Targeted Traffic?

“So what exactly do you mean by targeted traffic?” I hear you say….

Well, first, you probably know that the word traffic is used in internet marketing jargon to designate a visitor to a given web site or web page.

Targeted traffic therefore is a bunch of very specific visitors to your site or page, people who share a common question, interest, demographic, … this common element is what makes it targeted. Of course, it not only has to be targeted, but also relevant to the “offer” you are promoting. I take “offer” in a very large sense, in its basic form representing what it is you are presenting to visitors on your site. And you want them to take action on this offer, either through a lead capture, a sale, or to get a repeat visit as they find relevant information on your site.

By targeting your visitor appropriately, you not only ensure a good user experience, but you increase the chance that the visitor will take the action you want him to do. This is what we call a conversion.

Not targeting your visitors appropriately is costly: you are basically throwing your time and money out of the windows, as the  likelihood that the visitor is interested in the content of your site is very slim. The cost of having many un-targeted visits to your site depends on what promotion method you use. Any pro-active marketing method that requires that you shell out some budget will certainly be a net cost to you as your conversions will be low to non existent if you do not target your visitors appropriately.

There are many methods to ensure you are driving targeted traffic to your web site.

If you have built up an opt-in mailing list, you certainly have done so around a specific topic. If you now present relevant information to this list, it is targeted. If you start sending this list all kinds of unrelated information or offers, than it is not only un-targeted, it would certainly be considered spam.

If you are using Pay Per Click advertizing in different search engines, targeting your traffic correctly is done through choosing the right keywords. Keyword research is by a whole topic by itself as there are several effective ways to do keyword research to come up with keywords that will convert traffic into conversions. As a general comment, the more the keyword describes your “offer” and the action you want the visitor to take, the more targeted the traffic you will drive with this keyword, and, all things being equal, the higher the conversion rate. Very targeted keywords usually have lower search volume in the search engines, but will result in higher conversions. For example, the keyword “dog training” is a broad keyword for which there is a high search volume. However, somebody typing in this keyword could be looking for “dog training programs”, dog training methods, or many other things. It also does not say for what purpose he is searching. On the other hand, somebody searching for “buy dog training video” is a very targeted visitor and has a much better chance to be converted into a “customer” if our offer is to sell a dog training video.

Another method is to optimize web pages on a specific part of your offer, to make them highly relevant around a common theme. If you combine that with various search engine optimization (SEO) techniques & include targeted keywords that your target audience is looking for, then you can drive targeted traffic through the “organic” search results of search engines.

I am sure you get the idea now… More to come on keyword research & the various online marketing methods…