How Do I get the Traffic to Analyze?

     I have an ecommerce site (musaoutdoors.com). I have products to sell. I have social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Google+) with followers in each. I have a few blogs. What I don't have is traffic to my site. This article is to summarize the information that I know and have tried, verbalize what I have not yet tried, and hopefully get some advice and feedback from the experts who read this.

Content
     The most common recommendation to drive traffic to your site is content, content, and more content. Repeating something three times usually means that it is important, but further more content must be relevant and useful. Types of content are what seem to be changing and most interesting. Here is a nice, short article from Inc. describing 5 Tricks to Drive Traffic to Your Website all content related. They are: 1. Pay a little for YouTube views, 2. Be specific on Twitter, 3. Run on Groupon, 4. Launch a Kickstarter campaign, and 5. Write a counterpoint blog post.

     I find two of the suggestions very interesting. First is paying for YouTube views. I did not know this was possible (virool specifically targets YouTube viewers). This can be done by targeting your market through social networks, apps, and blogs. The second interesting suggesting is launching a Kickstarter campaign. The article mentions this method is increasing. Not that you even intend to finish the campaign but with the growth of crowdfunding traffic, you can reap the benefits of many curious users.

SEO
     The obvious suggestion to increase traffic is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). There are many tricks that I can do by myself, others that are built in to my ecommerce suite, and even more that can be paid for. SEO basically increases your page rank. The Google Toolbar has a feature that will tell you the PageRank of any site. Pageranks range from 0-10. In my industry, Amazon ranks as a 6; my site is a 2. It is almost impossible to reach the rank of a 10.
Refer to this blog for ALT attribute information for SEO.

Social Media
   Two things are important about Social Media to help drive traffic to your site. The first and most important - and obvious - is having all the social buttons on your site. Buttons for all your products provides users easy access to share what they like. The second important thing is specifically answering the questions that those in your industry are asking. An example of a good specific post is this from Snowshoe Magazine. It explains the basics of snowshoeing without overwhelming you with information.

So What?

     I am told to be patient and keep working. I have shifted my focus from the site, to the other methods mentioned above. I will be more involved with the blogs, creating more videos, and getting more involved with social media. I am interested in any feedback on our video, blogs, or website.


References:

http://www.inc.com/john-brandon/5-ways-to-drive-traffic-to-your-website.html
http://www.clicknewz.com/633/traffic-tips-for-new-sites/
http://upstart.bizjournals.com/resources/advice/2012/12/26/20-ways-to-get-more-web-traffic.html?surround=etf&ana=e_article