Traffic is lifeblood of your online business. More traffic means more business and higher profits and vice versa. However, within traffic there exists two kinds of traffic subsets.
One is highly focused traffic called targeted traffic. This traffic consist of people who are actively seeking information about the things that your product is related to. This subgroup of traffic yields more conversion in terms of sales and subscriptions.
Another subgroup is untargeted traffic and mostly consists of curious onlookers who happen to visit your site not because they want something but because they were intrigued somehow. Though not without conversions this traffic is less yielding than targeted one.
It is obvious that one should work on targeted traffic rather than untargeted one. Apart from increasing your Alexa rank, the other kind will not bring much profits.
Sources of Targeted Traffic
Good Search Engine Ranking
A good standing in search engine would send you a lot of targeted traffic. People come to search engines to look for solutions. Thus they make a very targeted group of traffic. Building a good search engine position takes time but is worth it.
Mailing list. Your own list is also a source of targeted traffic. However you need to keep it responsive by regular interactions and repeated communications with your list.
PPC Traffic
Again a good source of traffic. Idea is same as in Organic traffic from search engines. PPC is associated with very good conversions.
Some PPC networks like Google Adwords also publish your ad on content network ( Read Adsense). It has been observed that traffic from content channels may not be that targeted. You may want to monitor and choose to block few sites which are not performing.
Ezine Advertising
This is simply exposing your site to other people’s list. To maximize the benefit, you should choose n ezine which is in similar niche as yours.
Joint ventures
Joint ventures are good source of targeted traffic. The leverage is done by combining the circle of influence of two or more people who are involved.
Sources of Untargeted Traffic
Banners
Banners get occasional curious clicks and do not result in effective traffic at all.
Free For All Sites
Need I write this 
Traffic Exchanges
While they can send you some traffic but it is not worth anything
URL Rotators, Web Rings
Again sources of non happening traffic
Social Marketing Sites
While they buzz a lot and can send you hordes of traffic, it generally does not convert to the desired extent.
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Tags: advertising, conversions, joint ventures, list, profits, Search Engines, targeted traffic, traffic
