Building traffic to your website, just like your store, is the critical goal we all face in making the site profitable.  It is a process and takes time.  Most websites can generate 1000 unique visitors in their first month with the appropriate amount of promotion and it only gets better from there.

So what can we expect from our site? 

Most commercial sites on the internet get less than 10 unique visitors a day.   The conversion rate for commercial websites on the internet average about 2%.  This means that if you are the average website owner, it will take 100 unique visitors to your site to generate two orders.  The best commercial sites boast conversion rates of 3%.  Conversion rates consistently higher than 3% are unheard of.

That means that a website that gets 10 visitors a day or about 300 visitors a month can look forward to about six orders a month.  Now you understand that your website is like your store and requires constant attention for it to be successful.  An example is Kaiser Farms.com.  We're told that this site generates sales of between $ 2000 and $5000 per month.  This shows that with the proper time and effort you can take your website from where it is and build it to levels of revenue that makes worthwhile.  What would that kind of added revenue do for your business?

• Relevancy Search Engines - This is still an option in marketing you site.  One thing is certain: You need to be located on the first page of a search as close to the top as possible (usually within the top five).   This may be accomplished  with page titles, descriptions and page text that are rich with effective keywords.  A sample of the top search engines and directories include: Netscape, Excite, Lycos, Yahoo, Alta Vista, Google, Alexa, AOL,  Ask Jeeves, Can't U Find (A Family Safe Search Engine) and more. 
  
• Vertical Portals - These are search engines that search one topic only.  Let me give you an example of what we are talking about.  Go to: The Nutrition Portal and do a search for any product.  Then go to a relevancy search engine and do the same search.  Generally, you will find the relevancy search engine will give you thousands of responses about everything remotely connected with your search whereas the vertical portal will give you very specific results based on your request.
  
• Online Auctions - eBay, Yahoo Auctions and dozens of others are a good way to directly promote your products to one of the best online communities of shoppers on the web. 
  
• News Groups - There are thousands of groups online that are very topic specific.  For instance, when you go to Yahoo you will find a Health and Wellness link to groups talking about Alternative Medicine (4214), Health and Wellness (296), Fitness and Nutrition (4506), Stress Management (867) and many more.  Other places to go for chat groups or News Groups inlcude: Google, and AOL (probably the best on the internet for group discussions) among others.   Do you think it might be beneficial to go to a group of people who are looking for alternatives to traditional treatment for joint pain, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, weight loss and diet, just to name a few?  The News Groups and Chat Groups probably won't allow you to advertise, but you can put your web address at the end of the message when you sign your name.
• Webrings - Is a great way to tap into a community that is interested in your products and services.  Webrings are free and easy to join; require no maintenance; and can send dozens of qualified visitors to your website each week.
• Free Classifieds (Free) - Take only time and effort, but are great.  There are submission services, for a small fee, will automatically submit and resubmit your classified advertising, complete with a link to your website, to the giant network of free classfied ad listings on the Web.  Again, you can do this yourself for free. 
  
• Bid Ranked Search Engines - Bid ranked search engines are different than traditional relevancy search engines, because unlike traditional search engines you can precisely control the bid ranked engines.  There are currently 400 (and growing weekly) bid ranked engines on the internet.  Bid ranked search engines are pay per click advertising tools where you pay exactly what you want to pay for traffic.  If used properly, bid ranked search engines can be one of the best sources of super-qualified, low cost traffic.
• Link Trading (Free/Fee) - We believe trading reciprocal links with other websites that share your market demographic is absoutely crucial to your success.  Not only does link trading increase traffic to your site, but it also helps your link popularity which can positively influence your search engine position in some search engines.  Link trading takes time and effort, and typically costs nothing unless you opt for a low cost service to help you manage your link trading efforts.