This tutorial section deals with getting visitors to your web site. Only online advertising efforts are discussed.

1. Search Engines

These are usually the primary source of visitors to your ecommerce web site. Being listed is very important.

You can use the search engine tools to improve your odds of ranking high in search results.

The shopping cart has a unique feature which tells you what search engine and what keyword phrase was used by people who place orders on your web site.

This information is a must to measure return on investment for paid online advertising campaigns.

1.1 Submit To Search Engines

Simply tell the search engine about your ecommerce web site and wait for it to include your site.

This method is free. Keep in mind that it can take weeks, often many months to actually get included.

1.2 Pay For Inclusion (PFI)

In this case you pay a fixed amount or yearly fee per web page/URL to be included in the search engine.

Paid inclusion usually gets your web site added fast and updated more often than free submissions.

1.3 Pay Per Click (PPC)

You can also pay per visitor a search engines sends you. You provide a list of keyword phrases and how much you're willing to pay per visitor for each phrase.

The cost per click may be calculated differently in some cases. The results are the same, you pay for each click which sends your ecommerce web site a visitor.

1.4 Compare search engines

This chart shows inclusion options by search engine.

Free Inclusion Paid Inclusion Pay Per Click Alta Vista Yes Yes By Overture AOL Search Yes No By Google Ask Jeeves No Yes Yes Google Yes No Yes MSN Search Yes Yes By LookSmart Overture No No Yes Yahoo No Yes By Overture

Find many other search engines in this directory listing.

2. Directories

Submit your ecommerce web site to several relevant directories. Some list all sites, others only list sites in a certain industry, topic of interest or location.

There are too many directories to list here. Some are free, others may require payment. Do not overlook these as a potential source of visitors for your site.

3. Other links

Most internet advertising involves one web site linking to another site. If you can get links on sites which your target audience visits, that could lead to sales.

3.1 Paid links

Traditional online advertising, such as banner ads or paid text links can also be used to drive visitors to your ecommerce web site.

As the shopping cart keyword tracker shows you which site or search engine buyers came from, you'll know which ad campaigns are cost effective.

3.2 Free links

Some web sites have a links page where they provide links to sites which offer items or services which complement the items or services they sell.

Ask the site owner for a link on such link pages, only if your site would complement other sites listed there.

There are too many ways to get people to link to you at no cost to cover in this tutorial. Creativity is key.