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In the past, Internet marketers were obsessed with getting hits, and with getting people to see their site. Back then, with only a few websites to go around, and with a few, as well as limited sources of information, anyone who had a website was considered extremely special and gifted, and was an Internet aficionado. Today, however, webmasters and web developers are not the only people who are obsessed with visitors: everyone and anyone who has a computer terminal, the ability to access the Internet, and the know-how on penetrating the paradigm of Web 2.0 can make a website and join the rest of the world in the battle for online supremacy.

Instead of simply looking at popularity in terms of hits and unique visits, traffic is now the name of the game. Traffic is simply how many people are getting into the site, how many are leaving, how long they are staying on certain web pages, and how they got to the website itself. There are many different aspects of web traffic that come into play, and each aspect can help you improve your website if you know what it is about.

The old players in the traffic game are still hits and visits. Every hit is simply a file on your web page; having a hundred hits a day is not a lot if you have lots of pictures and downloadables on your web page. If you have a hundred visitors, you still need to segregate them in terms of total visitors for the day, which is broken down still into the frequency of repeat visitations. Are your visitors unique to the site, or do they repeat their visits? These come into play when you take a look at your site popularity, because if you have a hundred visitors a day, but only twelve unique visitors, the rest of the visitors might simply be coming back every few minutes to see if you’ve updated anything.

Some web hosting services offer traffic statistics, and you should look at these constantly in order to assess how your site is doing. Look at your most popular web pages: is there any page on your website that is no longer being visited, or that is not being accessed? Try removing this web page and putting in something better. What is this something better? Take a look at your top pages and see what these pages have in common. You might have content that is appealing to your customers, and this content might be the major player in your traffic. Exploit this and keep feeding your customers their old likes, while improvising or innovating healthily.

Your traffic report will also have a list of referrers. This can give you an idea of how your website visitors reached your website. Did they find you on a list of websites or an online directory? Did they get to you through a search engine query? Were your customers blog hopping? If you can get to the bottom of how you are reached, you can see what you need to do in terms of viral marketing. If your visitors are reaching you mainly through blogs, try marketing more through online groups and forums. If your visitors are reaching you mainly through groups and forums, then try spreading the word through blog posts.

These are only a few aspects of web traffic that you should take into account as you take a look at your site’s popularity. Of course, there is only so much you can do with web traffic statistics, so keep on improving and updating your site and updating yourself with the tastes of your target market no matter what the statistics say.

But how do you exactly direct traffic to your site as a newbie in Internet marketing?

- Make your website as easy to the eye and as easy to use for your potential visitors

- Create compelling content that’s targeted to the audience

- Use search engine marketing techniques so your target audience can find your site when they use search engines which are one of the major vehicles of traffic to a website

- Apply ways that will help you get the attention and leave a print of your traffic so you can contact your visitors again.

- Keep on adding value to your site to make traffic stay

These methods are surefire ways of really appreciating the value of traffic to your site.