Moreover, because traffic is an essential element of any successful site, many novice webmasters make the mistake of believing all traffic is created equal.

Huge mistake.

For if traffic is King; targeted traffic is God. All traffic is good, but there is a great distinction between ordinary traffic and targeted traffic. Someone clicking on a link to your site who is looking for the exact information or product you have displayed is said to be a targeted visitor. These are the kinds of visitors or traffic you must try to obtain in your marketing and link building.

Why?

Because targeted traffic is often the key to building a successful site on the web. Targeted traffic will greatly increase your sales conversions, bring back repeat visitors and help your site gain a prominent online presence.

So here are 10 targeted traffic building steps you can take:

1. Google Is God!

Only half-kidding but at least where targeted traffic is concerned, Google is still the all important being you should be worshipping online. Don't ignore the other two major demigods Yahoo! and MSN, but Google will deliver most of your traffic. Your website stats will point this out to you daily, so you must optimize your site for Google.

As a general rule make your pages Google friendly by only using one topic per page, include your keywords in the title, meta description and url for that page. It would also be helpful to have your main keywords in the first headline on the page and most experienced webmasters try to place their keywords in the first 90 words and in the last 25 words. Sprinkle your keywords and variations throughout the copy but don't keyword spam, just let the engines know this is what your page is about.

2. Target The Right Keywords

You must target the right keywords in order to get useful traffic to your site. You must first check the number of searches and amount of competition for your chosen keywords. You can use software like Keyword Elite or sites like www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/ which will give you the Overture and WordTracker monthly stats to help you pick the right keywords for your site. Instead of picking highly competitive keywords, take the middle road and milk the 'long tail keywords'!

Most webmasters create a master keyword list for their site then branch off into sub-categories from this master list. For example, if you have a site on laptops your sub-keyword categories could be laptop accessories, laptop batteries and so on. Similar, most webmasters only develop their sites in a simple hierarchy with the homepage as the center with their major keywords as separate pages and then sub-categories branching out from these. Your webpages should not be more than three clicks away from your homepage as this will really displease the search engine gods!

3. Have Relevant Content

Perhaps what will appease the SE gods the most is relevant content. Your content has to be relevant to the topic of your site. Keep everything on topic and within the scope of your site.

Relevant, helpful content will also be the biggest magnet for targeted traffic. Surfers are usually looking for information, give them what they want and your site will reap the rewards. Original high quality relevant content will draw in targeted traffic to your site so make sure your have some good content to satisfy your visitors and the search engines.

4. Let The Search Engines Find You

Instead of submitting your site to the search engines, let them find your site. One of the best ways to do this is by placing your links on high traffic/spidered sites: on online forums matching your site's content, on social networks such as MySpace, YouTube, Squidoo... and on articles directories like Ezinearticles, Goarticles, and Ideamarketers. The search engines will follow these links and index your site before you even know it.

5. Use Traffic Modules

One of the most effective ways to bring in targeted traffic is to create traffic modules: whole areas of your site devoted to one sub-topic. For example, if you have a general site on cars, you could develop a whole section on a car-buying guide. Another section could be on car accessories, link all these pages together into a neat traffic cluster on your site. The search engines will love these closely grouped pages and reward you with lots of targeted traffic.

6. Use Articles

Don't forget article marketing, just because it has become extremely popular doesn't mean it has become any less effective. Writing short helpful informative articles on your site's topic is still one of the best ways to get targeted traffic to your site. Place your links with your targeted keyword anchor text in the resource box.

Article marketing is an invaluable source not only of targeted traffic but also one-way links to your site. These links will help increase your rankings, especially in Google which considers each link as a democratic vote for your site and ranks each page with a PageRank PR 0-10.

Articles are also extremely important for pre-selling to your potential customers. These articles warm or soften up your prospective buyers to your salespitch before they even reach your site.

7. Build Opt-in Lists

Most marketers and webmasters use opt-in lists to bring targeted visitors back to their sites. Instead of just receiving that visitor once, you can get repeat visits by using a simple follow-up system with an autoresponder. Studies have consistently shown it might take 6 or 7 follow-ups before a potential customer buys.

Building a subscriber list will also be helpful in creating a web community around your site. These community members may become your most targeted of all your visitors. Likewise, you should have a bookmark feature on all your pages, any repeat visitor is a targeted visitor!

8. Have Blogs & RSS Feeds

Make sure you have a blog and RSS feed attached to your site. This will not only bring in targeted traffic but your visitors can also subscribe to your RSS feed. This will bring targeted visitors back to your site. Use a free site like Google's own www.blogger.com or better yet create your own blog using free software such as WordPress.

9. Use Social Media

Build links and contacts in all the important social media networks such as MySpace, YouTube and Flickr. These social networks are a great source of very targeted traffic.

10. Use Multimedia

Perhaps the biggest opportunity to build targeted traffic is using video and audio media on your site. These will help personalize your message or content and build trust with your visitors. Video clips also have a great viral potential which will bring in traffic.

Sites such as YouTube, Google Video can help you get your message or content in front of millions of eyes overnight. Savvy marketers are already exploiting the traffic potential of this new multimedia trend overtaking the web, why should they have all the fun? You too, can take advantage of these free media sites and pull in targeted traffic to your site.

Of course, there are many more ways of getting targeted traffic to your site. But just using one or two of these techniques should increase your targeted traffic in the coming months. Appease the traffic gods by putting these steps into practice and see for yourself.

Copyright (c) 2007 Titus Hoskins