10 Ways to Get Traffic to your Commercial Website

Ecommerce has is a hot topic these days and it seems that everyone wants to make money that way. However, it’s a no-brainer to realise that there is more to making a success of a commercial website than merely making the website and putting up a few things for sale. You need to get traffic to your website and you need to convert your website visitors to paying customers, which means you need to do some marketing of your commercial website.

Below are just a few ways that you can encourage traffic to your website and encourage them to part with their hard-earned cash to buy from you:

1. Start with what you know. Make use of the existing offline promotion that you do. Make sure your website address is featured prominently on any brochures, advertising and business cards that you have. Everywhere that you promote your business, promote your website too, making the address clearly visible.
2. Do your search engine registration manually. If you know how to register your website with search engines you can do this yourself; if not, get a professional to do it for you. Don’t just rely on free, automatic registration services as that can leave you way down the rankings and pulling in very little traffic. You will get the vast majority of the traffic to your website through search engines, so it is worth your while to educate yourself about how they work.
3. Contribute to newsgroups and forums. Contributing to these places where people gather to talk on a particular subject will help to establish you as an expert. Look for speciality forums where the discussion will be relevant. Be responsible in your contributions, rather than simply just posting links for your website and you will be able to actively promote your business. You will probably pick up many useful tips through these newsgroups and forums and you should have fun doing it too.
4. Target your advertising. There many places you can advertise online – you can do this through banner ads, emailing your opt-in mailing, article directories etc. Think carefully about where and how you want to advertise in this way before you pay for any adverts. Try to advertise in places where the people who are likely to become your customers will gather, so you don’t waste money on advertising where people won’t be interested in what you want to sell. It isn’t true that if you send your ads to more people you will make more sales. You need to be strategic about who you target.
5. Measure your advertising success. This point is linked to the one above. Track what links are bringing you traffic and which of these are converting into sales. That way, you can concentrate your time and money on advertising in places that will bring you traffic and sales.
6. Do some link-building. One-way or reciprocal links are partly what boosts your search engine rankings. However, all links are not created equal. You need to make sure that the other websites that you link with are good quality, and that they deal with the same subject as your website. If you get the right link partners, you both benefit.
7. Get the offline press interested in your business. If your online business deals with something newsworthy or of particular interest to people, you may be able to get the print press, perhaps in your local area, to run a story on you. Make sure you get the link to your website in the press report and that will drive more traffic there.
8. Get a sensible website address. The URL of your website needs careful consideration. It needs to be distinctive and memorable, so people will remember it to type it into search engine. Your website should give a clear idea of the subject of your business to bring n targeted traffic and add to your conversions.
9. Use several URLs. You can point several one website. Register several website addresses, perhaps the same website name with different extensions, and you can use them to your advantage, emphasising several different aspects of your ecommerce business.
10. Give some added value. People love freebies. If you are offering something for nothing, it is a great way to drive traffic to your website. You can offer free reports, free products etc. You will be seen as an all-round good guy and you will give people a taster of what your business has to offer, enticing more people to buy from you.

if you know any other way? please post in the comments area