| By :
George Cranwell
Getting a website developed for your business is only the first Internet marketing step to expanding your customer base. It is also the easy part. However, driving targeted search engine traffic to your website is what you will no doubt find the most challenging. Search engine traffic can be likened to walk-in customers in brick and mortar stores. Therefore a website with little to no traffic at all will not have any impact on sales or enquiry leads. So, how do you start driving traffic to your website? Step one - Search Engine Optimisation Search engine optimisation (or SEO as it is known in the industry) will be the most important factor a website owner should embark on during and after the development of a website. There are two basic search engine optimisation techniques you should consider; on-page and off-page optimisation. On-page optimisation refers to techniques that are done on the website to improve its ranking on search engines for particular searches. They include optimising images with alt tags, using Meta tags, indicating the title description and using your target keywords in the correct keyword density within the articles you publish on your website. Off-page optimisation refers to strategies implemented outside the website to help it rank high on search engines. In a nutshell, it basically refers to link building. A few of these techniques may include blog commenting, posting comments on forums, and submitting articles to directories, among others. Step two - Social Media If you are not leveraging on the power of social media to drive traffic to your website, you must be having the early 90s dot com mentality. Social media sites have become important avenues for businesses to interact with their customers, generate new leads, increase brand awareness and drive traffic to their main website. Check the demographics of your customers and find out which social media networks they use. Make a Facebook Page for your business, keep an active Twitter account, consider YouTube video to promote your products and services, and get found on Foursquare. Social sells, period. Step three - Pay Per Click (PPC) Another great Internet marketing strategy of getting traffic is Pay Per Click (PPC). Here, you have to set up an advertiser account with a PPC network like Google Adwords. With PPC, you bid to have your website shown on the "sponsored" results on search engines. You can spend a considerable sum of money depending on the niche you are in and how competitive the bid for the keyword you are interested in is and it may be a challenge starting out. Employing an Adwords qualified professional would be a logical investment. This will enable you to have powerful campaigns that will provide a great ROI.
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