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(May 04, 2004) - One final set of notes about traffic acquisition.

Focused traffic development for a company website, a local operation, or a professional niche is somewhat easier to do, because the options are more limited. Where the large "portals" must develop traffic across a range of geographies and professions, the owners of a niche operation have embedded access to the ideas that build traffic. The defensible strength of the niche is that they are usually operated by people familiar with the various professional associations, data resources, periodicals, websites, and trade shows from which to build and buy an audience.

These days, as the economy begins to blossom in earnest, there is real growth in those niche sites.

Unlike their counterparts in the newspaper industry, local and professional niche sites are businesses without entitlements or the sense of immortality that is a part of being a newspaper. As a result, the players in the niches tirelessly define and refine both their traffic acquisition strategies and the degree to which their sites convert that traffic into useable "deliverables." Many of the most interesting developments in the industry are taking place in the niches.

The same dynamic is playing out in well-run corporate employment websites. Traffic demand can be easily forecast (it's a function of workforce planning combined with a good, web-based media plan).

Workforce availability is relatively easy to understand. Local governments always provide detailed evaluations of the area's demographics, educational levels, and growth plans. There are several services designed to help digest this data.

With a solid view of requirements for specific skillsets and credentials, a view of the local labor market and a bit of strategic analysis, figuring out how to reach and attract the right audience is not a tremendously complex problem.

A couple of years ago, we developed a white paper called "Using Practical Demographics to Forecast the Labor Shortage in Your Company" for Hire.com. It offers several scenarios for workforce planning that accounts for market realities. You can download it here.

John Sumser

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