Build it and they will come…..yes, I REALLY did watch Field Of Dreams recently.
It reminded me of almost every web project and site I’ve ever worked on. Basic and regular web traffic analysis of all my sites, and all my client sites would suggest something quite different.
Building your site is just the FIRST step….if you stop there, who is going to see it?
I know from personal experience with my own sites….once it is up and running, and you are pleased that you have a something that will truly represent your company, product, hobby, etc, that’s just the first step!
Working with my one of my web design clients in Atlanta recently, an analytics tool reminded me of this simple fact while I was checking traffic reports. It presents a simple pie chart with three colors. Given this snapshot of your traffic, it’s easy to identify the three main ‘buckets’. People are going to land on your site pages in one of the three following methods:
- Direct Traffic
- Search Engine Traffic
- Referral Traffic
Direct Traffic - This is the traditional form of traffic. Assuming you do NOTHING more than push your new site to the web, most folks will initially find it by typing the name of the site (ex. www.yourgreatsite.com) DIRECTLY. This could happen because you:
- Sent an email with the address and asked them to check it out
- Printed the site on your business card or some other stationary, letterhead, etc, and they decided to plug the address into their browser.
- Someone else gave them your site address and they typed the address into their browser
- Printed the site on some offline advertising materials (yellow pages, community newsletter, etc)
- A PAID campaign (Google AdWords for instance) that places your link on a search results page for varying keywords
- Your site was indexed/crawled and simply showed up for FREE in a random search (this is referred to as ‘Organic’ search results).
Referral Traffic - This is probably the most misunderstood and under-used piece of the traffic pie. When you have a business site on the web, other business sites can link to you IF they are aware that you are online and that you have something of value to the customers who visit THEIR site. This usually doesn’t happen by accident unless your site is well known and established. That means you have to put on your sales hat and:
- ASK for referral links. Call local businesses who have web sites. Tell them you are ‘on the web’ and that you have a site that their visitors will find of value. Most businesses are receptive to the idea of linking to ‘like’ sites (a Realtor site would link to a mortgage broker site or an insurance site for instance). If your site is a link on another business site, and there is a compelling reason for their visitors to click on your link, you have just expanded your ‘territory’ on the web! If the site is a HIGH TRAFFIC site, even better! That doesn’t mean the folks are going to click the link to your site just because it’s there. However, search engines will gobble this activity up (which is another reason to do this that I won’t go into detail here) and it will like help those ‘organic’ search results we were discussing earlier.
- Inform businesses that you are linking to them via email – Yeah, I know, why would they care? This is a technique I’ve seen as the webmaster for various sites….an email arrives which says something to the effect of “We are linking to your site currently, and would love for you to link back to us from YOUR site. If you add a link back to our site within 4 days (or some other deadline) then we will leave your link on our site. Otherwise, we will remove it. Hope to hear from you!” This can be an effective strategy and is worth a shot. I’ve heard some site owners say they get about one out of ‘two or three’ requests back with a response and a link. It just depends on several factors of course, but most businesses want and need as many channels as possible coming into their sites IF they understand the net effect.
With that – I leave you with the following. It’s time to start thinking creatively when it comes to promoting your site. The idea is that, a solid, informative site saves you time and money, even if it is a brochure type site. It projects your brand, your image, and when you learn to use it (not just have it), you learn to promote your business while you are sleeping. When your potential customers DO call you (after finding , hopefully, it will simply be to fill an order or to secure a service rather than to ‘sell’ over the phone or email. 
