Web Traffic Tips

Everyone who has a website wants more needs more traffic. The problem is not all traffic is created equal. A lot of webmasters get so lost in the search for more traffic they lose the focus on if that traffic has any real value.

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.

People who click on ads on the content network tend to be browsing the Internet for information. On the other hand, those searching for key terms, lets say product names, are more likely to be looking to buy. Because of this, conversion rates are typically much higher on the search network. This leads to more demand which, in turn, leads to higher prices for these ads.

However, paying for advertising can painfully eat into profits. In some cases campaigns that are generating a good volume of sales can be rendered unprofitable due to the costs of advertising. However free traffic, organic traffic, which comes from unpaid listing on search engines, is free and targeted. Getting large volumes of traffic from To do this requires being on the front pages of the major search engines for popular terms. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of trying to rank highly for competitive keywords. Unfortunately, many SEO techniques take considerable time to put into place and to affect search engine rankings. It is not a quick method to the top…no matter what a SEO company promises you.

You can overcome this problem by aiming for \’low-hanging fruit\’. That is, keywords that have less competition. While these generate lower traffic, it is possible to build up considerable amounts of traffic by building up a portfolio of less popular keywords. If you are on a tight budget you can do some of this work yourself…saving you thousands of dollars in professional SEO fees.

Other great forms of generating free targeted traffic include article marketing, email marketing and utilizing joint venture partnerships. The main thing is to avoid traffic generation strategies that cost money, but don\’t result in conversions. Pay close attention to the traffic numbers you get in return from your efforts.