Many sites make the mistake of trying to be all things to all people. It is far better to stick to a specific service or product than it is to offer limited options to customers. If you are selling hiking gear, be the best damn hiking gear site on the net and nothing else. This same problem arises when sites target traffic generation strategies.
The key to cost effective marketing is to get worthwhile web site traffic. At first blush, getting as much traffic as possible, regardless of how, sounds like a smart move. It is not. Doing so wastes your money, distracts you from what you should be doing and diverts your time from doing just that. If you are paying for traffic, you must find credible traffic sources.
Credible traffic is simply traffic from sources and locations that are relevant to your site. If you have looked into generating traffic, you have probably seen offers of 100,000 hits for $50. Yes, you will get 100,000 hits. Of course, the traffic is coming off of free lottery sites or the visitors are being paid to visit your site. This traffic is not credible and will not convert into revenues.
The best place to find credible web site traffic is Google and Overture. These are pay-per-click search engines that list your ads directly on their search results. This means you can specify the keyword phrases you want to be listed under, to wit, targeting your advertising to your market. You can also create filters that limit the ad placements to searches from certain geographic locations, such as the United States or Europe. This further targets your traffic by excluding clicks from some country which you can't possibly do business with.
You can also get credible traffic from web sites and traffic vendors. The sites handle it differently, but you can often buy ad space on their sites in the form of a banner. There are some credible services out there, but there are a lot more dubious ones. Personally, I do not use any of them, but it is your money.
Focusing your marketing is important if you want a good return on investment. You can get credible web site traffic from a lot of sources, but Google and Overture are the best.
