Retail and Web Traffic

Have you ever wondered why some stores in the neighbourhood malls or town centres have so few traffic and yet they are still operating?

And some stalls (apply to food stall also) are so buzzling with traffic that they cannot even cope (we call it good problem). They have to think of constant way of sustaining the advantage or business which will be discussed in my later post.

You don't have to know retail management to understand that the top three criteria for a good retail store is Location, Location and Location!

It is the same for web sites and blogs. The location for the web sites does not refer to physical indexed location i.e. IP address

The "Location" here refers to how your site can be found in the midst of millions of sites in the internet. Here are my theory of 4 Location factor for web sites and blogs:

1. Your Domain name.
Your domain name is your site's identification. Strategising the domain name should be yout top priority when you set up an online store. Getting a name like my-shop-is-at-the-corner-of-the -word.com does not help you alot. You can then work on the title of the html page as well as the meta tags to make it easier for the search engine to find you.

2. Hyperlink.
Please do not under estimate the power of hyperlink which is the building block for the world wide web. I am not exaggerating when i say without hyperlink (or hypertext) Internet would not been what it is today.

Hyperlink is liken to the signboard or signpost that directs traffic to your retail store. If you have a not so perfect location, it can still be slavage by good signboard direction. Traffic can be directed to your web sites and blogs through proper hyperlinking.

3. Directory
Retail stores can register themselves in directory (like yellow pages) to attract traffic to tjheir store. Online store can register on web directory too. The differentiating factor is the online store can tap on the intereactivity of the web via forum or facebook while physical retail store waits for calls from customer via the static directory.


4. Promotion
Retail stores resorts to promotion to attract crowd to their store. They give out flyers and offer special discount. Online store can also make use of Web advert service such as Adsense, Smorty or Pay per post to promote their store. They can also run campaign or contest. One of my blogger friend, Marzie from my blogger network is very good is organising campaign.

Cheers!