Website Traffic: Why Targeting is Important

People talk incessantly about - gaining more website traffic - but they rarely mention that a site really needs targeted website traffic. The only way to have a successful site is to court targeted website traffic — or people who keep coming back to your site, visiting one page after another.

Targeted website traffic includes people who are actually interested in what your site offers. They have been -targeted- for that very reason. For example, when you look at a book ad on Amazon.com, they show you books other people bought who also liked the one you were looking at. That’s because it is reasonable to assume that if you’re interested in the first one, you’ll be interested in others like it. They are targeting a fantasy fan for their fantasy books, instead of trying to sell them to random people. That is what you need to do as well.

Now, targeted website traffic doesn’t mean guaranteed traffic — just a strong possibility of more website traffic. You don’t want to lure anyone and everyone to your site. Internet loiterers take up space.

Although they don’t really hurt anything by being there, you don’t want to waste time courting them, just hoping they will like what they see and become a fan or a customer. It is up to you to take advantage of all the marketing knowledge out there, just waiting for you use.

Keywords are the building blocks when it comes to traffic, whether its paid or free traffic. Because searching on the internet is driven by people typing in what they are looking for, they have to use words to describe what it is they want. They can’t use their hands or facial gestures, it has to be words. For example, if they wanted big furry dice that they could hang in their car, they will type associated words into their preferred search engine to seek out what they want.

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.

Not only is psychology important, but demographics are important too. What market are you selling too when you are offering dice for your car? What else would they be interested in buying? What type of site should you set up to cater for them? Car accessories? Unusual gifts? 70’s memorabilia? To make the most out of the web traffic that you have gained and to get even more traffic, you need to have related items that your customers will be interested in purchasing.

Targeted website traffic is like playing the stock market — you can make predictions based on careful research, but you will never know exactly whether your predictions will translate into sales. All you can do is increase the odds of driving more website traffic to your site through targeting your audience.