Three Ways to Bring Traffic

Getting traffic to your website is a difficult task for most business owners.  Your website may have a great design, great usability and a great product or impetus for action, but without visitors your site and business will flounder. How do you get traffic/unique visitors to your website when there are so many websites out there? You need to think in both short and long term strategies…

There are several ways to increase not only the number of unique visitors to your site, but its stickiness – your website’s ability to hold a user’s attention once they are on it.  In our experience there are no shortcuts to the value great content brings to your “river” of traffic.  There are several tactics that can help these along.

Top 3 ways to create a Traffic Flood:

  1. Internet Advertising

    – Pay Per Click (PPC) or Cost Per Click (CPC) is the only way to guarantee that your site gets immediate traffic.  While it’s not free, it is the most effective and consistent way to bring visitors in the short term.

    This form of Internet marketing has changed the world dynamic of advertising.  It is the single reason Google is a several billion dollar company.  It is also the reason why newspapers around the world are struggling to stay afloat.  If you look at a Google search results page. You will see natural search results on the left side of the screen (excluding the colored top 2-3).  The right sidebar and top of the page results are Internet Advertising also known as PPC or CPC.  Contact us to find out more information about PPC marketing.

    On top of running the actual pay per click campaign there are several strategies to employ to ensure you are getting the best possible results for your advertising spending.  We have also defined some of these in our Top 4 Mistakes Made in Internet Marketing page.

  2. Appropriate Optimization

    is a second key element in bringing traffic to your website.  This is a multifaceted strategy that we discuss in depth on our Search Engine Optimization page. The basic premise of appropriate optimization follows these guidelines.

    1. Research the best search engine verticals to optimize for (based on your industry, competition level, business type, locality etc.) 2. Create a strategy that synthesizes all of your optimization efforts according to your business goals. 3. Tie in the optimization efforts with your social media strategy to create buzz around your newly constructed content.

  3. Social Interaction

    – Word of mouth advertising is still the cheapest and most effective way to get customers. Web 2.0 has added a new layer of social interactions that previously didn’t exist. Your website and social media persona’s should always work to create conversation.

    Building a strategy at the outset of a social media effort is key for your success.  This strategy should always include persona development & bait and response mechanisms, where every single person gets a personal touch from your business.  Your social strategy should use the most common tools and sites that are “in” today; i.e.  Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc…

    Customer loyalty is no longer what it once was.  Happy customers will leave just to have a new experience.  You must interact with your customers and potential customers frequently enough to keep your business in the front of their mind.  Prospects only become customers when they are ready – not necessarily when you are advertising or actively marketing to them.

Other than PPC, building traffic to your website is an organic process much like building your business or growing a plant. Following the best practices and principals we teach will guarantee success for your blood, sweat and tears.  Good content, plus age (how long your site has been around) are cumulative factors that create momentum – much like compounded interest… Employ these strategies for both short & long term website effectiveness.

In Our Toolshed

Our Team uses Basecamp for project managment, Adwords for PPC advertizing, Analytics for yup... you guessed it, Belle Portraits for Photography, Media Temple for Hosting, Jaguar PC for Hosting, Wordpress (almost exclusively) for Content Managment, and Google Partners for our customers advertizing needs!