It is not enough to simply bring visitors to your website. Once you have lured them to your site through search engine optimization and creative online marketing plans, your website must have an exceptional layout and design, with useful information and opportunities for interaction, in order to entice them to stay and to refer their friends.
In order to accomplish this, you must first determine the purpose of your website and establish clear, measurable goals. The first step in doing this is asking yourself what you want your website to do. Do you want your website to introduce established customers to new products? Do you want it to build your mailing or prospect list? Or, draw in new customers or clients? Everyone knows that they need a website, but few take the time to determine the actual purpose of the website before going live.
The next step is to determine your audience. Now that you know the purpose of your website, this task should be much simpler. If the purpose of your website is to introduce new products to established customers, then your audience is made up of the customers already on your mailing list. If the purpose is to bring new customers or clients into the fold, then your audience is comprised of the folks who fit the demographic profile of your potential customers. Knowing your audience prior to creating the design, layout and content of your website is absolutely essential. For your website to successfully fulfill its purpose, it must be specifically designed to lure, entice and satisfy your target audience.
Once your website is online, measuring visitor traffic is a vital part of determining the overall success of your website, testing layouts and designs to find the right combination of features for your audience, and shaping your website to optimize each contact with a potential customer or client. Measuring visitor traffic also allows you to determine how your visitors got to your website, how long they were there and which features or content were of the most interest to them. This is valuable information that gives you a better perspective regarding what is – and is not – working and allows you to adjust your layout, design or content accordingly.
Each of these components – defining the purpose of your website, determining your target audience and measuring traffic in order to fine-tune your layout and content – are important pieces in creating optimal website usability and establishing a foundation for encouraging your visitors to do the things you want them to do, which include interacting with the website, providing you with valuable marketing data, purchasing your products or services and referring their friends to your site.
The only way to entice your visitors to complete these tasks is to provide them with incentives to do so. Interesting videos, fun facts, informative downloads and unique, appealing content are all tools that can be used to lengthen your visitors’ stay, encourage visitors to return, motivate them to partake in a little social bookmarking, and inspire them to tell their friends about the unique, informative website they just discovered.
Keep in mind that your target audience is constantly bombarded with media and marketing. Therefore, increasing brand awareness and continually reminding them of your company or organization is paramount to your success. Regular, repeated contact is the key to growing brand awareness and increasing your conversion rate and should be one of the main purposes for your website. Continually adding new content and updating your website is a great way to provide new, interesting information each time your visitors return. Another way to encourage repeat visits is to distribute a regularly scheduled newsletter with enticing content containing links to your website. This is an effective way to remind your audience about your website, as well as your products or services, and will keep them coming back for more.
