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Egol is correct. This doesn't sound like a company i'd want to be working for yet alone paying money to look after my online interests. One good point of this company is you, in that you are wise enough to instantly spot the flaws in what was asked by the manager and in what was promised by your head of dept - no doubt in a panic. This not only puts unrealistic pressure on him/herself but also on the employees reporting to the manager. All in all i'd take Egols advice and bail. It sounds like its all too desperate based on lack of knowledge. Things arn't going right, so they pluck a figure out of the air and promise to hit it - they should be asking the guys for a brainstorming session to pool ideas and generate some realistic goals to acheive. Hitting 600+ could be possible, as mentioned if the search volume is there then why not? But how will it be achieved, where will the visits be from and will they add value to the business(s)? This could be an opportunity for you within the company to demonstrate your understanding of the situation and current landscape and prove your worth. Or seriously consider moving on.

Right okay. Well then I'd suggest you move each of the blocks from the home page to a new page. Then look at the calls to action on the new pages to encourage click-throughs to products. Or look at adding links/photos to products that relate to the topic being discussed. Anything you write on the site should be a standalone piece of content, but would presumably, in one form or other, relate to what's being sold on the site. That being the case, the traffic coming to the articles will be people interested in the type of things being sold, so you should be able to encourage the click-through to products. Yes, you will get some non-converting traffic, but by putting each one on a separate page and working on the SEO of each, you can broaden your scope for MORE traffic, which you can then encourage to buy. The home page is not the place for everything and will be restricting what you can achieve in traffic terms.