Ten Ways To Promote Your Website And Increase Sales
Let’s say you’ve worked pretty hard on your website, and you’ve taken what you thought were all the right steps to create a successful, results-driven online business. But months have passed and it still hasn’t generated any revenue – what do you do now?
It’s all about understanding your visitors, and the methods that you use to keep people engaged with your business.
To increase sales, you need to drive high quality, targeted traffic to your website. We’ve compiled a list of the top ten ways you can attract visitors to your website, with the goal of helping you grow your traffic consistently over time.
- Quality Content and Reviews
- Coupons & Discounts
- Display and Re-targeting
- E-mail Marketing
- Loyalty and Cashback
- Search Engine Optimization
- Social Media
- VAR/Reseller
- Pay Per Click (PPC)
- Affiliate Programs
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Quality Content and Interaction
No matter what anyone tells you, Content truly is King and that’s why it’s at the beginning of this list. People are interested in and seek quality content that gives them value every time they use a search engine. When they benefit from valuable content, they are more likely to come back and become regular visitors, and you start to establish a relationship with them.
Other than your audience, search engines want to stay ahead of their competition and to do that, they have to yield quality search results based on what people are searching for. If your website content is spammy or generally of low quality, people won’t be interested and in some cases, you might get penalized by search engines.
Keep your content relevant, valuable, and engaging. Interaction with your audience is also very important in establishing a relationship with your audience. Allow them to leave comments and contact you directly if they have concerns, answer them and be part of a discussion. This level of involvement paired with quality content is a surefire way to increase traffic, get people talking about your business.
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Coupons & Discounts
A successful strategy of offering coupons or discounts on your services or products can definitely encourage your visitors to purchase them and can be a way to build client loyalty. By using this method sparingly, you can push stock and increase your conversion rate. It’s also especially useful when you’re looking to attract new clients that have never used your services before.
A word of caution – offering discounts is a tricky process because you don’t want to cause harm to your brand or worse, devalue your products/services. You also don’t want to decrease your profit for a long period of time, or only have customers wait for your price markdown. Striking a good balance is key when you’re offering discounts, so use this tool wisely.
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Display and Re-targeting
Cookies are your friend, especially when it comes to the retargeting marketing method that helps businesses with their branding and conversion rate. This form of marketing uses cookies, that stay in a user’s browser as they surf the web and re-expose those visitors to your brand after they’ve left your site.
Since a very low percentage of people purchase a product or service on their first visit (estimates are lower than 5%), you can use retargeting to display what they were looking at already. People are already familiar with your brand when they are being retargeted, so it’s a great advertising tool because your ads are being seen by a relevant audience who have already indicated that they were interested in your services.
The ad acts as a gentle visual reminder to the client that they were looking at your product/service at one time. Seeing your product displayed again may prompt them to visit your site and this time, make a purchase.
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E-mail Marketing
E-mail marketing is still a very important way to build a relationship with your target audience and keep them up to date with the latest products or services that you have to offer. E-mail marketing is still quite effective, with an average deliverability rate of 98% and is used by virtually all age groups that advertisers/marketers target. With over half of people using the internet reporting that they open their inboxes daily, it can be a powerful tool to use to gain more traffic.
You can use one of the many e-mail marketing platforms that are in the market today such as Constant Contact or MailChimp. With an effective e-mail marketing strategy, businesses can send their users the latest news and offers as well as convince them to buy products immediately.
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Loyalty and Cashback
You should always incentivize your customers to come back and use your products and services. Building loyalty for your brand should also be a strategy that you apply to retain your online customers. Creating loyalty programs is one way that you can build this brand loyalty, and acts as a “reward” for your clients for their continued business.
You also have the option of working with cashback sites, which are sites that link directly to your products or services. These types of websites then send the customer cash back after they have made the purchase, which further incentivizes them to either shop more themselves or send other customers your way.
Developing a loyalty program that is based on a strategy of keeping the client “coming back for more” is key to your online business. Take the time to understand how your audience behaves and what products they like most. You can even create different programs based on client groups, and offer each group different products or services.
