W3 Spin|Internet news blog

Targeted website traffic is by no means a guessing game. It is an exact science that takes time and effort to get right. The only way to get more website traffic is to reach the audience you designed your website after.

Your site might be pretty and interesting, but the information is useless unless the information is useful to the person reading it. For example: when you browse a book at Amazon.com, you see a list of other books people have bought in that same category. From that list, you might decide to buy again — you’ve just been targeted.

Targeted website traffic by no means guarantees traffic. Targeting only increases your chances of hitting the right audience. You don’t want to randomly lure people to your site and hope for the best. That’s a waste of time.

Internet loiterers, while harmless, do nothing for sales. You might have a hundred people visit your site, but only ten of them actually buy anything.

One good way to get targeted website traffic is to use keywords. Think of the person you want on your site. When he or she is looking up something on the internet, the person uses particular words to do that, right? If they need fuzzy dice to hang from their rearview window, they will type certain things into the search engine in order to find those fuzzy dice.

This is why you’ll often hear internet marketers talking about ‘getting inside the head of the prospect’. What would they type into a search engine in order to find fuzzy dice? Would it be “car dice”, “furry dice”, “soft hanging dice”? Or some other variation that you’ve never thought of? Picking the right keywords is about improving your chances of success.

So what else are you selling along with your fuzzy hanging rearview mirror car dice? You can’t get targeted website traffic if you don’t know who you’re targeting, so figure out just what kind of site you have. Should car dice should be sold at a car accessories site, a weird gifts site, or a kitsch site? They should be sold on a site that has other merchandise that will appeal to the fuzzy dice people-like fuzzy steering wheel covers, or even animal print clothing, if it’s a retro shop. That approach will get you more website traffic.

Getting people to visit your site and buy what you’re selling is similar to playing the stock market: You can make some educated guesses, but it’s all a risk and a gamble. That doesn’t mean you should ignore trying to improve your odds, though — targeted website traffic will definitely help. When you tempt people who want what you have, they’ll buy.