This Thanksgiving, one of the things people tried to avoid is traffic. Most especially for those travelling far and passing main cities to get to their families and friends. What about traffic to your website? Well, that’s the total opposite of what you desire on the road to Thanksgiving dinner.
Traffic to your website is vital which brings credibility to your site. If there is no traffic to your website, why have a website right? Here are some ways you can veer your customers to go to your website…often.
- Have an opt-in form and deliver news from your website via Email Marketing (i.e. Mailchimp, Aweber etc.) – When a visitor visits your website, chances are, they will stay OR not stay that long. You can measure how your visitor stays at your website through your bounce rate in Google Analytics (if you don’t have one installed, you might want to check it how to setup an account with Google Analytics). The lower the bounce rate, the better. Offer your visitors a way to subscribe to your newsletter so you can deliver to their inbox fresh new updates about your company or organization. On your email campaigns, include social sharing buttons and “email to a friend” links so your visitors will have a way to share the email they get from you to another person. Aside from updates from your company or website, write an article that will make your customers read through your email. If you sell a product, offer a coupon code that they can use to purchase on your online shop. Or a printable coupon that they can use to shop at your physical store, if you don’t have an online shop.
- Offer a free gift: Who doesn’t want free? Since you now know that one way to bring traffic to your website is having an opt-in form, why not offer a free gift. Provide a freebie with an option to sign-up to your newsletter. Make sure to read the rules about offering free gift to your website. Download this BCP Rules of the Road on Internet Marketing online. (Source: http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus28-advertising-and-marketing-internet-rules-road)
- Use social media: Okay, a lot of you are not really into social media. Why would you if your target market is not on facebook right? But if your goal is to get your website be publicly available and searchable, why not use one of the cheapest means of advertising. You don’t even have to sign a contract to advertise right, all you need to do is create an account, connect with your fellow peers and share what your business is about. Create a page in facebook to give your company a more professional look. Then open a twitter account and connect facebook and twitter so you won’t have to login twice to make an update, updates you post on your facebook page will be twitted automatically. There are so many ways you can use social media to advertise (even for free) your website and services. One of our client uses instagram to post their latest arrivals in store. Another client we have uses Google+ to give a tour of the facility to visitors–online! If you have a special offer, tweet it on your twitter provided with a link to your website to grab the coupon code. Send me a note or comments below if you have any questions how you can maximize the use of social media for your business.
- Create a BLOG and don’t forget to blog: I’m actually guilty of this and have seen some decline in my traffic after some life events of moving to another state and re-focusing my business. So let’s have a heart to heart talk on this. If you have a BLOG page created by your web developer, it’s because you want that. And if you want that, then you should put content on that. So, if your “light” is on with new content—search engines will definitely stop for a drink or a burger and stay at your site. And again, when search engines crawls at your website, you become more and more visible online. Make sure your website is optimized for search engines to find it! So never forget to add an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) whenever you hire a web designer or developer to build your website and if you don’t have, then start now and get it optimized.
- Be Thankful: Okay, this probably is not a norm in most businesses especially a strategy in marketing but hey, it’s THANKSGIVING and being thankful to your customers will someday reward you with new visitors. It’s not an overnight or end of the week result-driven marketing strategy…BUT STILL, be thankful. Be thankful to your Facebook likers, your twitter followers, you Google+ circles, your website visitors who have taken the time to opt-in to receive your newsletter. Send a thank you note to your long-time customers/clients and spread the spirit of Thanksgiving Day. Someday, you’ll thank me for this advice :
Ciao! ~ Chie
As a Web Producer, I possess a diverse skill set that includes web design, graphics, marketing, software integration, and SEO. What I find fulfilling about my role is collaborating with fellow innovative marketers and assisting business owners and organizations in optimizing their digital footprint.
