Giving Your Visitors What They Want
Far too often webmasters make websites that contain just fluff. Visitors don't come looking for just any random stuff, but usually they have certain things they are looking for, and if they don't find it, they are gone faster than you can say, "Thanks for visiting!"
Its simple in theory to keep your visitors on your site because all you have to do is, "Give them what they want." To do this though you must answer the following question, "What do my visitors want?" To answer this question, you'll need to research the following three sub-questions: Who are your visitors? What attracted them to your site originally? What do they want when they come to your site? Knowing more about your visitors, what attracted them to your site and what they are looking for on your site makes it easier to retain them and keep them coming back for more.
The next question, "How do I find this out about my visitors?" There are plenty of tools you can use to do this. First, ask them. Open up a dialogue with your visitor and find out more about them point blank. A second way way to learn more about your customers is by using traffic analysis software such as Google Analytics. Not only will this software track the number of customers and the number of pages accessed, but it will also show pinpoint locations where your visitors reside, how long visitors spend on your site, how often they return to your site, as well as the amount of visitors who come to your page and immediately exit it. With this valuable information it becomes much easier to provide unique and quality content that your customers will love.
Bring in More Traffic
Once you have created a reason for your visitors to stay on your site you need to learn how to attract more visitors to your unique content. You have many options to build a constant flow of traffic to your site. We discuss two of the most important tactics to build traffic in this section.
The quickest way to build traffic to your website is by using Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. This method of advertising can become expensive, but if done correctly, it can become a very lucrative method. To start, it is recommended to use a low budget with Google Adwords (a very popular PPC resource). The beauty about using Google Adwords is that it connects wonderfully with Google Analytics. If set up properly, you can discover if your advertising efforts are worth the money, and take the necessary steps to improve your ROI.
If you like free relevant traffic, your going to love SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEO is about optimizing your web pages to become more search engine friendly, adding valuable and unique content and providing trusted links from within and outside of your website. The better ranked you can get your website in the search engines, the more free and relevant traffic you will receive.
Gear your website to make money
While you want to provide your web traffic with the content that they want, you also need to make it easy for them to make you more money. Does your website make it difficult for your visitors to sign up for a membership or make a purchase? Why? Make it easy for them, and your visitors will respond appropriately.
You can make it difficult for your visitors to make you money in many ways. Give them too many options to nonprofitable actions, making your navigation confusing and cluttering your web pages with random text and graphics. Get your customers attention to a profitable action by using varying degrees of contrast, color and font choice. When in doubt use different approaches on different pages and measure the results.
Don't stop there, there are other ways to increase your online sales. From branding, and benefit centered marketing to cross promotions and improving "Call to Action" you will see a major bump in website revenues.
Do it the Easy and More Profitable Way
Too often we look to do our web design and marketing ourselves, and sometimes as a result, we lose more money than we save. Unless you're dedicated and experienced in this area of specialties, you will find yourself beneath your competition when it comes to building an effective website. - 17944
Far too often webmasters make websites that contain just fluff. Visitors don't come looking for just any random stuff, but usually they have certain things they are looking for, and if they don't find it, they are gone faster than you can say, "Thanks for visiting!"
Its simple in theory to keep your visitors on your site because all you have to do is, "Give them what they want." To do this though you must answer the following question, "What do my visitors want?" To answer this question, you'll need to research the following three sub-questions: Who are your visitors? What attracted them to your site originally? What do they want when they come to your site? Knowing more about your visitors, what attracted them to your site and what they are looking for on your site makes it easier to retain them and keep them coming back for more.
The next question, "How do I find this out about my visitors?" There are plenty of tools you can use to do this. First, ask them. Open up a dialogue with your visitor and find out more about them point blank. A second way way to learn more about your customers is by using traffic analysis software such as Google Analytics. Not only will this software track the number of customers and the number of pages accessed, but it will also show pinpoint locations where your visitors reside, how long visitors spend on your site, how often they return to your site, as well as the amount of visitors who come to your page and immediately exit it. With this valuable information it becomes much easier to provide unique and quality content that your customers will love.
Bring in More Traffic
Once you have created a reason for your visitors to stay on your site you need to learn how to attract more visitors to your unique content. You have many options to build a constant flow of traffic to your site. We discuss two of the most important tactics to build traffic in this section.
The quickest way to build traffic to your website is by using Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. This method of advertising can become expensive, but if done correctly, it can become a very lucrative method. To start, it is recommended to use a low budget with Google Adwords (a very popular PPC resource). The beauty about using Google Adwords is that it connects wonderfully with Google Analytics. If set up properly, you can discover if your advertising efforts are worth the money, and take the necessary steps to improve your ROI.
If you like free relevant traffic, your going to love SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEO is about optimizing your web pages to become more search engine friendly, adding valuable and unique content and providing trusted links from within and outside of your website. The better ranked you can get your website in the search engines, the more free and relevant traffic you will receive.
Gear your website to make money
While you want to provide your web traffic with the content that they want, you also need to make it easy for them to make you more money. Does your website make it difficult for your visitors to sign up for a membership or make a purchase? Why? Make it easy for them, and your visitors will respond appropriately.
You can make it difficult for your visitors to make you money in many ways. Give them too many options to nonprofitable actions, making your navigation confusing and cluttering your web pages with random text and graphics. Get your customers attention to a profitable action by using varying degrees of contrast, color and font choice. When in doubt use different approaches on different pages and measure the results.
Don't stop there, there are other ways to increase your online sales. From branding, and benefit centered marketing to cross promotions and improving "Call to Action" you will see a major bump in website revenues.
Do it the Easy and More Profitable Way
Too often we look to do our web design and marketing ourselves, and sometimes as a result, we lose more money than we save. Unless you're dedicated and experienced in this area of specialties, you will find yourself beneath your competition when it comes to building an effective website. - 17944
About the Author:
Matthew Henage is an expert web marketer and Owner of Superior Design Inc, a Utah web design and web marketing firm. Visit his website now and you can get an expert website consultation.
