthly stats to
help you pick the right keywords for your site. Instead of
picking highly competitive keywords, take the middle road
and milk the 'long tail keywords'!

Most webmasters create a master keyword list for their site
then branch off into sub-categories from this master list.
For example, if you have a site on laptops your sub-keyword
categories could be laptop accessories, laptop batteries
and so on. Similarly, most webmasters only develop their
sites in a simple hierarchy with the homepage as the center
with their major keywords as separate pages and then
sub-categories branching out from these. Your webpages
should not be more than three clicks away from your
homepage as this will really displease the search engine
gods!

3. Have Relevant Content

Perhaps what will appease the SE gods the most is relevant
content. Your content has to be relevant to the topic of
your site. Keep everything on topic and within the scope of
your site.

Relevant, helpful content will also be the biggest magnet
for targeted traffic. Surfers are usually looking for
information, give them what they want and your site will
reap the rewards. Original, high quality, relevant content
will draw in targeted traffic to your site so make sure
you have some good content to satisfy your visitors and
the search engines.

4. Let The Search Engines Find You

Instead of submitting your site to the search engines, let
them find your site. One of the best ways to do this is by
placing your links on high traffic/spidered sites: on
online forums matching your site's content, on social
networks such as MySpace, YouTube, Squidoo... and on
article directories like Ezinearticles, Goarticles, and
Ideamarketers. The search engines will follow these links
and index your site before you even know it.

5. Use Traffic Modules

One of the most effective ways to bring in targeted traffic
is to create traffic modules: whole areas of your site
devoted to one sub-topic. For example, if you have a
general site on cars, you could develop a whole section on
a car-buying guide. Another section could be on car
accessories, link all these pages together into a neat
traffic cluster on your site. The search engines will love
these closely grouped pages and reward you with lots of
targeted traffic.

6. Use Articles

Don't forget article marketing, just because it has become
extremely popular doesn't mean it has become any less
effective. Writing short helpful informative articles on
your site's topic is still one of the best ways to get
targeted traffic to your site. Place your links with your
targeted keyword anchor text in the resource box.

Article marketing is an invaluable source not only of
targeted traffic but also one-way links to your site. These
links will help increase your rankings, especially in
Google which considers each link as a democratic vote for
your site and ranks each page with a PageRank PR 0-10.

Articles are also extremely important for pre-selling to
your potential customers. These articles warm or soften up
your prospective buyers to your salespitch before they even
reach your site.

7. Build Opt-in Lists

Most marketers and webmasters use opt-in lists to bring
targeted visitors back to their sites. Instead of just
receiving that visitor once, you can get repeat visits by
using a simple follow-up system with an autoresponder.
Studies have consistently shown it might take 6 or 7
follow-ups before a potential customer buys.

Building a subscriber list will also be helpful in creating
a web community around your site. These community members
may become your most targeted of all your visitors.
Likewise, you should have a bookmark feature on all your
pages, any repeat visitor is a targeted visitor!

8. Have Blogs & RSS Feeds

Make sure you have a blog and RSS feed attached to your
site. This will not only bring in targeted traffic but your
visitors can also subscribe to your RSS feed. This will
bring targeted visitors back to your site. Use a free site
like Google's own http://www.blogger.com or better yet
create your own blog using free software such as WordPress.

9. Use Social Media

Build links and contacts in all the important social media
networks such as MySpace, YouTube and Flickr. These social
networks are a great source of very targeted traffic.

10. Use Multimedia

Perhaps the biggest opportunity to build targeted traffic
is using video and audio media on your site. These will
help personalize your message or content and build trust
with your visitors. Video clips also have a great viral
potential which will bring in traffic.

Sites such as YouTube, Google Video can help you get your
message or content in front of millions of eyes overnight.
Savvy marketers are already exploiting the traffic
potential of this new multimedia trend overtaking the web.
Why should they have all the fun? You too, can take
advantage of these free media sites and pull in targeted
traffic to your site.

Of course, there are many more ways of getting targeted
traffic to your site. But just using one or two of these
techniques should increase your targeted traffic in the
coming months. Appease the traffic gods by putting these
steps into practice and see for yourself.
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The author is a full-time online marketer. For the latest and
most effective web marketing tools try: Internet Marketing
Software (http://www.bizwaremagic.com) Or for the most powerful
marketing software try: Internet Marketing Tools
(http://www.marketingtoolguide.com) Copyright © 2007 Titus
Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource
box stays attached.
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SEO-News is a registered service mark of Jayde Online, Inc.
Article printed from SEO-News: http://www.seo-news.com

He's so right about 6 and 8, will need to work on that some more ^_^

I don't think nr 10 (multimedia content) would be a good idea for an ecommerce site though!

Totally agreed!