Give Your Audience What It Wants
Too often web designers make a web site that only contain fluff. The problem is, visitors don't come to your site to wast time, but usually have a distinct purpose. Don't give them what they want, and they are gone!
So how do you appeal to these visitors? The easy answer, "Give them what they want." The more important question you should ask is, "What do my visitors want?" To answer this question, you need to research three imperatives, 1)Who are your visitors? 2)What attracted them to your site originally? 3) What do they want when they come to your site? Once you know who your visitors are, what attracted them and what they are interested in, it becomes very simple to attract and retain them.
You can learn more about your customer in two ways, by just asking them and by installing analytic software like Google Analytics. Both are highly recommended because both provide information that the other cannot. This information is like gold because it becomes a catalyst to providing quality content that keeps your visitors coming back for more.
Build Traffic
The great thing about finding out who your customers are and what they want is that it becomes a catalyst to building traffic. However, this alone will not maximize the amount of traffic you can receive. There are as many ways to build traffic as your creativity allows. We will go over a few, as well as some overlooked ways that you can build traffic for your website.
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.
Albeit a slow method, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a necessary tool for the traffic hungry enthusiast and to build your website profits. In a short definition, SEO is about bringing relevant traffic from search engines (Like Google) to your website. The more valuable, unique and search engine friendly your content on your website is the more traffic you'll see from the search engines.
Influence Your Audience to a Profitable Action
As mentioned earlier, you want to make it quick and easy for your visitors to get what they want. On the other side of the coin, you need to make it easy for your visitors to do what you want them to do. For example, why make them click through endless pages to sign up for a membership or newsletter? The easier you make it for your visitors to do what you want, the more they will do it.
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.
There are other tactics and tools you can use to increase customer sales as well. Using call to action, branding, A/B or multivariate testing, design improvements and product/service cross promotion can improve your sales many times over.
Partner with an Expert
Like trying to do your own plumbing, Trying to do web design and marketing by yourself can lead to more bad than good. Sure, if your dedicated and take time to get the proper experience you can do fine. But if your serious about turning a higher profit for your website right now, you'll be better off hiring a professional. - 17943
Too often web designers make a web site that only contain fluff. The problem is, visitors don't come to your site to wast time, but usually have a distinct purpose. Don't give them what they want, and they are gone!
So how do you appeal to these visitors? The easy answer, "Give them what they want." The more important question you should ask is, "What do my visitors want?" To answer this question, you need to research three imperatives, 1)Who are your visitors? 2)What attracted them to your site originally? 3) What do they want when they come to your site? Once you know who your visitors are, what attracted them and what they are interested in, it becomes very simple to attract and retain them.
You can learn more about your customer in two ways, by just asking them and by installing analytic software like Google Analytics. Both are highly recommended because both provide information that the other cannot. This information is like gold because it becomes a catalyst to providing quality content that keeps your visitors coming back for more.
Build Traffic
The great thing about finding out who your customers are and what they want is that it becomes a catalyst to building traffic. However, this alone will not maximize the amount of traffic you can receive. There are as many ways to build traffic as your creativity allows. We will go over a few, as well as some overlooked ways that you can build traffic for your website.
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.
Albeit a slow method, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a necessary tool for the traffic hungry enthusiast and to build your website profits. In a short definition, SEO is about bringing relevant traffic from search engines (Like Google) to your website. The more valuable, unique and search engine friendly your content on your website is the more traffic you'll see from the search engines.
Influence Your Audience to a Profitable Action
As mentioned earlier, you want to make it quick and easy for your visitors to get what they want. On the other side of the coin, you need to make it easy for your visitors to do what you want them to do. For example, why make them click through endless pages to sign up for a membership or newsletter? The easier you make it for your visitors to do what you want, the more they will do it.
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.
There are other tactics and tools you can use to increase customer sales as well. Using call to action, branding, A/B or multivariate testing, design improvements and product/service cross promotion can improve your sales many times over.
Partner with an Expert
Like trying to do your own plumbing, Trying to do web design and marketing by yourself can lead to more bad than good. Sure, if your dedicated and take time to get the proper experience you can do fine. But if your serious about turning a higher profit for your website right now, you'll be better off hiring a professional. - 17943
About the Author:
Matthew Henage is an expert web producer and CEO of Superior Design Inc, a Utah web design and web marketing firm. Visit his website now and you can get an Internet marketing consultation.