Instant high traffic! In a sneaky way.

I'm not sure if this is the right forum but oh well.

I just saw something that blew me away, but I'm new and naive.

A regional site with loads of regional traffic must have just gone out of business. I assume at one time it generated significant local advertising. The site advertised things to do, where to go, and happenings in my region. We had traded links with this site. The unusual thing about this site was that if you scrolled way down to the bottom of the home page it had an active counter with daily traffic - (not counting direct traffic). The site was generating about 4-6,000 visits via searches and links a day. It also showed its monthly volume (if I remember 20-30,000 visits/day or more total. I loved the daily counter - it gave me ideas on who to try and get local links from. (I also got a measure of how many of our visitors visited this site.)

The business must have died. I visited the site and turned up a totally different business ( the web site is under construction). Did this a couple of times...couldn't figure it out. Finally called the phone number of the new site and the owner answered the phone. After some discussion...he described that the programmer/webmaster of the old site is building his site. He must have purchased(taken) the url.

The url is #1 and 2 in google for a popular phrase. This business guy has tons of traffic. Many of these people will call like I did. As we spoke the guy tried to sell me his service. I told him he needed to purchase our service. We joked a bit.

But this guy just bought a high ranked url ...and even though his business is 100% different from the old site many site visitors will ultimately call like I did. He has a shot at making big money. He probably has their mailing lists too.

AMAZING!!

Dave

Yeah... good luck finding a similar site to get hold of...

After one call or visit to the new site or business the users will term elsewhere. It's temporary and it wont last. What alot of people need to focus on is conversion rates and not traffic because traffic does not equal sales. Whats the point of traffic if no one buys anything?? The users are looking for something comletely different why would they even bother with something they arent looking for?

The guy was an engaging dude. He may get some sales. On the other hand he's gonna get a lot of calls wanting to know where you should hang out tonight.

But seriously qualified themed traffic turns into conversions. We are #1 in Yahoo for a phrase that is too general but generates a lot of traffic. The searches that turn into conversions are very much themed for our site and business.

Exactly. Which he doesn't have and his userbase might die down if his business 100% different than the previous one.

If they have something in common than he should get sales.

The site is back in the original owners hands. I haven't taken drugs in years...so its not that.

Very strange developments.

Dave

That is weird. What could have happened?

Sounds like brute force to me.

The oppritunities that exist with this type of situation are the same as buying any distressed company at a bargain price. If I understand you, the company had gone out of business...and the webmaster purchased it?

Yes, I read your last thread about it being back in the original owners hands, but I just read this thread and I wanted to put my 2 cents in.

You always have to ask, why is the company not suceeding? Especially with a popular site. I think we've all run into a crafty salesman in our life, one that is so confident, and so charismatic, that even if you don't buy, you know most folks will.

PK is right on this, any instant gains will be short lived - in the end if you want to run a profitable business, it takes hard work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pk_synths What alot of people need to focus on is conversion rates and not traffic because traffic does not equal sales.

I couldn't agree more. I see many people over-obsessed with optimizing their sites for google, at the expense of not writing copy that closes the sale. I read how important a headline is in an ad, and on your landing pages...how it greatly affects your close rates. And most of what I read in this forum is remove any extra non essential words, just your main kws in the title, etc. I walking the fence now, and finally beginning to understand how to optimize AND have a strong conversion rate.

I've made my money so far in PPC, so conversion rates are critical to me. I do hope to capture some more free traffic in the years to come though...that's why I joined this forum

This site hasn't updated since April this year. My guess is that this other business man "took" the site (grabbed the URL) with the webmaster. Very wierd business.

We were link partners with them. Their link to us is still up while I have removed our link to them. They are too wierd. During a period of much upheaval with this site I emailed the principal several times and never heard back.

I agree with both P K and aviken. It made me think, though, if you see a site that has not updated in an area of interest it may be worth exploring. This site has a daily counter that shows visits on its home page. Supposedly its seeing over 5,000 google visits/day if accurate.

Our business has arranged a co-promotion of sorts with a different site like this one. Its relatively small but the event has sold out quickly, the site that is promoting this event is making nice money for putting something on his web and wanted to immediately host another such co-promotion.

Too similar sites with similar content and purpose. One seems to be thriving and the other seems to have fallen off the map.

Guess you gotta keep working every day.