Bringing Traffic into Your Website: Numbers are Not Everything

Universally, most small business owners want more traffic coming into their web site…Numbers are not necessarily a good thing. Ask your self, would I rather have 20 prospects to find 3 good clients or would I rather have 5 good prospects to find 2. Most small business people would opt for the later. Qualifying prospects takes time and resources. Waisting time on bad prospects is something that small businesses can ill afford to do. Aside from that, doing things to raise your traffic numbers just to raise your traffic numbers may be an ineffective long term strategy with Google.

So how do you set up a strategy to get the best traffic into your web site on limited resources?

• Target the right keywords. Do not stray out going after keywords just for traffic sake. Target words for your web site and article copy that relate to the profile of the type of customer that you want.
• Use social media properly. Social media used properly is just an extension of the town square. In fact you actually have the opportunity to open up and operate your own town square. Be polite…work to attract the folks who really want and/or need to listen to your message. This includes referral partners. Old repetitious push media is dead. People want real information of value, not commercials.
• Educate your marketplace. An educated customer or prospect is one that closes themselves. Let your web site content and social media programs educate your sphere of influence to make your sales easier and more efficient.
• Be transparent (in the proper fashion). Be honest in your social media about who you are and what you do. Misrepresentation will bring in the wrong prospects and waist a lot of time… yours and theirs. If you are a one man operation, be a one man operation. If you are a small organization, be a small organization…etc. Whatever it is, be it, but put the best face on it.
• Stay green. The best strategy long term with Google placement is to use good technical practices, but most of all do what they want you to do. Big picture, this means understanding why Google wants to index your site. Google’s consumer product is information that it organizes and gives away freely through search, so that they can sell advertising. As time goes on the best way to stay Google’s good side is to provide quality, relevant information. Methods that use questionable practices to get to the top of the search rankings may work today, but at some point are debunked by Google. Don’t build your on line marketing on sand, but on solid rock with honest best practices.

Last of all for the small businessman or woman who markets locally, the best marketing program involves building a network in the real world and then energizing it through the web.