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Editor’s note: Today’s guest article focuses in on “qualified traffic”, and how it is differentiated from general visitor counts to your web site.  Learn how to spot traffic and watch your conversions increase. ~Scott]

Every website has different things that will separate those who count as qualified traffic, and those who are merely visitors that are inflating and skewing their analytics numbers. A good marketing idea for small business is to define clearly who their qualified traffic is, and where it is coming from. Then, you can start to focus more on those sources of traffic and draw in more qualified visitors to your site. Ultimately, the quality of your visitors can matter far more than your total site views.

To begin, we must first define what is meant as a qualified visitor. In essence, a qualified visitor is one that we feel is actually potentially a customer. When you’re using raw data, such as Google Analytics, you never know how many visitors are actually coming to your site and looking for the data that you want them to be looking for. Some may be bot hits, some may be miss-clicks and some may be people just wasting time on the internet. So, you need to define your qualified visitors are.

A good way to look at it is that you need for a customer to have three things to be qualified. First, they need to actually have the money required to make a purchase from your site. Second, they must fill any prerequisites involved in purchasing your product. For example, a course in French as a second language wouldn’t make much sense for a native French speaker.

Alternatively, a site that sold car floor mats wouldn’t have much use for visitors without cars (with the rare obvious gift-giving exception). And finally, they must be the kind of person that actually buys products online. There are many who do not.

The reason this information is useful is that it can help you target some of your advertising efforts. Truth be told, targeting the first and third qualifying factors can actually be quite difficult. However, there are often many opportunities for targeting the second. One way to do this is with any PPC campaigns. If you pay to put ads on the Google content network, carefully selecting which sites you want to pay to have your ads on can be a good way to make sure that you’re only targeting those with an actual interest in your products.

Another way to do this is to buy ad space, or to work with people who run related websites to yours. For instance, if your product required people to own a car in order to be qualified, you could target websites that are built for car owners. You could buy ad space, but you could also post on car owner forums, you could comment on car owner blogs, join social networking groups targeted at car owners, and create off-site content that should draw the attention of those who own a car. Getting back links from related niche sites is also something that you should find extremely valuable, and which can definitely help increase the flow of qualified traffic to your own site.

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com

About the Author:
Rich Reese is a consultant for a marketing idea for small business company and has expert knowledge of selling online marketing.

Related articles

• Increasing Qualified Site Traffic To Your New Website (ronmedlin.com)
• Making More From the Traffic That Your Website Has (roezer.com)
• Are You After Traffic or Visitors? (seo2.0.onreact.com)

Technorati Tags: Google Analytics, niche marketing, niche marketing tools, qualified traffic, target marketing

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By Scott Spooner

The other day I was driving through a business park on my way a client’s office. Along the way I passed by a string of businesses that you would normally find on a major city boulevard: gas stations, dry cleaners, mini-marts, and the like.

However, there was one business that caught my attention: a sandwich shop. There was nothing memorable about the building or the name of the business; in fact, I had driven past this business dozens of times before without taking much notice. What caught my attention on this particular trip was a new banner that they had hung outside their front door.

The sandwich shop was now promoting something called the Business Meeting Package. This “package” includes 10 sandwiches, 10 drinks, 10 salads, and lots of pickles.

Now, there is nothing new about offering lunches to local businesses, but most of these types of promotions are aimed at the individual employee who is in a hurry to grab some food during a lunch hour. What made this promotion unusual was that it was targeting a slightly different niche – the “work during lunch” crowd.

With the slower economy that we are currently experiencing, many business owners, and employees, are working through lunch in an effort to stay as productive as possible. This sandwich shop identified this trend and built a marketing promotion around the niche.

I pulled over and went into the store to speak with the owner  about this promotion (and to get a sandwich!). I asked the owner how the promotion was working out; he told me that the banner was, indeed, drawing a response from the local area businesses. In fact, he said that the promotion was responsible for a 10% increase in catered lunches.

And that’s the point. Hanging a banner saying something like “we cater” probably wouldn’t have worked. There are lots of those types of marketing messages around town. However, positioning the catering service around the needs of the work-during-lunch crowd (i.e. a “business meeting package”) was the key.

This business had found a new and unique niche and they were starting to see the rewards from pursuing that niche.

So, how can you do the same with your business? What customer needs are going unfulfilled in your niche? How can you identify those needs and offer a unique solution?

What are your thoughts?

Technorati Tags: niche marketing, niche markets, target marketing

LaShanda, the Web Tech Gurl, talks about niche marketing and how you can find your target market online. This short video focsues on business fundamentals, and offers good tips for any niche marketer.

To learn more, visit the following web site: http://www.webtechgurl.com

Duration : 0:9:27

Technorati Tags: business women, internet marketing, niche marketing, social media marketing, social networking, target marketing

Jeff Smith, from Infomarketerszone.com discuses a strategy for uncovering highly profitable niche markets to make money online. Learn how to use Google Trends, Ezine Articles and Google Search to track down money makeing online niche markets. Jeff walks through an example in the “happiness” market, going from topic sources, through market trends, and, finally, to profitability assessment.

This 9-minute video will help you identify profitable trends and niche markets.

Duration : 0:9:18

Technorati Tags: niche marketing, niche markets, niche trends, target marketing

Here we find a brief presentation on Marketing Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning. Included are topcis on demographics, psychographics, and various ways of looking at market segments. This video contains no sound, but can be easily used as a study aid.

Duration : 0:6:1

Technorati Tags: market segmentation, Positioning, target marketing

Before you or your business can become successful you must identify who your target audience is! Start by conductings some market research and discover which niche market you are targeting! This short video offers a few tips on how to begin thinking about who your target market is, and what problems they might have that you can solve. The sound quality is poor, so you’ll need to turn your speakers up.

This video is brought to you from the folks at EasyNetrworkMarketingLeads.com

Duration : 0:1:26

Technorati Tags: target market, target marketing

Ken, from NicheTrends.net offers his 3-step system for finding a tergeted niche. In this video, he demonstrates how to find niche ideas through http://lists.nextmark.com/ This is an informative and easy to follow video.

Stop by NicheTrends.net to get a free report on today’s hot trends.

Duration : 0:4:58

Technorati Tags: niche marketing, niche markets, niche trends, target marketing

Here’s a short video from Tracey Walker. On this video Tracey discusses target marketing and how you must target market to see success fast. Your ability to target market will determine the growth of your business. Her focus in on developing a downline, but the principles she discusses are applicable to any type of business.

You can learn more about Tracey at: http://www.mlmiseasyonline.com

Duration : 0:8:45

Technorati Tags: target market, target marketing

Note: The following was reprinted from Yahoo! Answers.

Question: why cant you just market to everyone?

Answer: A company cannot be everything to everyone, so the successful companies use their strengths to market to their niche customers. By creating a super-niche and selling more of what is the most profitable to their company, the company can out perform their competition and keep their costs lower.

www.jhowardco.com

Technorati Tags: target market, target marketing