How do I get traffic to my site? This is one of my most frequently asked questions, or similar versions such as “my site has been live for x months and I haven’t had a sale – is this normal?” Getting a website is a baby step toward running an online business. At first, it seems like the biggest step, but really it’s just part of a process. There are many factors to consider when trying to gauge how long it will be until your business is making sales, but I would expect that it can take 6 – 12 months, or longer to really start seeing good traffic and sales. And, this is if you are diligent in pushing traffic to your site.
So, first things first. Let me add here that I started my website without any planning and without any knowledge of marketing or seo. My first year I averaged about 100 visitors a month, which isn’t much at all. When I finally started planning and understanding how to better market I jumped up to 600 visitors in a month. My numbers have steadily increased over the last two years. If I had thought about this aspect from the beginning, I’m sure I would have seen my traffic grow right away. So, if I had it all to do over again, the first thing I would do is come up with a written marketing plan. I’d take a good look at my numbers, set some goals and then create a diversified list of marketing tactics designed to get people to my site. In order to set goals, you need to have data about who is visiting your site and how they are getting there. I use AWStats because it comes with my webhosting and is easily accessible from my cpanel, and I love it. It gives me everything I need, including which search engine crawlers are hitting my site and where people are reaching my site from. AWStats is fantastic and often comes with your hosting. If you don’t know whether or not you have it – ask your webhost. If you don’t have it, another version that I like which is fairly easy to integrate into your site is Site Meter. Once you have a good sense of your current traffic, you’ll be better able to judge where you want to go.
After this you can start planning your strategy for driving traffic to your site. I recommend a multi-layered approach – there isn’t one thing that is going to magically make your numbers go up – you really need to add several different things, and continue to monitor their effectiveness, coming back to your plan to add and delete items as necessary. Remember to keep an eye on your numbers after you make changes so you can document what works and what doesn’t. Different avenues that I have found successful are:
1. Good SEO
2. Advertising on the Web
3. Direct Mail Campaigns
4. Online eMail Campaigns
5. AdWords
6. Links and Reciprocal Links
