Optimize My Search

Are Hits All You Need?

Now matter how good the idea, how many hours you have spent, how many links you have, how unique your look or even how much content you have: Your success and survival will always be tied to - website traffic! Without website traffic your site will just sit there looking good. Like owning and expensive, fast, one of a kind vehicle and not putting gasoline in it.

Now realizing you need traffic from somewhere, most website owners run out and start spending money and time trying to get as many hits to their sites as possible, but lets not be fooled, hits to you site is not always what you want.

Most website owners do not realize there are two kinds of traffic that produce hits on your site. There is a huge difference in the two kinds. One being general traffic and the other targeted traffic.

You can compare general traffic to commercials you see on TV. They display the ads on
TV to all people without consideration to who can afford or even want the product. Basically the try to hit the largest audience possible and hope that someone out there somewhere watching the commercial will be in their targeted bracket. On the internet we have the same thing, spammers, pop ups, banner displays and other similar techniques are used to get their message across to as many as they can in a general audience in hopes someone will see and want what they are selling.

Targeted traffic is people who visit your site that have an interest in the subject or product you have on your site. Quite obviously, targeted traffic has a much higher value to you and your site. Where does targeted traffic come from? People searching for your keyword or phrase in a search engine, links from other sites, press releases, articles you have written, word of mouth and/or advertising.

Of course there is a lot of interest in free targeted traffic and there are a lot out there to take advantage of. You can trade links, optimize for search engine traffic, release free press releases, submit articles for free with your link in it and maybe even find a good banner trade with a site. Paid advertising is also available in all the above ways and various price ranges that can fit any budget. The best thing to do is research and experiment until you find the greatest way to drive the most traffic to you site. Different ways will work for different sites, just keep trying and you will start identifying the better ways and eliminate the time consuming ideas that don’t work.

Identifying which way works best infers you have to have some sort of system available to determine what is working. You can get ad tracker programs to track banner hits and many web statistic analysis programs that can track were visits are coming from. I know this advice sounds obvious to some but many websites can not determine where their traffic comes from and if all the ways they are using are beneficial. It is probably more obvious to those who spend money to advertise but identifying your best and worse traffic advertising venues can help you concentrate more on what works best and ultimately drive more targeted traffic to your site which is every site owners goal. Even free traffic advertising techniques that don’t work cost time and as we all know, time is money. Take the time to figure out what is working best for your site in the long run both you and your website will be glad you did.