This is a common misconception about websites. Your website is like a store. If you build a store on a country road and don’t advertise, you’re not going to get much business. Oh sure, you’ll get the occasional passer-by but not much more than that. Similarly, if you create a website and put it on-line, you’ll get the occasional visitor but people won’t be coming in droves.
So how do you get people to your site? A combination of practices will increase the number of visitors. The first, of course is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I know I’ve mentioned this before (more than once) but it’s essential for driving traffic to your site. The key point here is that SEO is not a one time deal but a continuous process. You need to constantly review your site stats, determine what is and isn’t working and adjust accordingly.
Another method to get people to your site is simply let them know you’re there. When creating a new site, you should send out an announcement. This is something that we did in the 90’s but got away from. For some reason we began to believe that people would magically find us if we uploaded our site. We know this isn’t true, so by all means send out a notice to everyone in your address book once your site is on-line. This is something you should do every time you have a change to your site that the viewers may be interested, which will be every time because why make a change to a site if no one’s going to be interested?!
Finally don’t omit social media! It is probably the single most useful and cost-effective tool available today to spread the word about your business. Tweet about it, mention it on your Facebook page, post a YouTube video, and let everyone in your Linked-in account know about it. Your social media strategy may vary from business to business, but every type of business can use social media to communicate with their client base.
If I Build It They Will Come…But Only If They Know It’s There!