Many companies spend considerable time and money preparing for
the design and production of their Web sites, but neglect to think
ahead to how they will market it when it is live.
Here are three
ways to get people visiting your site and keep them coming back.
By Nigel Gordijk
1. Tell people you have a site This might seem blindingly obvious, but it's remarkable
the number of people that don't promote their Web site addresses.
Every piece of your business literature that is put before customers
and prospects should contain your site's address, from stationery
(letterheads, business cards, compliments slips, faxes and invoices)
to marketing collateral (brochures, price lists and packaging).
If you use email, set up a signature that will appear at the end
of every message you send. This should contain your name, position,
your company's name, phone number(s) and, of course, your Web address.
and you'll receive a signature example template in an automatic
reply.
2. Encourage repeat visits Research has shown that many customers decide if they wish
to do business with a company after they have visited its Web site
seven times. Here are simple ways to encourage repeat visits:
Keep it up-to-date. Nothing discourages visitors more than a
site that is clearly not maintained regularly. Make sure that
company information is current, including contact details, personnel
listings and prices.
Make it easy to use. If your site is poorly designed and relevant
content is difficult to find, then no-one will be bothered to
waste time looking for it. Web users are notoriously impatient,
so make sure pages are clearly laid out and links (including navigation)
is simply worded. If you have a particularly large site, consider
having your own search engine on it to make information easier
to find.
Make it quick. More and more people are using high-speed broadband
connections but a significant number are still using slower dial-ups
to access the Internet. Consider this when you design and programme
your site; people won't return if they know your pages take several
minutes to load.
3. Register your Web site with search engines More than half of site visits are via search engines, so
don't underestimate their influence on how many visitors your site
will get.
You may find companies that offer to submit your site to hundreds
of search engines; there is even software that can do this for you.
There are really only four or five major search engines that you
need to consider (ask yourself how many search engines you can name
and how many you actually use). Many of the others are just ways
to surreptitiously get your email address, which you can pretty
much guarantee will become inundated with spam (unsolicited email).
To increase your chances of a high ranking in search engines, make
sure that pages contain plenty of relevant text-based information.
Mostly, this is what they store in their indexes and base their
results on. For example, if you search on Google for "web
design brighton" my site appears on the first page. At
the time of writing, my homepage is number three in the results,
whilst "brighton
web design" ranks me at number two. Not bad for a one-man
firm!
