No matter how hard you work to build a usable, interactive Web site, your site will receive little traffic if no one knows about it. And once the word is out, first time visitors won't return unless the site is easy to use and provides numerous reasons for return visits.

Experts say that optimizing your site for search engines is a huge way to generate traffic. As much as 50 to 70 percent of site traffic will initially find the site through search engines. Managing this traffic effectively means you need to use combination of site design/development and search engine registration procedures. Make note of each search engine’s particular approach to how they match sites to search queries. A search query on Yahoo, may produce an entirely different result than the same query on Google.

Some of the things you can do to generate more web visits through search engines include changing page content and code to better attract the search engines so they will list your site. You can take a proactive approach and pay to register your site and individual pages with individual search engines. Web design professionals claim this tactic can significantly raise the position of your site in the search engines' lists of search matches for queries related to your site.

But this is not a one-time process. Search engines change rating criteria regularly. They do it purposefully to stay one step ahead of webmasters trying to get their sites ranked higher by intentionally manipulating the site content.

What about advertising your website? If you use banner ads and links, place them on sites with a target audience similar to yours. There are website metric tools available that can give you an accurate picture of what sites and ads are referring the most traffic. Your goal here is to convert visitors of other sites to buyers on yours.

Standard marketing and public relations tactics such as organized word of mouth and branding techniques to increase website name exposure can increase visitor numbers. Be sure your website address is printed on every publication and advertisement, on letterhead, in e-mail signatures, and in every issue of your company newsletter.

Finally, make sure your site is “sticky.” This means once you’ve captured a visitor, she or he will want to spend time reading through your content and clicking on your links. Generally, the more interactive your site is, the stickier it is. Consider adding chat rooms, weblogs (also known as blogs) and daily content additions.

Just as in any business, websites need a clear plan before they decide the best ways to promote their site. Review the nature of your business, your customer base and the need for e-commerce transactions before developing your promotional plan. And never forget to analyze the competitive environment and work regularly to make your site relevant and easy-to-use.