10 Ways To Increase Your Targeted Web Site Traffic

In order to create a successful web site 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 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. Similar, 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
your 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 articles 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 sales pitch 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 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.