by Rick Carbone

Establishing your own E-commerce site is not what it used to be. There are thousands of competitors that are competing for a bigger share of the market. Every method you can find to augment your sales will be beneficial.

Let's face facts; we are in this for the money. Altruism is not the primary motivation to put a website on the Internet to provide information for the world, even though there are some sites that provide information for the sake of providing free information to others.

I have just started to provide free information sites on a variety of topics that are near and dear to me, just for the sake of providing information to others. There is no monetary gain. For the most part, the majority of my websites are commercial in nature and are profitable. The majority of sites, though, are out there to turn a profit. I don't think that profit is a dirty word, either.

It is common knowledge that, without traffic, we have no business. Like any business, without any customers, you will not have any sales. No sales, no money and no site. Traffic represents all the people that get a chance to see what you have to offer. The more people who see your products, the more people there are to buy them.

No one puts up an E-commerce site and doesn’t expect a profit. We have startup capital that needs to be recouped. With consistent traffic, we at least have a fighting chance to achieve that probability. Monetizing your traffic would optimize your chances of making the best out of it.

Traffic Types

The Internet has proven to be a very reliable source in finding what was deemed to be non-existent. The Internet has made the world a smaller place; you can advertise a product from Asia and find a buyer from North America in an instant. This has made the Internet the most desirable place to do business, in my opinion.

Generating traffic, however, is not an easy task on the Internet. You have to contend with a great number of sites to generate decent traffic flow. However, if done successfully, this opens up a plethora of possibilities. Of course, one of those benefits is monetizing your traffic flow.

Therefore, to get to the core of it, the creating of more traffic, you need to understand the types of traffic available.

I break down traffic into two basic categories: Organic and Paid.

Organic traffic is homegrown, so to speak. It's the traffic that comes from non-paid sources. This is search engine traffic, or link traffic from sites to which you have reciprocal links. Search engine traffic, although free, is a time-consuming process for the patient and assiduous. Link traffic is an arduous task as well, but quite rewarding.

The best method of obtaining a good and constant flow of traffic is the organic method. The only issue is that it does take time to accomplish, but the rewards are great and, of course, inexpensive. The traffic itself is free; however, the time and energy expended and, perhaps, software used, may cost something. There are many different sources of organic traffic:

# Search engine listings
# Reciprocal links
# Writing and submitting articles
# Free classified ads
# Self promotion

All of these sources take time, but can be implemented for free.

Paid traffic comes in many forms. Pay-per-click is the most popular today, due to its instant results. Advertising takes on many forms and probably the best and most widely used is banner advertising. There are many that argue that banner advertising is a waste of time and money, as you will either pay for impressions (the number of times the banner is shown) or for clicks (the number of times someone clicks on your banner.)

Honestly, unless you have a good bankroll, don't jump into advertising as a first method of getting traffic to your site and product.

The argument for pay-per-click advertising is you will find out quickly if your product has a market; and, if it does, pay-per-click can be very rewarding. Do the math ahead of time by estimating your cost and the number of clicks on your ad and how many convert to sales. This is very important, as you may have a very decent click-through rate, but a poor conversion to sales rate. This equates to losing money over the long run.

The argument for organic traffic is strong, but not instantly rewarding. It's your call as how you will proceed.

About the Author

Rick Carbone, East Setauket NY United States
rcarbone@homebusinessresearch.com

Rick Carbone is the owner of several home business sites. In particular, http://HomeBusinessResearch.com has been on the Internet since 1998 helping many who wish to start their own home based business. In addition to the HBR site, he also owns and manages http://myarticlepro.com, http://payperclickknowhow.com and http://www.myownhomebiz.com , all providing information and products for online home businesses.