I used to think that if only I could increase traffic everything would be ok. I had a main local sponsor who put his ads on my site in exchange for exposure to his thousands of visitors and members. Within an instant I could see the traffic quadruple as he announced my home page in his newsletters.
The problem was, as has already been pointed out, the extra traffic was general, and curious folks were clicking out faster than they were clicking in. In fact, the majority were recorded on my stats as staying for under 5 seconds.
We've since parted company and 6 months down the line my traffic has gone up considerably (around 12,000 monthly visitors) and the site doesn't even show on Google, or other search engines, for popular search terms. Almost all the visitors today are there because they want to be and find me through links on other sites.
Old fashion promotion methods may take more time but the visitors are targeted and contribute to building the site's overall reputation and longevity.
Aitch
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