Traffic is a key factor in monetizing any web content. Many of the same principles apply to making a profit from a website as to a high street shop.
Obviously the volume of people in your "shop" is important, but perhaps more important is the quality of traffic. It is imperative the traffic into your site is from people who actually want to buy (whether it is goods, services or information), and not just passers buy. It is however, useful to make your site appealing to these "passers by", as in the future they may require the services your site is offering and if they remember your site providing a good level of service, they are likely to return. Below are a few methods of generating traffic to your website.
1. Search engine optimization. If a site is even partially optimized for search engines the site will have a higher ranking. Page names, link names, correct use of HTML tags and even page titles can have a dramatic impact on the ranking. Most users will only click on a link on the first 2 or 3 pages on Google, after that they tend to refine their search.
2. Generate links. Sites that are linked to by other sites are seen by search engines to be a greater authority in a particular field. The quantity of links is important, but also the quality of the site that links to you. Google calls this PageRank.
3. Online forums. If people have a question about something and cannot find the answer, they post the question in a forum, if you can provide an answer to the question by providing a link to a page on your site, the link will not only be followed by the person who asked the question, but also by anyone else searching the internet for the same question.
4. Social networking sites. There are over a billion subscriptions to social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace etc. Setting up groups and links on your profile for your site will generate traffic.
5. Web directories. Before the Google era, websites were categorised and searchable via web directories. Do not waste too much time on small directories as they will not generate much traffic; use the bigger directories or those targeted to the genre of your site.
6. Email advertising. Gone are the days when you could send emails to millions of email accounts, with the development of more sophisticated mail filters and anti-spam software, less and less spam is filtering through to our email accounts. People are also becoming more aware what spam is and choosing to ignore it. It is better to pay for space on newsletters and e-shots that people subscribe to.
7. Become a Blogger. If you do not currently have a blog, start one. Blogging has become increasingly more popular. I read 4/5 blogs daily on a variety of topics. A lot of the information I find while Googling is from other blogs. I always try to comment where I have found an entry interesting or useful.
8. iGoogle. Provide a gadget on iGoogle. Allow this gadget to provide daily information, or special offers, ensure it links back to your site.
Do not forget the real world, believe it or no, there are still some people who do not automatically turn to the internet for information.
1. Advertise in local/national press. This is a great source of potential custom. I have listed many of my eCommerce sites in papers to reasonable degree of success. I discovered the key is to use a special offer to get potential customers to visit your site. In my experience, business driven from press usually is repeat business. The costs of press advertising can be quite reasonable if bough last minute.
2. TV/Radio advertising. Obviously do not spend a fortune on TV advertising if you don't expect to make it back. TV/radio advertising is another excellent method to get people to visit your site.
3. Word of Mouth. Shout about your site to anyone who will listen (or even if they wont), ensure as many people as you can know about your site, you will be amazed how many people can find out about your site this way. If you tell 20 people about your site and they tell 5 who tell 3, that is 300 people who know about your site, you will be amazed how many of these will actually visit your site even just out of curiosity.