What does it cost to drive qualified traffic to your website...

The majority of companies are unaware of what it actually costs to drive a qualified visitor to their website. For many years, investments have been made without an accurate measure of what the return actually amounted to.

With the fading of traditional trade publications and the surge of qualified B2B users searching the Internet, there are more cost efficient and measurable ways to invest precious marketing dollars.

TopSpot IMS' President, David Underwood, recently presented the idea of "Dominating Industrial Search" at the Houston Interactive Marketing Association Search Engine Marketing Workshop.  Dominating search is driving traffic through multiple online channels and having the tools in place to measure the profitability of each effort.

To put this simply, when you pay someone to fix your plumbing or ac unit, your questions are centered around, how much will this cost. Same rule applies to your Internet marketing. How much are you paying for your online traffic?

Keep in mind that there is no such thing as Free Traffic. Website traffic is paid for whether you purchase online sponsored links, pay for a search engine friendly developed site and website optimization, or pay a search engine or directory for inclusion in their database.

The biggest mistake made is not having the tools in place to measure your online successes and failures. Whether you participate in Pay Per Click Marketing, Directory Placement or Organic website optimization, it is extremely important to analyze your results and your cost per visitor, in order to re-invest your marketing dollars into areas that are performing the best.