How do I get more visitors to my website?

Nigel Temple

During my internet marketing seminars, this is one of the most frequent questions I am asked.

Firstly – a little terminology. ‘Unique Visitor’ (UV) = someone visiting your site during a defined period (i.e. a month). They can be identified through their IP (Internet Protocol) address. This is not a perfect way of measuring UVs. In fact, you will find that many forms of measurement on the internet only give you indications and trends. That’s fine, because this information helps to show whether you are moving in the right direction. You can use Google Analytics, or another stats service, to find out about UVs (and much more besides).

Marketing professionals spend a lot of time thinking about Customers. I suggest that you create (or update) your marketing plan, and spend time thinking about your target market segments. Have a clear picture in your mind’s eye of the groups of people you wish to serve. Incidentally, if you join The Marketing Compass (see the right hand column), you will receive a free marketing plan template as part of the package.

If you share useful, helpful, interesting and up-to-date information with customers and customers-to-be, via your website, you will generate Word of Mouth and links back to your site. This is your primary strategy for attracting more visitors to your website.

Do everything you can to educate your customers – they will love you and so will Google! You can do this by:
* Blogging regularly (ideally, your blog should be situated within your website, just like this one is)
* Writing articles for your website
* Uploading videos (here is an example of a video about website strategy)
* Providing a place where you can answer questions.
* Using social media on a daily basis and providing links back to your site (i.e. from Twitter and your Facebook for Business page).

I am shocked by the number of websites which never change. These are Web 1.0 websites; in other words they are ‘online brochures’. A Web 2.0 website uses the USP of the web, which is Interactivity.

By all means subscribe to this blog, as I will be writing in more detail about this fascinating subject over the months ahead. One area I will be discussing is Links – as Google loves to find lots of Links to a website. In effect, an inbound Link to your website is a ‘vote’ of confidence in your site. So remember that:

Links R Us!

At Totosites, we build Web 2.0 sites for our small business clients. We show them the power of customer education, which helps them to attract more visitors and more business. If you would like to find out more, by all means contact us.

I wish you all the best with your business and your internet marketing.