For many online adult marketers, targeting “the long tail” of search results at Google is a great way to expose niche content to a specialized audience.
For freshman website operators, coming to grips with the intricacies of traffic flow may involve a substantial learning curve. For this reason, and because we haven’t had a good new acronym in awhile, I wanted to come up with a term that neatly encapsulates some of the basic necessities of website traffic strategies for those neophytes among us.
For freshman website operators, coming to grips with the intricacies of traffic flow may involve a substantial learning curve.
With that, I’ll introduce TAR, short for Traffic Targeting, Acquisition and Retention:
Targeting. Targeting your market and the traffic that comprises it are among the first steps that you need to take, but inexperienced website operators often complete this process with a simple “I have a MILF site, so I need MILF traffic” approach. This surface consideration ignores the fact that many fans of any genre will not be able to view, read or understand your site, or have the ability, desire and means to pay for your product or service. Take it a step further by targeting specific regions, payment methods and more. For example, whether you are a paysite owner or affiliate, sending visitors to a site that can’t process a transaction from the visitor’s country, or using his payment method or currency, can be a waste of resources that negatively impacts the user experience of more valued prospects, and which will certainly not generate any sales.
Acquisition. Once you know what type of visitors you’re looking for, you need to focus on getting them to your site. Building high quality organic traffic will take a lot of time and effort, causing many operators to go for the perceived “quick fix” of purchasing traffic from the many brokers and other vendors trying to match source with supply. Here, careful testing and referrals from other customers, as well as an understanding of the purchased traffic’s parameters (such as how many other offers has the customer been shuffled between, or is the visitor from a quality clicked source such as a search engine or directory?) will make all the difference in the world. Just be careful to ensure that purchased traffic is profitable for you before purchasing more of the same.
Retention. Perhaps the easiest concept to explain but the most difficult to implement, successful traffic retention is predicated on positive customer satisfaction and their belief that your site will continue to update, offering more of the content they desire — the motivators for return visits.
If you can cross those hurdles, then make it easy for your valued customers to return (and to want to return, of course), by offering bookmark links and reminders; coupled with RSS feeds, and email blasts and newsletters detailing your site’s latest updates and offers. Just ensure you maintain compliance with CAN-SPAM and global privacy regulations.
While these are just but a few of the numerous array of factors that those responsible for a website’s traffic management must be aware of, TAR forms a strong foundation to nurture a site’s growth; and to keep it from getting stuck without the Internet traffic it needs in order to prosper.
