THIS should be the very first question a new client asks and should then be directly followed by "How do i create a site that best services the traffic that does arrive?"
It absolutely amazes me how many potential clients want to focus 100% of their attention and BUDGET on the design of their website and ignore completely how to drive more traffic to the site. These two pieces to the puzzle are essential for the success of any website. You gotta put a budget into driving traffic to your site and then figure out through the design and development process how to convert that audience to leads, donors, subscribers or whatever the ultimate goal may be.
The two tasks are woven together and need to be dealt with jointly throughout the entire design process. From your site map to your page content to the functions of your site, we need to devise a plan that is heavily influenced by how you will drive traffic to your site as much as what they will do once they arrive.
Contact Project BIG fish to learn more about how we approach a new website from both the perspective of building a great site and driving your audience to the site. And here are a few tips about what to be thinking about in terms of driving traffic:
1. Publish Quality Content
Of course, you should be sure that you have worthwhile content on your site so that once you have visitors, they have something to see. But did you know that publishing quality content can also help to attract traffic to your site in the first place?
Search Engines Can Send Traffic
Search engines continually crawl web pages and index what they find. So, whatever you have published on your site becomes part of the directory people get results from when they search (e.g. "security services", "restaurant in austin, texas", "homeowner tips", etc.).
Think of search engines as catalogs of most of the information on the web. As long as you're publishing a unique perspective on a topic, new people should find your website this way.
Publish a Blog
Blogging is an easy way to get content onto your site in a highly readable way, and in a way that search engines can easily index the information. There are also blog search engines, such as Technorati, out there that will index your articles and could potentially drive a significant amount of traffic to it.
Syndicate your blog content using a RSS to email or to Twitter or Facebook feature to help build a base of regular readers.
2. Advertise
This one may be obvious, but sometimes the obvious is overlooked. There are many opportunities out there to advertise the content of your website. Before you begin to gain momentum through the other suggestions, maybe spending within your business' budget for some advertising may be the key to early success.
Search Engine Advertising
Pay Per Click
Examples include: Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and MSN adCenter. Companies like Google have massively grown as a result of search advertising, and for the most part, this would not be true if it wasn't effective in driving traffic to websites.
By advertising on search engines, you can bid on the advertising space people see when performing searches on what they're interested in.
Advertising on Websites & Newsletters
Referral / Sponsorship Advertising
Some website owners will install an advertisement block, such as Google AdSense to allow advertisements relevant to the content on their site. By exploring this option, a link to your website will appear on pages the agency you use deems worthwhile, and you'll pay based either on the number of clicks or impressions (views).
Banner & Skyscraper Ads
These ads are graphical in nature (as opposed to the often plain-text search ads) and appear directly on someone's website, often via a third-party service like DoubleClick.com.
You can also contact website owners who advertise on their sites to discuss a paid agreement for an exclusive ad on their site.
Offline
There are always the old standby, traditional means of print advertising. At one point, this may have been only marginally effective. But as the online experience continues to become more ubiquitous in the lives of people, your efforts to advertise offline in meaningful ways should translate to the benefit of your website.
Consider advertising on whatever print materials you use, both at your physical location and at materials you use for business promotion (business cards, advertisements, etc.)
3. Build a Reputation
Some traffic building techniques are highly visible and easily measured. But there's another that is less so but very important -- your reputation. The type of word of mouth advertising that holds true in the realm of offline may even be amplified online.
The main way to build a reputation that helps to drive traffic to your site is as simple as providing a product or service that people find useful. But you can further the cause by putting your name out there where people interested in your industry tend to interact:
- Publish blog articles that are easy to link to and share with others, and link to other blogs in your articles whenever possible.
- Post highly relevant comments on others' blogs and in related forums.
- Encourage your email subscribers to forward your messages, which should contain a link to a page where the recipients can sign up easily.
Hope you found this information useful and please contact Project BIG fish when your ready to start your next web project!
Posted on
Fri, May 21, 2010
by Project BIG fish