The reason why most people log onto the Internet is to find out information. In reality the net has evolved in this way as a free and unrestricted medium for the sharing of new information and knowledge. The reason that it has gradually taken on a commercial role is that a few enlightened marketers realised that here was an opportunity to transform the Internet into a worldwide shop window. It is still a tiny percentage of people that actually have it in their mind to buy a product or service when they log on. The vast majority of surfers still use the net solely for acquiring free information.

So based purely on the facts, you need to keep this constantly in mind when

considering or planning the construction of your website and your sales pages. It is not enough to just offer a good product or service and expect instant success in sales.

It is vital that you offer your prospective customers a lot of information, help and even advice and then treat your product or service as an extension of this. The more your site offers your prospective customers a feeling of caring and involvement the more sales you will achieve. It is also vital that your site is kept up to date with original content, which will also attract traffic to your site.

There are literally millions of sites on the Internet and no one knows that your web site exists unless you make a conscious effort to attract people to it.

It is important that you register your site with the main search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. There are literally hundreds of search engines and the best thing to

to do is either get some submission software or engage a specialist company to do it for you. Some offer a free service and others charge a fee.

The search engines that spider your site are constantly looking for relevant keywords and changing content on you site is essential to give you any chance of a decent ranking. Obviously without this you have little chance of attracting visitors.

Another good way to increase you chances of getting a higher ranking with the search engines is to get links with other sites. You could achieve this by creating a directory of other web sites on a particular topic that is related to your target audience.

Contact these sites and ask them to reciprocate by adding your URL on their site. This will not only help with the search engines but you will get extra visitors from these other sites who are interested in what you have to offer.

One of the best methods for getting, what are called, back links to your site is to write articles about your niche, service or product. You need to write a minimum of about seven to eight hundred words and submit them to article directories that will offer them to webmasters for free inclusion in their ezines or newsletters. At the end of your article you will have what is called a resource box where you will write a brief description of who you are and most importantly your web site URL.

Writing articles will not only dramatically increase the number of visitors to your site but just as importantly over a short period of time you will be considered an expert in your niche which will result in people having more trust in you and consequently be more inclined to buy your product or service. The other great advantage is that your site should get better ranking from the search engines because of these links.

If you have a site in a niche market, do your research and check out other sites in your niche. Make sure that the information you are offering is better and more comprehensive than theirs and not available anywhere else. If you don't specialise and offer them valuable tips and advice you will not succeed. There is no substitute for staying focussed and making sure you are on top of your competition.

It is also very important that your site is easy on the eye, not cluttered and simple for your visitor to navigate. It is also a fact that if your home page looks complicated or is hard to instantly understand a visitor will, after as little as five seconds, move on to another site. Make sure this doesn't happen and include an opt-in box in the top half of your home page where your visitor can enter their name and email address in order to subscribe to your newsletter or to receive a free ebook about your niche. In this way you will build up a list of potential customers who you can email to with your new products for years to come.

My intention here is not to discourage you but to get you thinking of how you can quite easily increase traffic to your site. Always try and think from your visitor's perspective and in this way you should overcome most of the obvious problems.