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Search Engine Optimization
Everybody is familiar with the term SEO nowadays, but not all SEO strategies are implemented correctly and this can affect your website’s performance. SEO is important for your business and website because it allows people who are looking for the things that you offer find you, simply put. In a sea of millions of websites, a large chunk of those websites is statistically similar to yours. What differentiates your business from theirs is the way you implement your SEO strategy.
SEO isn’t just about keywords, it’s about making it easy for people to actually find your website. To do that, search engines must be able to crawl your site without encountering any errors that slow it down. Your site also needs to be indexed easily, load quickly, and be appropriately labeled and tagged.
Don’t cut corners when it comes to SEO because you can be penalized. Always make sure to apply white-hat SEO strategies, or hire a reputable company to do that for you if you’re having trouble. It’ll be well worth the investment once your traffic increases and you show up better in search results.
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Social Media
Social media is one of the most powerful tools that your business has to generate interest in your product or service. It’s a cost-effective way to interact and engage with your audience and generate awareness about your brand. You can even hit the jackpot if a video of your product goes viral, which can generate massive interest and take your business to a new level.
One example of how social media can change your business is the viral rainbow bagel video that made the small Brooklyn-based bagel shop Williamsburg Bagel a household name. After it’s viral social media video that was watched by millions around the world, the store actually closed for a couple of weeks to undergo renovations as it could no longer accommodate the massive number of clients due to high demand.
Social media platforms are a great way to reach new clients and build your customer base, but make sure that you’re using the appropriate platform and implementing a strategy, not just winging it. You might need to hire a social media manager who can answer questions and monitor your social media presence, engaging customers and managing multiple accounts.
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VAR/Re-seller
One way to get others to market your business is through the use of resellers. Resellers usually buy the product or service that you are offering and resell it at a price markup. This option usually applies to businesses that offer their products in wholesale.
A lot of people would rather make money selling products that they don’t have to make themselves, and many are specialized in certain niches or live in places where the product they sell is in demand.
If your business model can work with applying a re-seller strategy, it can help with your bottom line. Companies like Lululemon for example, use the re-seller strategy as one way to market their products.
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Pay Per Click (PPC)
Pay-Per-Click or PPC is when you bid for ad placement in major search engines and pay anytime a user clicks on your ad. The upside is that a lot of people are going to be seeing your ads. A downside is that it can be expensive, but can yield substantial results if you have the budget for it.
Pay-Per-Click is a useful and effective tool that most businesses should get into at some point because it helps them gain exposure when people are looking for services or products that match theirs. Simply put, you need to spend money to make money but with the right PPC strategy, people will find your business more and you’ll start making money.
It does take a well-crafted strategy to see those results or you’ll be wasting your money, so make sure that you know how to select the right keywords, launch campaigns at the most appropriate times, and understand what behavior search engines reward (which can lead to you paying less money in the long run). Google for example, charges you less money if you have quality content (another reason why that’s was the top of the list).
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Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a popular way that companies are now promoting their products and services. In affiliate marketing, you are considered the merchant or vendor whose products are promoted by a publisher, or an affiliate, who will promote your product to their network/audience. In turn, the affiliate receives a commission on sales as a result of this promotion.
Affiliate marketing is used by countless businesses whether they are start-ups or major corporations, with great results. Affiliate marketing can cost very little or can be quite expensive. This is based on the influencer/publisher’s popularity and the percentage that you’re going to be paying to the affiliate.
Brands understand the power of this form of marketing, which is why celebrities for example are often gifted free luxury products if they promote it by simply wearing it in a Snapchat or Instagram post. There are different types of affiliate marketing platforms and methods and the affiliate can be a website as opposed to a person. The concept however, remains the same in that your product is being promoted by a party other than you.
Check out top affiliate portals in the market.
Conclusion
Rule of thumb: Traffic = leads, sales, and a thriving business. There are a lot of things that you can do to attract traffic nowadays, and it depends on the nature of your business and how willing you are to invest in it. Building a rapport with your audience and establishing a dedicated client base can take time, but it will be well worth your money and effort. By implementing one (or more) of these techniques the next time you’re seriously thinking about how to increase your traffic, you’ll be well on your way to generating the views you need.
