Five key ways to drive more customers to your website

Once your website is up and running and you have made sure it is working effectively, you need to turn your attention to raising awareness of it. There is no point having the perfect design and amazing unique content, if no-one knows your website exists, or looks for it. So here are five key things you can do to help drive more would-be customers to your website.

1. Advertise your site directly

Nowadays there are many different forms of advertising but it’s one of the key ways to help promote awareness of your website and get it in front of potential and new customers. Whether you opt for social media advertising such as Google AdWords, or Facebook Ads or you go for more traditional media, it is one of the quickest ways to get your website in front of thousands of would-be customers.

It is easy for the cost to rise quite quickly with social media adverts so make sure you choose relevant keywords and target your audience, to make sure you get the most value for money and the best opportunity for success.

If you don’t want to go down the social advertising route, then local radio station or newspaper advertising might work, particularly if your clients are in a particular area. Specialist industry magazines might also work depending on your niche.

2. Social engagement

Producing blog content for your website will help your SEO but it needs a bit of an extra push to drive traffic, so make sure you share content across all of your social platforms. One blog post can become a piece for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, so make sure you are sharing everything as widely as possible.

If your business is very image-focussed then make use of channels such as Instagram and Pinterest to get your message across to as many people as possible. The more people start to see your content, the more they will associate your brand with expertise in your particular field.

It’s important to engage in social media as well as just posting information about your business, so join relevant Facebook and LinkedIn groups for your industry area and connect with people to help raise awareness of your website and what your business does.

3. Create engaging content of great value

If you can write interesting and engaging content, which is useful to would-be clients, they will come to your site to find out more. White papers, case studies and original research reports, are all examples of valuable content which would-be clients will find interesting and useful. Giving these away on your website will help to drive traffic to you and they will be keen to find out more.

Other examples of attractive content to bring people to your website are free downloads such as checklists, toolkits or quick guides which your would-be client can use immediately and will find really helpful for solving a particular issue they have in their industry. It’s all about giving value so they come back to become a full client.

Make sure all of your content, including blogs, podcasts and videos, features a message at the end encouraging the viewer to visit your website. So often that vital call-to-action is missed out and website traffic is lost as a result.

4. Encourage interaction on your website

Set up facilities for people to interact with you so they can leave comments, ask questions and perhaps run a specific forum to foster a community around a particular subject area. Forums do need to be monitored and maintained so it might be a bit of extra work, but it will enable you to lead the way and be viewed as an expert in the field. It will encourage people in the industry to come to your website repeatedly to engage with others, and hopefully spend time on the site as well.

Make sure if people do leave comments and ask questions, that you respond to them quickly and answer any issues, to encourage people to come back to you and to view you as an expert. Being responsive on the website will encourage people to come back and see what other people are saying and asking, and will show your company to be a knowledgeable and responsive business.

5. Use video on your website

Video is proving more and more popular, with social media now offering live video facilities, so make sure you are using it and include some corporate videos on your site. It can be a great way to attract and hold attention and drive people to the website.  

You could do a short introductory video to your services, or film product demonstrations which clearly explain exactly how your product can be used to resolve a certain problem. YouTube is now a huge search engine, so hosting videos on YouTube and embedding the links in your website is another way to drive traffic and help your website be found by potential clients.

Conclusion

There are many ways to drive traffic to your website so hopefully these five tips have helped. Another extra, which sounds obvious but you would be surprised how many people forget to do this – make sure your website address is included on every single piece of communication which you are sending out.

It’s not enough to put it onto leaflets and brochures, although of course it needs to be on those. Put your website in your email signature and make sure it’s included in every blog post, social media update, podcast and video which you produce.

If you Tweet, include a link to your website URL in every Tweet. Use your profile pages on your social media to showcase your website URL and include it at every possible opportunity. Include it on exhibition material including your stand design and your business cards.

The way to drive traffic to your website is to raise awareness of it in as many ways as you can think of. Get the URL in front of people at every possible opportunity and make sure that when they get there they find useful, valuable information and a way to engage meaningfully with your business.

Hopefully these tips have given you some ideas to make sure your website is attracting new visitors into your business every single day. If you have any questions or need any help or advice, feel free to give me a call (01264 735 333) or leave me a comment below.