Five Ways to Get More Website Visitors
The modern-day internet dominates our lives and has become the most incredible information tool in history. Indeed, the web is now so hard-wired into the fabric of our societies, it’s almost impossible to imagine life without it.
As recently as 20 years ago, setting up a website required the skills of qualified designers and programmers. However, today’s advancing technologies and improving web programming techniques have allowed almost anyone to start up a website on their own.
Setting Up A Website Is Just Step One of The Journey
From website logs (blogs) to aficionado and enthusiast websites, there’s never been a greater range of online content – much of it created and curated by amateurs. Of course, with so many sites already online, it’s becoming increasingly harder to stand out from the crowd and drive traffic to your site.
The ultimate goal of any website – whether it be a simple hobbyist site or a full e-commerce operation – is to get visitors. After all, there’s little point creating all that content if no-one’s seeing it, but visitors also translate into money – either through sales or advertising revenue. Here are five proven ways to differentiate your site from the others, drive virtual footfall to your pages, and increase the chances of your website earning money.
Set Up A Blog
One of the best ways to bring people to your website is to create updated, compelling content. Most web users agree, there’s nothing worse than visiting a site only to find the information is out of date.
The adage “Content is king” is more appropriate today than ever. With so many other websites vying for the attention of your potential visitors, you need to offer an immediate hook to keep visitors on your pages. Most web experts agree you have around five to ten seconds to grab the attention of your visitors before they click back – never to be seen again.
Running a blog is a great way to keep your content fresh and updated. Moreover, the search engines love to see regularly revised pages and will rank you higher as a result.
The Power of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
If you want to see the most significant impact on your site’s visitor numbers, consider investing in search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is the process of getting your site listed at the top of search engine results under terms you think site visitors may use to find you.
While it’s true you can attempt to do SEO on your own, using a specialist SEO company like PWD of Perth will remove the haphazardness of working alone and will result in you getting search engine rankings more quickly and effectively.
Make no mistake, modern SEO is a science, and there are a vast number of hidden aspects to getting high rankings – things that simply don’t occur to the unskilled web user.
Run Frequent Promotions
Everyone likes a bargain and running a promotion can be a very effective way to grab attention and pull people to your site. Obviously, promotions are particularly effective for e-commerce operations but, even if you’re not selling anything, it’s highly likely you can still offer some form of giveaway or incentive to visit.
Consider setting up password-protected areas or offering access to privileged information (e.g., downloadable PDFs) – anything that isn’t freely available on your main site, but that might be viewed as interesting or informative for your users and seen as an added extra.
Promote Yourself on Social Media
As a website owner, social media is probably the greatest tool in your entire promotional arsenal. By building a list of followers on the social channels, you can effectively promote new content as you add it, with the aim of your links being shared amongst other users.
The benefits of social pages are easiest to understand when you look at the numbers. The average Facebook user typically has 250 friends. If even just one of your followers shares your content, it could result in their 250 friends seeing it. When you consider the pyramid effect – i.e., 250 (user 1) x 250 (user 2) x 250 (user 3) and so on – it’s clear to see how posts can very quickly go viral.
Set up social pages on all the usual channels (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram) and be sure to include links to these pages from your main website. Social media is a fantastic promotional tool – avoid it at your peril.
Make A Company Video
Recent statistics show that video has a 150% higher engagement rate than any other form of media online. Interestingly, having a video on your homepage can also increase conversion rates by up to 80%.
Promotional videos used to be the preserve of larger companies; however, with tumbling price points and a rise in automated tools, video is now accessible to all. Consider looking on freelancer sites like Fiverr.com or try one of the increasingly-common online production tools. Smart web video tools can feature your logo, promotional text, and stock footage to produce a highly personalized advert at a fraction of the traditional cost of engaging with a specialist production house.
Use Infographics
Infographics are a form of images that share complex information in a design-conscious style and easily-digestible format. They are typically used to describe and explain complicated processes in an easy to understand, visually-appealing way.
Well-produced infographics can end up a highly viral way of spreading awareness of your website, often driving people back to your pages to find out more.
