Traffic is one thing, but clear-cut visitors
is everything.
You have no doubt seen dozens of offers similar to "10,000 hits
per hour driven to your internet page
!". This type of internet site
traffic
is completely untargeted and will undoubtedly result in a very
low conversion ratio. Its basically "throw it up against the
wall and hope something sticks". The big incoming numbers give
the illusion of progress, but you will achieve better results
with a lower volume of highly targeted traffic.
I speak from experience because in the early days of developing
my home business, I went for the big numbers instead of focusing
on targeting prospects. It took me a while to appreciate the
importance of targeting (quality) instead of just going for the
big numbers, but it was a lesson well learned.
Exchanging links has been an important part of building
internet page
visitors
for quite some time, but the vast majority of people
looking to trade links do not
understand that just wildly swapping
links with any willing webmaster is not the way to go.
For the last few years, most webmasters have been in a "pleasing
Google" mode since Google had such a dominant position. Now that
challengers are emerging, most notably Yahoo, MSN, and Ask
Jeeves, the search engine ranking landscape is becoming much more
complicated than just marching to the tune Google played.
Many web site owners seem to be of the opinion that the sole
purpose of exchanging links is to try to improve the search
engine ranking position of their website. While it is true that
links pointing to your internet page
can help your search engine
ranking, the reason for obtaining inbound links goes far deeper
than that.
In my opinion, the distinct visitors
that relevant links pointing
to your website
will bring could be
as important as the traffic that
comes to your internet site
from many people
using search engines. This is
where linking philosophy comes in. If you limit yourself to
exchanging links only with websites that have a theme highly
relevant to your own, the visitors
you receive from those links
will be far more clear-cut (valuable) than visitors
you might
receive from links with web sites
that have nothing to do with
your theme.
Not only do highly relevant links bring you more highly distingguished
visitors
, but they also play a "customer satisfaction" role for
visitors to your website
who arrived there as a result of a
search engine query. If someone arrives at your internet site
after
performing a search for, lets say "work at home" and then finds
your internet page
full of links to a bunch of off topic sites (Viagra,
online casinos, hotel reservations, sports betting, etc, etc)
the impression is generally not favorable and might
actually drive
your visitor away before they ponder whatever it is that your
internet site
itself is offering.
Keep your eye on the bullseye and develop highly targeted visitors
by having successful
content on your web page
and exchanging links with
highly relevant sites that also offer good content. Remember,
visitors
is one thing, but specific traffic is everything.