Free traffic that is targeted we all want it and the search engines offer it so there’s no mystery behind why so many site owners focus lots of time and resources on getting good search rankings or improving their existing rankings.

But search traffic is only one piece of the available free traffic puzzle, and it’s getting smaller by the minute. With search engines like Google adding more and more features to localize and personalize search results for their users, it’s making it harder and harder to reach them for site owners.

It used to be hard enough just to try and rank on the first page of results for a popular term, but worth it if you could get there because that would mean you had exposure to a very wide audience, but with local and personal features being added to the results it narrows the size of that reach for most site owners considerably.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care about your search rankings, and you should still work to get the best results you can for your target keyword terms–but you can’t let search rankings be your only focus, and maybe they shouldn’t even be your main focus.

The thing about a search ranking is that it’s just that, a ranking. It doesn’t guarantee you any sales/conversions or traffic… it just means your site is listed in a certain spot of the listings when someone searches for a particular term. No more and no less.

The reason site owners covet good rankings is simple, because we know that if our link is exposed to lots of people who are interested in out topic or product then we’ll attract some of those people to click it and visit our site–and since search listings are pre-qualified, meaning the person seeing your listing has searched for your topic or product, it gives the site owner an opportunity to draw lots of those targeted visitors to their pages.

But there are other ways to expose your links to targeted potential visitors online, some of them are a lot easier than trying to compete in search listings for a popular term, and given the cost of labor time they can actually be cheaper to use over SEO efforts.

Oh, and they also offer you access to millions and millions of people online every day who aren’t using the search engines for information on their topics of interest.

I know that concept can boggle the mind of anyone who has spent more than a week having every guru on the web tell them that high search listings was the golden egg of traffic, but the truth is there are people who hang out online every day, they have interests and needs which make them every bit a potential visitor or customer as anybody else is, but they don’t rely on search engines to tell them where to go online.

A good example of this is my friend Nick, he’s 53 years old, earns a good living and browses online almost every day after work chasing items to buy. You see, Nick is a fanatical Pittsburgh Steelers fan and has been working for years on collecting every football card of every Pittsburgh player ever printed.

Nick is a goldmine for anyone selling sports memorabilia, but guess what–Nick never uses Google or any other search engine to find stuff for his collection.

We were talking about this a while back and he explained to me that he tried using Google in the past, but most of what he found was crap sites and the whole experience even bother with search engines now. Well, at least not regular search engines that is.

One search that Nick uses daily is eBay’s search. He also frequents several forums and blogs and retail sites that he’s found (from eBay sellers). In fact, Nick told me that he bought some cards off of a dealer across the country a long time ago, and that seller runs a forum for card collectors and when Nick received the cards he had purchased there was a note included that mentioned the forum and invited Nick to stop in and check it out.

That’s awesome permission based, targeted direct mail advertising when you think about it–and it worked on Nick, who is a mod on that forum today. Something else to think about there, Nick, who was at one time just a customer of the seller who runs the forum, now works (for free) to promote that seller’s business by moderating, participating and advocating card collecting on the forum.

And guess where else Nick spends time online? Facebook of course, where he is friends with lots of other Steelers and sports collecting enthusiasts… and I’ll bet at least a few of them are promoting their sports collectibles businesses and eBay listings to Nick from time to time there.

And why not, I mean Nick is a deep pockets buyer if you’re selling products that meet his needs.

But you know who isn’t promoting their business to Nick, anyone spending all of their time focusing on getting high listings in Google, Yahoo and MSN Live search. Because Nick doesn’t bother using them. He finds the items he wants by going to the online places that are easy and convenient for him to connect with like-minded traders and dealers.

There’s a lesson in all of that, and Nick isn’t just some isolated example nor is memorabilia collecting a “special case” market.

My friend Carrie is an elementary school teacher. She does a good bit of shopping online and we’ve talked about this in the past. If you haven’t guessed, yes, I spend a lot of time discussing and listening to my friends about their online activity behaviors, you can’t beat honest insights like that.

