Traffic may be the lifeblood of your business if it is bad traffic it is likely ruin all your hard work.

It costs money to generate traffic and you will have invested a great deal of your time and in business time is money so concentrate on only the visitors who will make you money. In a few words you only want targeted website traffic, all other traffic is worthless.

I would like to use the analogy of selling a house to demonstrate my argument. You wish to sell your house so you put out an advertisement “House for Sale”. Now one of two things will happen, you get no views because your advert was not specific, or you get a variety of potential buyers who discover the house not suitable to their requirements.

If you are selling a four bedroom detached residence with a large garden it is not likely to attract a young couple seeking a starter home or newly retirees looking to downsize.

So you change the advert, “Four Bedroom House, 2 bathrooms, large garden, close to good schools and shopping facilities”. With this description you are targeting a specific market and your potential buyers (traffic) are coming to see a house that matches their needs.

Exactly the same approach is needed with your website and if you are say promoting a Forex program you would target people interested in the racy world of stock market investment. It always amazes me that people will build a site promoting horse racing tips and also try to sell mobile phones. OK a bit extreme perhaps but I am sure you get my message.

You must focus your web site solely on your market, if you sell mobile accessories include technical articles on the qualities of your products; explain the differences and benefits of each one. Your only images should be of mobiles and accessories, garish flashy and irrelevant images are unwelcome and distracting to your visitors.

The main factor fundamental to all this is your keyword research. In our advert example above the main keyword phrase would be “Four Bedroom House” for everyone searching this phrase you can supply exactly what they require. In your business the same rule applies. What words or phrases will people use when seeking your products? In your mobile accessories business you could use “cases”, “ring tones” “screen protectors” and so on.  Make a list of potential keywords and check them out using the free Google keyword tool. This will show you the number of searches there have been for your keyword or phrase and will also suggest alternatives. Select words that have Global search volumes in excess of 2,500, remember the word or phrase is no good to you if people are not searching on it. The site is at https://adwords.google.co.uk/select/KeywordToolExternal?forceLegacy=true

So by selecting keywords with large search volumes you will be targeting exactly the people wanting that product. The concept is a simple one but be prepared for some hard work in your selection process of the keywords. Get this wrong and there will be no traffic or just as bad, useless traffic and that will have cost you the time spent setting it up or even worse hard cash in a failed AdWords campaign.

I suggest you adopt the following mantra!

When I think of traffic, I must only think targeted website traffic.

For more information on how to increase website traffic click here.

Best wishes

If you are intent on remaining competitive you must understand that without traffic there is no business. You must thus constantly strive to increase website traffic.

There are many ways to achieve this for free, let us examine just a few.

• Offer free, original, and quality content on your site.
• The internet abounds with forums on every possible topic. Join as many forums as you can, get involved in the discussions and post useful responses to people’s questions. Introduce your website link discretely at the end of your post
• Tell others about your affiliate program submit details to affiliate program directories.
• Create a links page that will contain the links to other non-competing websites in the same industry.
• Advertise your site with every email you send by adding a permanent email signature
• Search for blogs related to your business or website and read the postings. You are really only interested in blogs where comments are allowed for by adding a comment and leaving your website link you will have created a permanent link to your site.
• Offer Freebies. People like nothing more that something for free, be it an ebook, video or a useful piece of information. Your giveaway must include your advertisement and your link.
• Investigate what traffic exchanges have to offer. The basic idea is that you team up with other webmasters, and they send you traffic in exchange for you sending them traffic. Google “traffic exchange” to find those services.
• Write articles and submit to at least five different directories, you will include a link to your site in your author bio.
• Join free safe lists. These are lists of subscribers who have opted-in to send and receive emails to each other.

This is an excerpt from an article I recently published, for more detailed information on how to increase website traffic and other aspects of internet and affiliate marketing take a look at my Free publication The Online Marketing Bulletin, to get your free copy please click here.

Many aspiring markers make a huge basic error following so called gurus who advise entering markets “with which you are familiar”

WRONG

Do not  pick a product you wish to sell or that just appeals to you, if this is to be run as a business you choose a product the market WANTS and is prepared to PAY for.

Memorise the following.

Value is defined as “what they want.”

Not what they need.

Not what you think they need.

Not what you think they should want.

Not what you’re sure will make them happy.

What they want.

The more powerful the want, the more you can charge for fulfilling it. And the happier they’ll be to pay you for it.

Find out what they want, and give it to them.

It’s that simple.

Ask yourself, which is going to be easier to promote and sell? Something that is in demand or something that fits in with your hobby but has interest only to fellow hobbyists?

The real money is in providing solutions to common problems.

Hi and welcome, many thanks for visiting my blog.

Once upon a time I thought making money on the internet was just a few clicks away, yes folks that is a fairy tale.

Blood, sweat and tears is what it takes and having travelled through the pain barrier more than once I decided I needed a new blog in which I could share my experiences and hopefully pass on some good advice to others.

I will use this platform to post excerpts from articles I have written, the results of my research, my sometimes quirky views, some days just a laugh and hopefully this will generate comments from my readers.

I do welcome all feedback so please let me hear from you.

If you would like to receive my free newsletter, plus get a brilliant free report on article marketing then click here. Each newsletter will be packed full of goodies, no hard sell, I promise just solid content,  click here

My best wishes to you all