Targeted Traffic is More Important than Ever! by John Alexander

Targeted Traffic is More Important than Ever! by John Alexander

In the early days of web development, business owners had learned
the very expensive lesson that a Web site with no visitors is of
little value. Once the business owner learned that methods could
be utilized to increase their visibility through search engine
optimization, it then became apparent that the traffic that
really benefited them, was "targeted traffic." It only made sense
that if you were selling a solution, the person who will buy the
solution are the ones experiencing a problem or challenge. It
also became obvious that the best products and services to sell
online were niche or specialized markets. Large volumes of
"general visitors" (general volume traffic) may have looked nice
on a statistics report but only the truly "targeted visitors"
(target traffic) were usually the visitors making purchases or
doing business at the Web site.

While some search engine marketers were simply offering placement
for keywords chosen by their client, other SEO's realized the
value of researching keyword phrases and built strategies that
were focused on attracting a specific target market. This is why
you would sometimes hear conflicting stories about the
effectiveness of search engine marketing. People often had their
sites optimized for the wrong phrases. These might be keyword
phrases that attracted no traffic all or perhaps even keywords
that attracted high traffic but the wrong audience. If targeted
traffic was important for success back then, it is absolutely
essential that we optimize for targeted traffic now. The reason
is that as the web continues to age, peoples behaviour appears to
be shifting again.

Plan for the current shift in online visitor behavior

The early online consumer compared to today's average user was
thriving on search engine use most of the time. They'd search out
one site then search out another site and literally travel all
over the place half of the time, unsure what they were even
looking for. Back then people "surfed the net" but todays online
consumer is not surfing as much. Today's online consumer is
becoming educated much more quickly and a whole new trend of
online branding is becoming more increasingly important according
to a recent survey.

Volume traffic of any importance is decreasing.

A California-based research company (Websidestory) that measures
Internet audiences, recently stated on Feb. 6 that "nearly 52
percent of Web surfers arrived at sites by direct navigation and
bookmarks, compared with about 46 percent during the same period
last year." Even compared to just last year, clearly more people
KNOW where they want to go and are directly entering the web
address into the browser.

What does this mean ? To me, it is a great indicator that people
who have been online for a while, are developing business
relationships. People just don'r need to "surf" as much because
once customers start doing business online and they like the
service, why should they change? If they are happy buying a
product from www.barnesandnoble.com, are they not likely to go
back and just type in the web address or use a bookmark? As the
web continues to mature, watch and see if a whole new wave of
branding does not become of major importance on the Web of the
future. Businesses who have chosen domain names that are easy to
remember and have some branding built in, may see some
significant increase.

Advantages for Search Engine Optimizers

The latest trends in Web behavior spell opportunity for some
search engine marketers. These will be those SEO's who realize
that targeted traffic are now (and really have always been) the
only way to go. Someone recently asked me if I thought a decline
in the use of search engines was bad news for the search engine
optimization industry. I believe there will always be a need for
good search engines. More and more, people will remember their
favorite URL but this means that top placement and accurate
relevancy will also be needed more than ever before. People
searching the net don't care so much for paid ads, they want
relevant search results. This is not to say that bid for
placement search engines don't have some advantages, because they
do.

SEOs who are going only after old fashioned, non-targeted general
"volume traffic" (just big numbers with no target audience),
things are about to become much quieter, as more online consumers
KNOW where they want to go.

However, for those SEO professionals who really know their craft,
the "targeted traffic strategy" can still render pure gold to the
Web site owner and these are the times when top relevancy mixed
with a targeted strategy should place those search engine
marketers in the know, in even higher demand. High and accurate
search engine relevancy for any online business Web site, counts
more than it ever has before.
About the Author
John Alexander is the Co-Director of Training of Search Engine
Workshops with Robin Nobles. Together, they teach 2-day beginner,
3-day advanced, and 5-day all-inclusive "hands on" search engine
marketing workshops in locations across the globe. John also
teaches online search engine marketing courses through
http://www.onlinewebtraining.com, and hes a member of
Wordtrackers official question support team.