Com and Get ItAnswering the new "age-old" question, How do you get surfers to visit your Web site?

Here's the bad news: Search engine Inktomi recently surveyedthe Web and counted a mind-numbing 1 billion Web pages. Wow. Just adecade ago, the Web didn't exist. And even five years ago, itwas just a playpen for supernerds. No more. Now every businessneeds a Web site-but just because you build it doesn't mean asoul will ever visit. "Putting up a Web site can be likeopening a store in a back alley," says Jim Datovech, presidentof Gaithersburg, Maryland-based IT consulting firm Operon Partners."You've got to work to win visitors."

What's more, traditional marketing campaigns don'tnecessarily produce results for Web sites, warns Mark DiMassimo,president and creative director of DiMassimo Brand Advertising, aNew York City-based agency that handles many dotcom clients. A casein point: "Generally, television advertising for dotcoms hasbeen very ineffective," says DiMassimo, whose agency surveyedconsumers and discovered that only 6 percent of heavy Web userssaid they had ever visited a site due to a TV ad.