Attracting Targeted Visitors

"If you don't know where you are going, then it doesn't matterwhich road you take, does it?"-- Cheshire Cat in Alice in the Wonderland.=================================================================A few days back a client was sitting with me when I connected tothe Internet and launched my browser. He was precariouslysurprised to see that the default page of the browser was not myweb site, but a general purpose portal.When I asked him why I should have my own web site as my defaultpage, he said, "In this way, at least you'll be generating hitsfor your site if nobody else does so."And then, after a philosophical cogitation, he raised an ominousdoubt rapt with alarm, "If you are not making an effort togenerate hits for your own site, how will you do it for mine?"Luckily I was able to explain to him that a tsunami of hits onthe web site does not in anyway bespeaks of a flourishing onlinebusiness. Me visiting my own site 6-7 times a day does not makesense because I'm not doing business with myself. What mattersis, those people should visit my web site who can make use of myservices - people who can be my prospective clients, andsubsequently, clients.Generating hits is one of the major concerns of the newbie website owners. They want to see the numbers increasingexponentially - 200 hits per day, 500 hits per day, ... 10,00,000hits per day. And then they get depression attacks when thesehits do not generate a single sale.Thousands of random hits, or in a refined manner, visits, areimportant for those web sites who want to earn advertisementrevenue. Ok, even for those, just hits don't work out. They haveto be "Targeted Hits". Accidental arrivals have zero value, or ifyou are very optimistic, a little more than zero value.50 targeted hits are more precious than 5,000 untargeted hits,because there is greater probability of them turning intobusiness. Targeted visitors visit your site because they areactually looking for a site like yours, and once they are on yoursite, it's up to the presentation of your site whether they dobusiness with you or not. Even if the targeted visitor doesn't dobusiness on the first visit, there is a big chance that she/hewould bookmark your page, and subscribe to your productinformation publication or newsletter.Untargeted visitors, on the other hand, needlessly consume theprecious bandwidth. They stumble upon your site through someill-conceived banner or wrongly defined keyword, or due to theirown state of confusion. They are not looking for your sort ofservice or product. They are just giving you false notions andhope by swelling up your counter.The primordial step towards attracting a target audience is,defining the goal of your web site. Is the web site a generalinformation source for your existingclients/customers/employees/suppliers/relatives/friends/enemies... , or you plan to attract new people?. Once this is realized,put yourself in the place of your prospective user. How would youfind your sort of service on the Net? How would you like to use aweb site similar to yours? Talk to your friends, accumulate andanalyze their feedback. Let your existing clients use a prototypeof your web site, and encourage them to give some constructivefeedback, in lieu of some incentive if necessary.To make sure that you attract only those visitors who would liketo carry out transactions with you, you have to take intoconsideration the following points prior to the design andconstruction of your web site:1. Do you know what segment of the population would find yourweb content interesting? What economical, political and socialbackground are they going to come from? What's going to be thegender, and the age range, and the educational qualification?2. Are you aware of their surfing habits, their Internetawareness level? Do you know what's the frequency of theirbusiness transactions through the Internet? Are they first timeservice buyers or seasoned buyers?3. What's the hardware/software your audience is expected to usewhile logging on to your site? What's their surfing speed andconnection speed? Do they have to pay a lot while surfing? Manysurfers don't surf with ease because they have to bear heavytelephone connection cost in order to use the Net as in Europeand Asia.It's not sometimes technically and logically feasible toaccommodate all the points mentioned above, but as one evolves asa webmaster, things can continuously be improved, according tothe feedback garnered from the users, day by day, week by week,month by month.After you've designed and planned out your web site, you can takethe following steps to get the traffic of your preference:1. Define your keywords properly for the search engines. Youdon't have to incorporate the entire thesaurus for your product.The more you narrow down, the more target audience you'll get.Limit yourself to 6-7 keywords if you want to target a highlyfocussed group. You can also do keyword bidding at various paysearch engines like RealNetworks and GoTo.2. Formulate a concise and to-the-point description of yourindex page. Try to include words, in a manner that the sentencemakes sense, that might help search engines find your site.3. In directories like yahoo!, always choose the right headingto add your URL. Don't think that the more general heading youchoose, the more visitors you attract. Remember it's not thequantity that matters, it's the quality. So go to the lowestlevel before submitting your URL.4. Try to include the major searchable words in the firstparagraph of your web site content. Many search engines readfirst 250-300 words of a page to index it.5. I've noticed search tools like Google use the title of thepage to give it recognition. But the recommendation by the gurusof web development is that the title should be the name of yourcompany. Still, since Google spiders all the pages if your website even if you submit just the index page, you can play aroundwith the titles of the other pages. Just make sure that fromevery page, there is a link to you main page, and the link shouldbe attractive enough.6. A compelling signature that accompanies your e-mail messagesmany times generates useful visits. It should constitute of atwo-line, pithy description of your business, and the link toyour URL.7. Although this I wouldn't suggest to people who have to payfor the online time according to the usage hours, you can lookfor various message boards and bulletin boards to spread the wordaround about your business. Don't outright start your mediablitzkrieg though. Introduce yourself first, participate invarious discussions and debates, and during on of theinteractions, you can tell about your business.