This article is part 11 of a series. You'll find part one here. And part 10 here.
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There are many different ways to get visitors to your website, including...
- SEO (search engine optimisation)
- Social Media
- Social bookmarketing
- Article marketing
- SEM (search engine marketing)
- Online advertising
- Offline advertising
- Guerilla marketing
- Viral marketing
- Forums
- Alliance and affiliate marketing
- 3rd party content (e.g. Squidoo)
- Blogging
- Freebies and giveaways
- External web content
- Business networking
- Email marketing
- Newsletters (on and offline)
- Promotion to existing clients
- Online press releases
- Regular press releases
- Surveys
- Ebooks and reports
- Download
- Link swap schemes
- Directories
- Classifieds
- Competitions
- Podcasts
- Slideshows (e.g. Slideshare)
- Video marketing (e.g. YouTube)
- Link bait
You'll look at a lots of different ways to get traffic in coming articles, but none of these methods is as important as knowing...
- The type of visitor that most benefits you
- The specific thing that will make that type of person want to visit your site
There's no point getting people to visit your site if they...
- Don't want/need your product or service
- Can't afford your product or service
- Can't physically buy/use your product or service
The most obvious purpose of targeting is to understand who wants or needs your service, can afford it, and is in a position to actually buy it from you (e.g. in the right geographic area).
It's essential that you understood who this person is, where s/he can be found, and what will persuade him/her to visit your site. You need to know this before you try to generate traffic to your site.
In part 12 we'll take an in-depth look at how web marketing professionals identify the right people, and attract them to a website.
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