Once upon a time, there was a web designer who designed web sites and published them on the Internet. His life was not too complicated. To make a nice profit all he needed to do was simply build a site and upload it to the Internet.
Unfortunately these times have passed away and will never return again. That sweet old formula "create a site + publish it = success" does not work anymore. It did years ago, but we have to keep up with technology, new Internet conditions and requirements.
Time goes by, technology develops, conditions change. And it's not necessarily a bad thing. What was unthinkable before is very real now. For example: RSS feeds are getting more and more popular. As our schedules become busier every day, we don’t have much time to browse through the Internet looking for important information. Now it’s enough to subscribe for articles, blog posts, fresh web site content on the topic that interests you the most and you will get the useful content flowing straight to you so you don’t even have to look for it.
I often see the same question appearing on business marketing forums: “I’ve created a website but do not get any traffic. Where do I get the visitors? Can someone tell me what to do?”
I’d like to compare a web site to an island. Imagine a beautiful tropical island, a small piece of paradise in the middle of the ocean. Many people would give a lot to own it, or at least get a chance to spend few days on it. But it’s … unoccupied because NOBODY KNOWS IT EXISTS!
This island could become quite a “hot spot” with ships bringing in crowds round the clock. But unless there is a map with exact coordinates to it nothing will happen. Secondly, that map needs to get in front of people’s eyes. I suppose showing few good shots would help get crowds interested. With other words some decent marketing should happen before we can see the desirable results.
Ok, back to the “traffic” question. Before I answer it, I’d like to ask you this:
1) What was already DONE to get the traffic?
2) What is the budget you can afford to pay for the traffic?
3) What is your time frame to generate traffic to your web site?
Depending on your answer I’d develop your “plan of attack”. Let’s look at three possible options:
1) Sufficient funds and time to invest into advertising campaign.
2) Little/no funds, enough time.
3) Little/no time, sufficient funds.
Option #1 – the best one, unfortunately does not happen too often in real life. I believe there will be no problem achieving great results with enough persuasion. Take your time (you’ve got enough of it anyway), learn every possible strategy and marketing method. Invest in SEO, PPC and every other advertising program you can lay your hands on.
Option #2 - I’d suggest to work hard on your Search Engine Optimisation. If you play your cards right, your site will come up within first few organic results and attract very decent amount of visitors. The down point is – it will take a long time for your site to be indexed within major search engines and appearing close to the top will require good SEO skills and patience. Don’t forget to spread the word through viral marketing, use reciprocal links, classified ads, article submission.
Option #3 – Most certainly go for PPC (pay per click advertising). Yahoo and Google will be your best bets, but don’t neglect smaller but less expensive engines like Kanoodle, LookSmart, MIVA.
In this article I’ve just started to scratch the surface. There are many other ways to market your website and receive tons of highly targeted, ready-to-buy visitors. To get invaluable information for the internet beginners as well as more advanced advertising techniques, please visit my website www.provenincomemagnet.com.
