If you’re going to go to the trouble of creating a website, then you want to make sure you’re getting the most out of it. While it might seem like just a dream to get a ton of traffic and make lots of sales, it is possible, and it’s a reality for plenty of website owners out there.
If you’re going to get the most out of your site though, you’ve got to be doing the basics well. To help you, we’ve broken them down into some simple goals you can aim for. Amazing websites aren’t built without hard work, but they can help you achieve your goals, and work for you for many years to come.
Here are some areas you should be focusing on.
Build Your Traffic
So many websites sit on some dark corner of the internet without anyone ever visiting them. The famous saying from “Field of Dreams” says “build it and they shall come,” but it appears this doesn’t ring true for websites.
The thing is, there’s nothing stopping you from getting a good amount of traffic to your website, but it is an active process. To get the most out of your website, you’ve got to be looking at the following ways of building your traffic.
SEO
There are lots of different ways to reach your target audience, but few offer as many benefits as search engine optimisation (SEO).
If you have a question these days, what do you do? You probably type it into Google, and this is exactly what millions and millions of others do too. In fact, across the world, it happens over 3.5 billion times a day.
No matter what niche your website is in, there are people out there searching for it, and your website should be showing up in those search results. If it’s not, then you’re not making the most of all your website’s capabilities.
SEO is there to make sure you’re getting traffic from the people who are searching for keywords related to what your business does, and it’s time you took advantage of it.
Social
3.5 billion might be a big number, but you’ve got to go a little bit higher to get to the number of people who are on social media – 3.8 billion.
You may not love social media, you may not use it personally, but if you’re not using it for your business then you’re missing out on a big opportunity. Not only is there a huge audience out there on social media, but you’ve also got great tools to help you reach them.
Consistent, creative social media posts can do wonders for your website traffic, and bring it to life.
PPC
We don’t always have time to wait for the effects of SEO and social media marketing to kick in. Sometimes we need immediate results and an instant burst of traffic, and that’s exactly what you get with pay per click advertising (PPC).
Pay per click advertising does exactly what it says on the tin, it gets your advert in front of people and you pay every time someone clicks to your site. This is great for getting traffic to your website, but you’ve got to make sure you’re spending money on getting the right people to your pages.
Engage Users
Getting people to your website is one thing, but you need people to engage with the content before you can even think about achieving your ultimate goals.
When you’re struggling to get people to your website, traffic might seem like the most important part, but as it turns out, engagement is equally, if not more, important.
So how can you get people to engage with your site?
Understand Your Target Audience
One thing it’s important to understand about traffic is that it’s only beneficial if it helps you achieve your goals. You can get a million people a day to your website, but if they’re not the right people, then they’re not going to engage with your content.
If you’re going to maximize engagement on your website then you’ve got to consistently reach your target audience. Of course, this means you’ve first got to define your target audience, and create reader personas for the types of people you want to attract to your website.
Traffic is only useful when you’re reaching the right people, so focusing on your target audience is an excellent way to boost engagement.
Valuable Content
You often see businesses go through three stages with their website. First, they embrace the build it and they will come method, which isn’t going to work for the vast majority of people.
Next, people pick up on the hype around inbound marketing and start to make use of their blog. However, they make the fundamental error of not investing in quality.
The third stage is where people recognise that if they’re going to engage people, then they need to offer them value. Whatever industry you’re in, there’s going to be plenty of competition, and if you’re not answering people’s questions, fixing their problems, or offering entertainment, then they will go somewhere else for their information.
User Experience
Your content might be amazing but if your user experience is poor, then it’s not going to matter.
Just think back to a time when you had to deal with a website that was difficult to use. It’s absolutely infuriating! The chances are you probably clicked back to Google in no time at all.
If your site has lots of little user experience errors, then people are going to do the same thing and your business is going to suffer because of it. You work extremely hard to get people to your site, so don’t give them a reason to leave before they start engaging with your amazing content.
Make sure your site is fast, easy to navigate, and isn’t overloaded with annoying things like popups.
Create Leads
Being able to engage your users is brilliant, and it’s not something that’s easy to do, however, if you’re not creating leads from it, then it’s not helpful. To get the most out of your website you’ve got to be creating leads and making steps towards making sales.
Optimize to Create Leads
You optimize for SEO, you optimize your content to suit your target audience, so why wouldn’t you optimize your pages to create leads?
If people are reading through your content and loving it, then you’ve got to make it obvious what their next steps should be, and importantly, make it easy for them to become a lead. One of the ways you can do this is through good copywriting that inspires people to take action. Make sure you’re making use of calls to action (CTAs) to guide people through your website and make the path you want them to take clear.
A big part of this is making sure you use contact forms correctly. The right form should make it seamless for people to sign up to your notifications and develop into a lead. Remember that when you’re asking for someone’s email they’re giving you something you want, so think about what you can give them in return.
Use your email responder to keep on top of your leads and grow them into bonafide customers.
Focus on the Customer Journey
People rarely come to your website and become a customer there and then. Instead, you build customers through multiple touchpoints, and to optimise this, you’ve got to understand the customer journey.
What path do you want people to follow from the point where they land on your website to becoming a customer and beyond?
Of course, you’d love them to make a purchase straight away, but most often, sales are going to happen as part of the process of building a relationship. You want to be able to shape this journey and maximise your performance at each stage to make sure you’re turning traffic into the customers that keep your website alive.
Turn Your Hard Work Into Conversions
Ultimately we want our websites to convert. Again though, this isn’t simple.
You might think that getting traffic, engaging your users, and creating leads was hard enough, but you’ve still got to get people to take that last step – investing in you by buying your product.
Make it Easy to Become a Customer
It’s the same thing we spoke about with leads – make the process as easy as possible.
When you look at an eCommerce platform like Amazon, one thing you will notice is how simple it is to buy something. All it takes is a few clicks, and you’ve paid your money. This gives people less time for the doubts to creep in, and replaces the excitement of finding a cool new product with the excitement of waiting for it to arrive.
If you put barriers between the point where people decide they want the product and where they actually pay for it, then it’s going to give them time to ask the question “well do I really want this.” Some people are going to decide the hassle of your clunky checkout system isn’t worth it and abandon their cart.
Make sure your checkout process is straightforward, and allows people to quickly make their purchase. This allows people to focus on the exciting aspects of buying a product, without having lots of time to contemplate the less desirable part of handing over money.
It’s not about tricking people – you’ve given them all the information they could want, it’s just about maintaining people’s excitement for making the purchase.
Invest in Your Customers
You shouldn’t see it as “job done” when someone makes a purchase. Now that you’ve created the relationship with your customer, it’s one you can maintain and grow, so that this person becomes a devotee of your brand.
If you’re there for people even after you’ve made the sale, offering the best customer care, and continuing to engage them with great content, then they’re going to return to you again and again.
You’ve invested a great deal into creating this customer, and you’ve got everything you need to continue the relationship with them. Don’t miss out on this opportunity by thinking the job is done when you’ve made the initial sale.
Takeaways
There’s no one trick that’s going to make your website successful. Instead, you’ve got to put in the hard work at all stages of the customer journey.
At the heart of everything is your content, and it’s going to play an important role in each step. This is why it’s important you don’t see content creation as just another way to update your website, but as a fundamental tool to boost the success of your website.
At Word Glue Marketing, we specialise in giving each piece of content the care it deserves, helping websites consistently put out high-quality, high-value information. This process will help you get more out of your website, and take a step closer to the success you crave.
Schedule a meeting today and we can work together to create a plan to help you get the most out of your website.
