Dear Mr. D,

I have owned a sporting goods store for the past 15 years. A few months ago I decided to take the plunge into the world of ecommerce. Boy, what a difference between a brick and mortar store and a store on the Internet.

In my bricks and mortar store we get a few browsers, but most people that come in buy something. However, at my online store most visitors seem to just look and then leave without buying anything.

I am obliviously going to need a lot more traffic to make my web site pay off. Do you have some advertising ideas that won't cost me a fortune?

Signed,

Need Visitors

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Dear Need Visitors,

Welcome to the Internet. As you have learned, it takes a lot more visitors to a web store to produce a sale than it does to a brick & mortar establishment.

To increase your web site traffic without busting your advertising budget, try piggy backing your web advertising onto your current local store ads.

For example:

In your newspaper ads use a little space at the bottom of each ad for this:

Too Busy To Come By The Store? We Are As Close As Your Computer (Your URL)

Another traffic builder is to print up some flyers advertising your web site and staple them to each customer's receipt.

Those are two examples of piggy backing your web business onto your local ads and business practices. You can come up many more if you will take a little time and think about it.