attracting new visitors

The most intuitive though not necessarily most effective way to increase traffic is to attract more people to your site. If you're launching a new site, this is of course the place to start.

These strategies focus on attracting qualified users those with a genuine interest in your site and an inclination to become repeat customers. They specifically avoid those tricky tactics (like misleading ads or browser hacks that "force" people on to your site) that temporarily bloat your numbers, but do little for your business over the long run.

1. existing (offline) customers

If you already have a business (or organization, or publication, or band) that exists in the real world, the smartest place to start is with your existing customers (or members, or readers, or fans).

Let them know you have a web site. The first step is the simplest. Just get the word out!

Get the word out:

• Promote the site in your store, at your events, or in your publications.

• Put the URL on your receipts, your menus, your shopping bags.

• Put the URL on your ads, your posters, your stickers.

• Put the URL on your personal correspondence: your business cards, your business stationery, the signature file in the emails you send.

Collect their email addresses. This is probably the single most important way for existing businesses to promote their sites: Collect email addresses from existing customers and then follow up with promotions for your site or whatever it is that's most important to you: your events, your sales, you new issue, whatever. (See email strategies, p. 282.)

2. free links from other sites

A site's popularity is often proportional to the number of links leading to it. If sites all over the web, and all over the world, are linking to your web site, there's a good chance that people will follow them, providing your site with a steady stream of new users.

Search engine listings. If someone out there is looking for a site like yours, she'll probably turn first to a search engine to find it. So your goal is to make sure your site is indexed in all the major search engines and appears in the results for keywords relevant to your site.

See improving your search rank, p. 309.

Directory listings. Directories like those on Yahoo and About.com can also be key sources of traffic, as they too attract mass audiences. But directories differ subtly from search engines; they offer hand-selected lists of web sites, which are chosen by individuals with a specific area of expertise.

See getting listed in directories, p. 311

Links on other sites. Search engines and portals are important, but they're only part of a comprehensive linking strategy. You'll also want to drum up links from smaller sites similar to yours.

Headlines on other sites. Rather than just having another site link to you, it can be more effective to place actual content headlines or bite-size content, like tips on the other site.

Dig Deeper

promoting your site, p. 278.

linking strategies, p. 290.

email strategies, p. 282.

cross-media strategies, p. 305.

word-of-mouth strategies, p. 280.

online advertising, p. 294.

3. word-of-mouth

"Tell-A-Friend" programs. "Tell a friend" is one of the oldest marketing tricks in the book, but it's been reinvented for the web. Sites add all sorts of innovative features to let customers spread the word.

Users can tell their friends by

• Polling their friends

• Inviting their friends

• Emailing their friends

• Faxing their friends

• Showing their friends photos

These programs succeed because they work for both the user and your site. They give visitors a fun, easy way to stay in touch with the people in their lives. And they give your site a steady stream of new, qualified users.

Affiliate programs. Affiliate programs can help commerce sites raise awareness and draw traffic. The idea is straightforward: Other sites link to yours, and you pay them a bounty for each customer they send your way (or a percentage of the customer's purchases).

Piggyback messages. If users are using your services to contact their friends and family through free mail, for example be sure to attach your message to theirs. Free mail services, such as HotMail and Yahoo! Mail, always attach their own, short promotional messages to the bottom of each outbound email. And no one seems to mind too much. After all, it's a small price they pay for an otherwise free service.

4. email marketing

Email is the undisputed king of online marketing. It's cheap, it's direct, and it works. It's best used for drawing back repeat customers, but it can also be effective at recruiting new ones. The key here is targeting potential customers with a genuine interest in and need for what your site has to offer.

The advantages of email marketing:

• Fast, low-cost production & delivery

• Fast response rate

• High response rate due to ease of follow-up

The disadvantages of email marketing:

• Angry responses to unsolicited "spam"

5. advertising online...

If the sites you've targeted for free links have turned you down, don't despair. We all know how to open those doors: Just talk to the advertising department. Once you become a paying customer, as opposed to a comrade or competitor, all the rules change.

3 keys to a successful online ad:

• Contextual placement

• A good offer

• Rigorous analysis

As in any medium, you need to get the right message in front of the right people at the right time. But the web offers extraordinary opportunities to capture an audience at the decisive moment, and an unsurpassed capacity to measure success.

See online advertising, p. 294.

...and off-line

Many web producers long to promote their sites in the "real world." They covet TV ads and billboards and bus-side banners that will give their site the aura of legitimacy and the traffic the boost it so rightly deserves.

But every online marketer will tell you: It's hard to get people to jump media. The fastest, most frictionless way to attract new users is through the web itself. Nonetheless, there are some terrestrial tactics worth exploring. See cross-media strategies, p. 305.