Online business is about the quality of visits and in many cases certainly not about the quantity. The best way for a website to gain targeted traffic (i.e. visits from your potential customers) is to acquire traffic based on relevance, via the search engines.

Various studies show that anywhere from 83% to 92% of first time visitors to a web site have found it via a search engine such as Google. With this in mind, it makes sense for people who are searching for your product or service to find you listed in a popular search engine. 

A study in January 2002 indicated that there were 160,000,000 domains’ registered worldwide. 88% of those web pages were not indexed by the largest search engines and therefore 88% of those web pages are not search engine optimised.
In today’s market, it is more than likely that the figures are far greater, meaning that you can gain an advantage over your competitors with search engine optimisation.
Could your online business succeed, or even survive if it is not search engine optimised?

There are other non confirmative and risky ways of attempting to drive targeted traffic to your website.  These include costly banner placements and even the much frowned upon method of advertising via pop up banners.  These methods should often be avoided as many web users have the ability to prevent these advertising methods from being displayed on their screens.  Many website users will also refuse to visit a website if their marketing method frustrates them in any way.

There is always the option to use “pay per click” marketing methods, your advert will be displayed near the top for a chosen keyword or phrase and you will pay every time somebody visits your website via the link.  This is can be costly and will ultimately eat away at your profit margin.

Search engines can provide a continuous stream of free targeted visitors to your website. There are some search engines and that charge a fee for including your website, but the most popular search engines (Google, MSN and Yahoo) do not.

Search Engine traffic must be the top priority for any online business.  The important factor to remember is that it doesn’t take too much to improve your websites search engine ranking, it just needs Search Engine Optimisation.