What is the most important thing for the success of a web site? It is the traffic. However, driving thousands of people to your website may not turn that traffic into money for you unless that traffic is targeted to the type of products or services you are selling. If you are selling apples and your visitors are on the lookout for oranges, they will not change their mind to purchase your shining apples.

How do you drive targeted traffic? Don't jump into the link exchange. The link exchange is very archaic, unproductive and may be damaging for a search engine ranking. Follow the techniques describe below for better results.

Publish an ebook with full of information that is beneficial to the visitors of your website. If you are selling apples, write an ebook describing all the health benefits of apples. Put your web address in the ebook and give it for free. Even if your accidental visitor is not looking for apples, she will be glad to get the free information. If your book is compelling enough, she will visit your site in the future to buy apples. We have already entered the age of freeconomics where the selling lies in giving away free stuff for possible sales in the future.

When visitors come to your site, ask them to register using their names and email addresses only. Don't ask for their mother's maiden name. Ask for only two pieces of information ? name and email address. Tell them that you will be sending them a weekly newsletter full of valuable information like recent findings on health benefits of eating apples, nutritional values of different types of apples, discount coupons, etc.

Partner with sites who are selling oranges. Send you orange seeking customers to you orange selling partners. Your partners will reciprocate and they will send people who are on lookout for apples to your site. These are not link exchange partners. These are partners who will promote your sites and you, in return, will promote their sites. Seek only a few partners. This is a collaboration to turn each others non-targeted traffic into targeted traffic.

Check out a few forums relevant to your site. If you are selling apples, forums related to healthy eating, fruit gardening, etc. should be your target. Visit these forums a few times every week. Help others by posting answers to people's questions. You can use the web to find answers to many questions posted on the forums. Post your opinions on these forums and back them up with sources from authoritative sites. Start interesting discussions using new threads. Slowly you will establish as an authority on your topic. Don't forget to put a link to your site in your forum signature.

Use a free keyword tool to research keywords related to your site. Search for free keyword tool in Google and you will find a few. Try domains related to your site with spelling mistakes. Buy a few of these domains and redirect them to your site. Look for expired domains and domains sold in auctions that have certain traffic and indexed in search engines. If available for cheap, buy a few domains of these types for redirecting to your site.

Targeted traffic is the key to making money on the web. The rules have changed. The old type link exchanges do not work any more. Giving away valuable information to your site visitors for free and right partnership with other site owners are some of the techniques you can use to drive traffic that converts.