Carrie shops online for two primary things, arts and crafts supplies for use in her classroom and lingerie. I know, the two make an odd paring, but Carrie lives in a rural region and there aren’t a lot of choices close to her for finding discount materials, and there aren’t any good lingerie boutiques within an hour of her home. So, buying online is easy and convenient… that phrase seems to repeat a lot doesn’t it? There’s a lesson in that too.

I’ll leave Carrie’s lingerie buying alone at this point, we aren’t that close of friends that I could probe her for details on her intimates, but for arts and crafts materials it’s pretty simple. Her school has a very low budget and like many teachers she spends her own money on a lot of things to improve her classroom and teaching aids for her students.

Since her options for discount shopping are limited where she lives, she uses the web to find deals. And like Nick, she had a bad experience with finding suppliers through Google in the past–she says she bought from someone in Ohio but the package came from over seas and the products were crap–so now sticks with sellers on eBay where she can measure the quality and performance of their products and shipping times based on the feedback they have from other buyers.

Now, as someone who has watched eBay feedbacks be gamed over the years by malicious marketers I know that’s not always a good measurement and you may be thinking the same thing, but as marketers we have to understand it doesn’t matter how we view the platform. What’s important is how our prospective customers view and use it. And if they feel some sense of security from a good feedback and good comments of other buyers, that does matter then regardless of how valid the ratings or comments may be.

So here again, we have a middle class American consumer who spends money shopping online, but can’t be reached if you only focus on getting high search ranking listings in your traffic building efforts.

As I said early in this post, I’m not suggesting that you actually stop working on getting good search listings for your sites, I’m only saying that there are probably lots of potential visitors/customers for you out there who will never find you from the search engines regardless of how high you rank.

For them, it’s up to you to put in the effort to find them where they meet and spend time online. Fortunately, that’s not hard to do and doesn’t cost anything at all in most cases, just a little bit of time. And it can be a lot less time then you would have to put in to link building and content creation for high search rankings on competitive terms, so it’s worth working on.

Here’s just a few places where you can go out and literally step in front of people who are interested in your topics or products and invite them to visit your site:

Social Networks – never be spammy and don’t join them just to run around yelling “Go visit www.YourDomain.com!!!”… you’ll hurt your business more than help it. Spend a few minutes here and there joining in discussions, answer questions, be polite, offer resources (links) that don’t lead to your own pages when appropriate to be helpful. Build trust through kindness, it pays off later.

Blogs – I see so many people running around starting tons of junk blogs for SEO purposes, but a much easier way to build traffic is by going to popular existing blogs where people in your market are already at and engaging in discussions and adding value through commenting. If you’re kind and helpful it will lead to people visiting your site. I’ve heard people say they posted hundreds of blog comments and never got a single visitor, well guess what, if you’re posting hundreds of comments they’re probably not very deep thoughts and certainly won’t encourage anyone to see what else you have to offer by clicking your link. You have to give value if you want to get people’s attention, it’s plain and simple.

Forums – just like with blogs and other social networks, don’t plaster your link everywhere. Most forums allow signatures, that’s all you need. Make your postings helpful or entertaining and entice others who read them to want to get more from you. Do that and they’ll find your signature link and visit your site.

eBay – There’s a ton of ways to convert eBay traffic into visitors to your site. Most through your actions (and auctions) online, but also offline as well (like I explained the seller did with Nick above).

YouTube – and other video sites. You can create media that’s entertaining and engaging, you can also just visit the pages of videos that are and be engaging in the comments area. Don’t add direct URL’s in your comments, just have your site link in your profile. If you make people laugh or think with your comments on a popular video you will see some of them visit your profile and follow through to your web site.

Yahoo! Answers – and similar user generated  Q&A sites. Be the best answer on questions related to your market here and you will see human traffic coming to your site. To be the best answer to a question you need to be helpful, that’s all there is to it.

That’s just a few ways that you can redirect human traffic from existing outposts to your site, there’s nothing ground-breaking in any of this, it’s all been said before.

The problem is you have to take it and act upon it. Traffic is money online, and the great thing is there are giant sites just giving it away. You just have to be there to collect it.

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