The challenges of a fast growing E-Commerce market where companies are going to face obstacles and opportunities to develop even better is rapid approaching. Social media is being analyzed for a method to “crack the code” so to speak that will leverage social media into driving more traffic. Social media plays a huge fact in E-Commerce traffic, but at what cost will test the loyalty of the major brands?

You’ve created your website, and it’s beautiful. You’ve posted it on Facebook, tweeted it to all your followers, emailed your contact list, and called every family member. Now, you’re sitting back waiting for the stats to show millions of page views. But, it’s not happening. Why not?

Are you promoting your website in the best way possible? Put the phone down; you don’t need to contact your web developer. Driving traffic to your site happens when you display your site in the best promotional way possible. This article gives ideas of a few ways to get your site in front of potential clients.

1) Business cards – This seems obvious, but if your business is the sort in which business cards are effective, make sure your site is listed on the card. If those you’re passing out are from the pre-website days, work on getting a new batch out there.

2) Telephone book/ business directory – What do you do when searching a number? Get out your smart phone and punch in a few key words, right? If your website is not listed you’re your advert in the phone book, you’re missing a valuable opportunity. Don’t forget to add the site to any business directory of which you may be a member.

3) Invoices – Do you bill your clients? Check out the header on your invoices. These pages always get read well; why not add info that can send traffic your way? Do you have online bill pay? This could be a clever way to send clients in your direction; virtually that is.

4) Out-going voicemail message – Rather than frustrate others when they don’t reach you by phone, give them another route for contact.

5) Email signature – If you’re like most business owners, much of your correspondence is done via email. Add your website to your email signature and watch your traffic soar.

6) Waiting areas– If you have a cash register or another place customers may have to wait, take advantage of their need for distraction. Post signs or catch informational posters for them to read.

7) Company vehicles – A rolling advertisement! Take advantage of the space on your company vehicles to advertise, and make your web address clearly visible.

8) Radio Adverts – Don’t waste the money you spent on radio advertisements by forgetting to mention your website. The search boost is nice, but not as nice as the amount of direct traffic you could have.

9) Paper materials including brochures, etc. – Customers who attend to your sales collateral or brochures should be directed to your website for additional questions they may have about your company.

10) Signage/Store Windows – Customers who miss an opportunity to stop in any check you out can check you out online when they do have a moment.

What is a Traffic Scam?
A traffic scam provides the website owner with an artificial sense that, for a fee, the website will magically begin receiving high quality traffic. Au contraire. The hits brought about by these scams are of the worst quality, and none will yield a sale. How might you encounter a scam of this nature? Read on.

Popups
You’ve seen them before. These ads impose themselves in front of the site that you intend to browse. Though they were used more widely in the 1990s, there form has simply morphed into rollover or flying ads.

Popunders
A bit more sneaky than popups, popunders do not appear until all browsers are closed. Just before you hibernate or shut down, there is an advertisement sitting on your desktop, waiting for your attention.

Fake hit machines
Not only are these sorts of machines real, but they are widely used. They setup scripts that change the referrer of a faked hit in order to appear as if it is real and coming from a true place.

Proxy hits
Noted by some as the dirtiest tactic of all traffic scams. Server proxy lists are put together, shared, and sometimes even sold to people for use as a mask to hide themselves while they spam, spoof hits or possibly even worse- like sending a virus.

How to spot a traffic scam
There is a simple way to determine if the hits you’re receiving are a result of a traffic scam. Look at your logs and note the amount of time your visitors are staying. The average person will stay at a page for some time before closing out or moving on. Compare your average user against some of the more suspicious ones. If you are visited by bots such as Google or Yahoo Slurp, these will identify themselves very clearly in your logs. This short visit is quite different from those of which to be suspicious. The unique visitor that stays 2 seconds and seems to stay only 2 seconds visit after visit is most likely a “fake” hit.
When researching a high-traffic company, don’t be fooled by high PR and Alexa rankings. These companies have been known to use fake hits to boost their ranking. Be cautious in judging well based on a company’s ranking; it is very hard to find a traffic provider that is not scamming to some degree.

How do I increase traffic if everyone is a scam?
While most of the “cheap hits” programs are scams, not every traffic-increasing company falls into that category. However, it is much more advisable to build the traffic yourself by building content targeted to your audience. By building as much content as possible, search engines will spider and then index your pages. Relative content will yield the results you seek. For example, if you put together articles related to your “items” and keywords appear in your article about these “items” and what they do, there is a greater chance when some one searches for “super items” that they will find your site.

Though these high traffic companies are tempting, the risk is high that you will be victim of a scam. Search engine algorithms require a lot of calculation, but the one thing that remains true is that content outweighs all other factors for increased traffic.

It includes all websites owned by Google: Google.com, YouTube.com, GMail, Google Maps, Google Docs etc.

There has been a lot of speculations that because of Digg’s problems, its competitor Reddit is gaining the traffic which Digg is losing. However data shows that within last few months overall traffic to Reddit only went up 2.6%.