With Internet Marketing, nothing matters more than learning how to generate targeted traffic to your website. You could be selling the best product or service in the world, but if nobody knows that you exist, or how to find you then you will be out of business before long!

So if you’ve been struggling to generate targeted traffic to your site, here are five techniques you can implement to get you going in the right direction...

1. Pick a Niche

When you are thinking about what kind of niche to specialize in, think about your hobbies, interests, what you like, and what types of challenges you enjoy. If you don't love what you're doing, you won't make any money!

Your niche could be based on demographics, a geographic area, pricing structure, and so on. Just make sure to narrow down you focus though and not pick too general or broad of a market.

It’s important to define yourself as an expert in a certain area of your field. This will tell people why they should do business with you verses your competition. The more specialized you can become in a certain area, the more people will flock to you for specific advice and you will soon be known as an expert in that area.

When you become the dominant force in your niche, others won't want to compete against you. Once you establish yourself as the expert, it will become almost impossible for others to knock you off your throne. They'll find other niches for themselves rather than go head-to-head against you, the established expert.

2. Give It Away

Yep, you read that correctly, give away your expertise, for free!

Right now your customers have a specific need or concern that they are seeking a solution for. So your goal is to figure out what that need is and provide a solution for them.

Then you give away some sort of free information related to this solution. This in turn, will pre-qualify the type of leads you are trying to bring in.

3. Use Video to Communicate

The first step to meeting a new person in the past has typically been through a face-to-face introduction or an over-the-phone introduction. Either of these scenarios helps develop a relationship which in turn, helps to build trust.

Coincidentally, it’s the same on the Internet. Your goal is to build relationships and trust with your future customers and the best way to do this is through video. Video is the next best thing to being there. It gives people a sense of who you are and the more they see you and get to know you, the more they will trust you and buy from you.

4. Generate Targeted Traffic with Social Media

Web 2.0 and social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and so on, have given us the perfect platform to establish ourselves as an expert in our niche market. These sites should be used to build relationships with people, but not used as a platform for blatant sales pitches.

Think of these sites as you would a party, where you have invited people into your home to socialize. Would you meet someone for the first time and immediately put a hard-core sales pitch on them? I certainly hope not, or I suspect you would not have many friends.

So think of these sites in the same way as you would any other social setting. Build relationships first, and then later when you have built a foundation with them, you can mention your product or service… as long as you are subtle about it.

5. Collect Information and Follow Up

As previously mentioned, you do not want to use your videos or social networking sites as an area to use hard sales techniques. Instead, guide people to a landing page on the Web where they will opt-in for your freebie.

If you have followed the steps correctly, they will be anxious to opt-in to get your free information as a solution to their problem. This way, you have generated targeted traffic and you know these people are interested in what you have to offer.

You should use a service such as http://buy.aweber.com to handle the collection of names and email addresses for you. Hence, you can follow up with them and turn them into paying customers.

So now that you know of few of the basic ways to generate targeted traffic to your website, I encourage you to implement these powerful techniques in your own business and watch your profits soar.