What every business owner ought to know about....

How to Get More Quality Visits to Your Website

If you've invested hours and thousands into your new website, you probably can't wait for the flood of enquiries and sales to come in.

And so the day comes when you switch everything on and you're eagerly waiting for the phone to ring.

But nothing happens......

And the big question, of course, is why?

Well, after you've figured out a way to deal with your disappointment, you maybe relieved (or quite possibly, angry) that you're not alone.

The reason you're not getting flooded with enquiries is almost always down to two main reasons: either you don't have enough traffic in the first place or you've got something called a "conversion problem".

So this section is all about how to solve the first problem: getting quality visitors to visit your website in the first place, otherwise known as "traffic".

How do you know if you've got a traffic problem in the first place?

Getting the right amount of traffic to your website is really down to.......competition.

Let's say you're the only cosmetic surgeon in the Shetland Islands, there's a good chance you'll get more than enough enquiries because Google will automatically list your site high-up in the search rankings when someone searches for "plastic surgeon miami".

(And this is assuming that your website is setup correctly because if not, you'll get zero enquiries!?)

But chances are that you do have at least some competition, so you're going to need find a way to get a reasonable amount of traffic to your site.

How to get more traffic to your website

There are only two main ways and it's actually quite simple. But that doesn't mean that it's easy (more on that soon):

1. Either you get free visitors from the search engines (mainly Google) or from any of the Social Networks or....
2. You pay for it with paid advertising in places like Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn

The first option of "free" is probably the most enticing: I mean, who else doesn't want free traffic?

Have a look at this example search for "Swiss Army Knife" in the UK:

The listings in green are "free" and the areas in red are Paid Ads (well, almost...... - the ads on the right-hand side are no longer shown).

So right out of the bat, "free" maybe kind of nice but you aren't exactly getting top exposure, are you?

The second thing is that the "free" listings can take a LOT of work.

In other words, you either put in the hours (which can turn into years) to get highly ranked for the search term "swiss army knife" or you pay for ads.

It turns out that "Free" isn't that free 

But, despite what the 'experts' tell you, Google doesn't publish the way it decides how to rank websites.

It's just like Coca-Cola: they're not about to tell everyone about their secret recipe. It's no different for Google.

Unfortunately, some SEO 'experts' resort to what are known as "black-hat" techniques in order to try and fool Google's highly-complex ranking systems to get their client's website ranked highly.

They engage in schemes like "keyword stuffing" and gaining backlinks from blog networks and other 'illicit' means.

Eventually, the website owners will get caught by Google (if they haven't already). They always do. 

And clients will be left with websites in the land of "no-where".

If you're seriously interested in being rewarded with free traffic from Google, you have to give what Google wants: provide the best possible experience for it's users (which, if you think about it, are really your customers).

Free traffic is a vital part of any traffic strategy but it takes time and commitment.

What we've seen, however,  is that free traffic generally leads to more trust from clients (probably because the only people who like ads are people who work in....advertising).

If you're interested in finding out how to build a free traffic strategy together with a safe, secure and 100% compliant ?professional SEO service, just contact us and we'll look into your specific situation to see if we can help.

Is Paid Traffic Better? 

Let me give you a simple example so you can see the benefits for yourself:

Let's say you're a financial advisor and help people choose the best pension plan. 

In Google you might type something like "best pension plan". In order for you to rank highly in that phrase, it's going to take months, if not years to get a top spot in Google.

However, if you publish an Ad, you can appear right at the very top in minutes.

Obviously, you can't wait months or years before getting noticed. So this is a classic case where ads are necessary to start driving traffic to your website and your products and services immediately.

Of course, the downside is that you have to pay but with Google, Facebook and most of the ad platforms, you only pay when someone actually clicks on the ad. So you can appear as much as you want without paying anything.

Are online ads expensive? 

It's just like the stock exchange only that the advertising platforms are open 24 x 7 all year around (no wonder they make so much money!)

So "best pension plans" in Google might cost $50 in the US during Wednesday morning and $200 on a Wednesday night.

Using the same example, although Facebook Ads also determines prices in an auction environment, the way you reach people is different. Instead of using phrases, you target your ideal customers by age, gender and interests (and a whole lot more....).

As you can imagine, paid traffic is not an easy thing to manage. You need qualified and experienced people to make sure you don't accidentally burn through thousands in a few minutes!

But the key to online advertising is to find a profit. 

So even if "best pension plans" costs you $40.000 in one month, but you sell $100.000 worth of business, you made a gross profit on your ad spend of $60.000 

When do I make a profit from my online advertising? 

As you can imagine, competition, again, plays a major role here. 

As does demand and seasonality: you can't expect sales of children's toys to go through the roof in August ! (unless, of course, you drop your prices to 'silly' levels).

When starting out, the first 1-2 months is all about collecting data from the advertising platforms  used.

Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.. provide incredibly useful feedback which is the where the real "gold" lies.

We then use this "gold" then to optimise each individual campaign.

So during this initial period time, we always warn our clients not to expect 'miracles' during the first couple of months.

Of course, we could easily tell you something different, but that's not how we work here.

Generally speaking, you can expect positive returns during months 3 and 4.

Advertising Online vs Advertising Off-line

The great thing about online advertising is it's unique ability to provide ads to those who are ONLY interested in what you have to offer.

You can't do that with a TV or Radio ad campaign because they're 'talking' to everyone who's watching the TV or listening to the radio at a given time.

So when someone searches for "tax consultancy services", your ad can match that specific request or demand in real-time.

And if your ad managed to catch someone's attention, then you'll receive a qualified visitor to your website.

What Else Should I Know?

When someone clicks on your ad, the visitor is normally taken to a specific page on your website (often the 'home page').

This is sometimes called the "landing page" (because, that's where the visitors lands once they've clicked on your ad).

So once the user arrives at the page, we've completed the first objective which is to "get traffic".

The next phase is all about getting the user to take some sort of action. In other words, we need to try and get the user to respond.

Quite simply, this is getting a user to fill out a form, sign-up for your newsletter, make a phone call or even buy your product (assuming you sell something directly online).

And if those elements on your website are not presented on your website in a clear, concise and persuasive manner, it doesn't matter how many visits you get to your website.

So what counts here is something called the "conversion". But that's another story altogether and covered more in-depth HERE.

What to do Next

We hope that this article has explained how getting visitors works and gives you more clarity on how "traffic" really works in a business environment. 

Your next move is really down to getting down to work and implementing a formal traffic strategy. 

So CONTACT US TODAY so we can start finding your potential online.

Here's how this works:

1. First, we need to setup a call which will last for about 30 minutes to an hour since we need to understand your business objectives (there's no point just doing ads for the sake of doing ads!). We'll also need to figure out how much you're willing to invest. By the way, this call is completely free and there's absolutely no obligation on your part.
2. After the call, we'll look into the various platforms to find the best potential sources for your budget.
3. And finally, we'll send you a written document explaining our recommendations and what kind of results you're likely to get along with details of minimum investment required and a details of our fees.

Again, there's no commitment nor pressure on your side: all we need is 30 minutes of your time to make sure we can provide the best possible recommendation for your business.

Simply contact us by clicking on the button below and we'll get back to you!