For an internet business to succeed the most important factor is traffic. Without traffic even the most expensive website is worthless. Having a website is like having a shop in a basement in a dark alley in a small town. So how can you generate traffic?
There are four main ways to generate useful traffic.
Paid for advertising - this works but is very expensive. You buy sponsored links to your website and bid for keywords. The two main search engines work slightly differently when it comes to bidding for keywords. One takes into account the click through ratios whilst the other only takes the bid price for positioning purposes.
Write articles - writing quality articles about the market your business is in will certainly help. This only works if you write a lot of articles. One or two articles will only give you a temporary blip of traffic maybe for a couple of days. There are literally hundreds of article sites that you can post to. It is hard work but well worth it.
Press releases - write a press release that has some human story behind it. Do not just write about your business but rather how it affected the life of someone doing business with you. Have you got a new product? Have you just picked up a major client? Write a press release!
Keep the press release short and snappy. Make sure you check for spelling and grammar before posting it. Make it interesting! Boring press releases never get read.
There are many places online where you can publish your press release for free. If you use more than one online service make sure you do not release it to all of them on the same day. Give at least a couple days in between each online service. For the best results pay a press release expert to distribute it for you especially to the local media outlets.
SEO - search engine optimisation - I am staggered at how little so called "SEO experts" know. It is important to find a good person to help you here. Do not take their word for it but pick up the phone and speak to a few of their clients.
Speak to people whose websites are already generating a lot of traffic and ask them who they use and how they generate traffic. You will be pleasantly surprised at how helpful other people are especially if they are not in the same line of business as yourself.
You can use Alexa to determine traffic to any website. It is not a hundred percent reliable but it is the best tool you have.
There are other ways of generating traffic which include blogging on online forums and sending emails to your target market audience.
The great thing about internet businesses is that once you have overcome the traffic battle then overheads are relatively low. You can almost get away without using any paper. Your invoices can be mailed out and any queries answered by email.
Make sure you pay a little bit more per month and get the fastest internet connection. Buy a powerful computer, the largest flat screen monitor you can afford and a fast three in one printer. Add a wireless keyboard and mouse and get ready to be inundated with orders!

Naz Daud is the founder of CityLocal Business Franchise Opportunity
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