Increase Website Traffic
with 4 Tips
People are paying pretty significant dollars for website traffic
these days. Pay-per-click charges of $1-10 are not uncommon
for top search terms. Multiply that by the 300 unique visitors
per day that my log furniture website gets, and you are talking
at least $300 per day, or $9,000 per month-depending on how
many days are in the month.
"There Must Be Some Easier Way"
While pay-per-click may be a good business model for your website,
there's nothing like free traffic to lay the foundation. My
log furniture site used to get 100 unique visitors per day before
it started fetching in 200, and now 300 on an average basis.
The personal goal here is 1,000 unique daily visitors-but 10,000
would also be welcomed!
Following are some of the best ways we have found to grow website
traffic:
#1: Website Optimization
A local business magazine recently ran an article calling SEO
(search engine optimization) the equivalent of "hocus-pocus".
The author of the article, who apparently worked for an SEO
firm, described optimization as a somewhat "shady" activity
that's impossible to get a handle on. I say "Baloney!"
SEO is not pseudo-science. It is a very tangible and real way
to increase website traffic. If you haven't taken care of the
basics-e.g. making sure your website has a relevant title, focuses
on the right keywords, avoids practices that are disdained by
the search engines, etc., you can be sure that, once found,
your website will not rank as highly (or get as much traffic)
as it otherwise would. Begin your traffic-garnering efforts
by making sure your website is up-to-snuff.
#2: Publish Helpful, Relevant Content
Publishing helpful articles on the Net with a link back to my
log furniture website seems to result in traffic spikes nearly
every time. Notice the emphasis is on "helpful" articles. There
is plenty of useless drivel out there by people who are being
paid $5 to write an article. Not to insult anyone, but I spend
2-8 hours on the articles I write-depending on how much research
is required and how technical the article is-and that costs
more than $5.
It doesn't seem to matter what you write about. My topics so
far have included SEO, the simplicity of Amish life, improving
your bottom line, and understanding Google operators. The key
is to make them relevant, short and helpful.
#3: Add more products to your website
Our experience has been that adding more products to the website
helps us to come up in the search engines more often. A person
who finds a rustic night stand at our site might notice that
we have log bunk beds. Somebody who is shopping for an unfinished
pine dresser might not be thinking of rustic furniture at all,
stumble across one our products, like the whole site, and end
up furnishing their cabin. Each product is like a fishing line
cast in the sea. The more well-described bait you have out there-the
more "fish" will bite.
#4: Improve your website conversion rate
Five years ago, we used to get one log furniture order for every
100 website visitors. Now it seems like closer to one order
for every 300 unique visitors. Part of the reason for this,
we believe, is that the web has become more competitive. But
we also pay attention to our conversion rate.
We are in the process of making a change right now that might
really help. Someone pointed out that when you click on an item
to buy it within Miva Merchant's standard interface, there is
no confirmation that the item has been added to your shopping
basket. This might lead some customers to believe that the website
isn't working properly. They might not be savvy enough to check
the shopping basket. They might even leave the site without
ordering (perish the thought!)
These "glitches" can really hurt website sales. We went to the
Miva Merchant site for third-party modules and found a script
that displays the shopping basket after each item is added.
We purchased the script and install, and are watching to see
how it affects website sales and conversion rate. Our guess
is that this will have a positive impact on sales.
Conclusion
Obviously, there are a lot of other ways to increase website
traffic. The four listed above are a great place to start. If
you're not into SEO, find somebody who is. If you are paying
hundreds or even thousands of dollars of month for pay-per-click
traffic, it may be wise to divert enough of those dollars to
ensure that your website is the traffic-snagging, profit-generating
machine you intend it to be.
About the author:
Cari Haus is a CPA and entrepreneur who has been offering quality
log furniture on her website, http://www.logcabinrustics.com/
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