[BenignDesign]

My work site gets ~39,000 visits each month. This number is slowly, but steadily increasing since I have taken over the Webmaster position and have started making the site more usable. However, my boss would like to see a push toward increasing traffic. The institution as a whole is on a hardcore student recruitment spree with advertising out the wazoo - magazine ads, radio spots, billboards, television commercials - trying to lure new students to our wonderful little institution.

With all this publicity and the steady increase in site use due to my work here, is a 50% increase in site traffic in one year an unrealistic goal?

This post has been edited by BenignDesign: 07 January 2010 - 12:57 PM

[Nykc]

Depends on how you plan to attack it. If you try an organic campaign with little to know budget you might suggest a 25% increase. However if you really market and push the website aggressively and have a budget to spend on advertising on other sites, run an Ad words campaign, email marketing campaign, social networking campaign then no not at all.

I am faced with a similar problem in which we are marketing an unknown eCommerce website and I have no advertising dollars. 100% organic. It is not fun.

[FXRev]

Everything is possible, but it depends on your marketing experience and ability. If you have good pages that are converting and know how to place good ads, you could increase traffic even by 100%.

[BenignDesign]

That's the thing - I'm not a marketing person. I sit in a dark room and write code. I'm a developer. Yet somehow, my position is in the marketing department. So, it's a learning experience. I think I'll have to go with Nykc on this one and aim for a more conservative traffic increase.

[FXRev]

Well, if you don't have marketing experience I would stay away as possible from spending big money on ads. Advertising can burn unlimited amounts of cash and produce zero results even for highly experienced marketers.

If you have to do this, start small. Advertise in small chunks and diversify. Then, have a method of eliminating your ineffective ads and stick to ones that convert.

This post has been edited by FXRev: 15 January 2010 - 05:37 PM