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10 ways to increase targeted traffic to your website

Paul King - Monday, June 28, 2010

How to increase qualified traffic to your website

Most businesses have one common goal online, to increase the number of conversions on their website. In general an increase in traffic = an increase in conversions however that traffic does have to be qualified traffic. The internet is now the largest advertising medium in the UK and for good reason. The internet can offer unrivalled results per £ invested as well as giving you the ability to track your return on investment at every stage of the campaign.

So you have a great looking website with all the latest features which cost you a few grand but you are not getting anywhere near the return you expected from it. You keep asking yourself why is my website not working?

The simple answer is you do not have targeted traffic visiting your website on a daily basis. Imagine a retail shop that has all the latest gadgets and the best prices on the high street. If you open your shop but do not put a sign outside and have all the windows and doors blacked out the people passing by will have no idea that it is open for business and therefore will walk straight past. You must let people know you are open for business and you need to tempt them in. The same rules apply online you need to make it easy for people to find your website.

10 ways to increase targeted traffic to your website

  1. Organic Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): Search Engine Optimisation uses keywords in the text, headings, page names and META tags. Links from other relevant websites are another important factor. Relevant is the key here the link must be relevant and the content on the site linking back to yours must also be relevant.
  2. Pay per Click (PPC): Advertise on Google and other search engines to get almost instant results. These ads are displayed based on the keyword typed by the user and you pay each time someone clicks thru on your ad and lands on your website. This is a highly effective strategy and gives invaluable data for your SEO campaign.
  3. Article Writing: Write and publish educational articles, whitepapers and place them on article syndication sites. Other web site owners can publish them on their web sites. Links in the bottom resource box will lead interested people to your website.
  4. Blogging: Blog marketing attracts readers. Blog regularly (at least once per week) about related topics your targeted customer is interested in. Include links back to your website. This is very effective and if you produce good quality content people will follow your updates and the search engines will too.
  5. Social Networks: Set up profiles at popular social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube  etc. These networks are highly effective however you must be active and they can be very time consuming so make sure you plan time to do this.
  6. Promo Items: Purchase things like pens, sweets or stress balls with your Web site name and URL on them and give them away at trade shows and industry events. If you can think of something a little different it will make you stand out from the crowd and be remembered.
  7. Affiliate Marketing: Advertise on other relevant websites and you pay the website owner each time a referral purchases or takes a particular action such as signing up. Very effective for the right market but always research before making your decision.
  8. Video: Setup viral video about your company, products and upload them on to a video network site such as you tube or vimeo and also put them on your website.
  9. Forums: Participate in online forums as an expert. You get to promote your business “quietly” in your signature line. However this only works if you actively participate and contribute so make sure you plan time to do this.
  10. Free Offer: Offer a free ebook or whitepaper on your site. Give away a free report or analysis. Promote this everywhere on your site in your emails on social networks and even offline.

Doing all of the above is very time consuming and highly complicated so I do not suggest you try to implement everything all at once. If you do want to tackle internet marketing yourself then write yourself a plan and begin with one or two key techniques. Study these and begin slowly and as your targeted traffic and therefore conversions increase then you can begin to free up more resources to tackle other techniques. Alternatively give us a call and we will work out a strategy to suit your budget.
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How much does SEO cost?

Paul King - Thursday, April 08, 2010

The price of Search engine optimisation (SEO) is another question that is very difficult to answer but one I’m asked fairly often. Yet again this is another “How long is a piece of string?” type of question. As a general rule you will get what you pay for and professional services in any form cost a lot of money. You will be paying for the knowledge that will get you a return on your investment as well as for the actual results. As far as a ball park figure goes it is very difficult to estimate as there are so many factors involved but the prices can range from around £600 to £100,000 plus. In general as SEO is an ongoing strategy your investment will be made in monthly payments and many suppliers will tie you into a 12 or 18 month contract. We do not do this and work on a month by month basis however depending on the size of the campaign we would ask for at least 3-6 months to begin to show results. This start up period is required as the search engines do not visit your site on a regular basis unless you update your site on a regular basis. Our team are so confident in their skills and experience that our contracts are not fixed and we also set incentive based contracts to ensure that we get you the results first.

Let’s get back to the pricing, so the price varies dramatically and one of the main variables is the level of competition for the search terms you want to rank for.  So for example if you are in a specialised niche market with limited competition a budget of £600 for 12 months may get you the results you need. However if you are in a highly competitive market such as financial services you could be looking at spending over £100,000 over 12 months to achieve the rankings you want. Unfortunately the level of competition is not the only variable involved as the search engines move the goal posts regularly, your site may need a lot of work done on the actual coding to make it search engine friendly and the number of search terms you want to rank for. Finally your competitors will not take kindly to you knocking them off the top and they will often respond by starting or stepping up their own SEO campaign.

Does that sound expensive?  Yes it can be expensive however this is an investment and you should expect a positive return on any SEO campaign that is carried out by professionals and not only should you see it in your bottom line the consultant should be able to show it to you in his reports. 
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Understanding Internet Marketing

Paul King - Monday, November 02, 2009

Understanding Internet Marketing

Internet Marketing – Where do I start?

Internet marketing/Online Marketing/e-marketing/i-marketing or whatever else you want to call it can be very daunting when you first look into it. There are so many companies out there who offer Search engine optimisation and pay per click that will come at you with all the technical jargon and tell you this is just what you need. How can you possibly know if that is what needs to be done unless you spend months, years even researching internet marketing so you can make an educated decision.

What you need to do is look at the bigger picture and understand your target audience. Start with your website and how well it is performing, sure you can always do with being a little higher on the major search engines but what is the point if your website can not convert this increase traffic into customers.

When I worked in sales many years ago the managers always used to say “It’s a numbers game, the more people you see the more sales you will make”. I can not tell you how many times a day I heard this and I agree there is some truth to that, but it is not very efficient.

Lets say for example as a field sales person for every 100 telephone calls you made you would get an average of 10 appointments and your closing ratio was 1:10 you would make one sale for all that work. Sure you could get on that phone longer and call 200 people and get two sales some days but you would be working longer hours. What if you could just change the conversion rate to lets say 5:10. Your income just increased 400% for doing the same amount of work. And what if your closing ratio on the phone changed as well so for every 100 calls you made you got 20 appointments your income just went up 900%. Ok so that is not so easy to do out in the field but it is possible and with A/B testing combined with analytical reporting it is possible on your website.

So now we have mentioned the importance of conversion on your website it is time to begin directing traffic to your site. This is basically the aim of any internet marketing campaign. So do you go with that Search engine optimisation company or the Pay per click experts or do you start up some email marketing campaigns? The answer depends on a number of factors such as your market, your goals and required return on investment.

Search engine Optimisation gets you higher in the organic or natural results in the major search engines but it takes time and a great deal of work. However once you get up there the return on investment is fantastic as it will bring in huge volumes of traffic to your newly conversion friendly website. But you will need to fight to stay at the top so this long term strategy should be undertaken over a 12 month period and if you want to stay at the top you should expect this to form part of your permanent internet marketing plan.

Pay per click or paid search advertising offers something altogether different. Putting you at the top of the search results instantly and if managed well it can give you a return on investment straight away. This is often used as a short term strategy if you have a particular promotion or until your search engine optimisation gets you up there naturally. However it can be used in the long term and offers a unique way to control your marketing budget allowing you to set your budget daily. There are a number of other features which can be used depending upon your target audience, such as geo-targeting and timed ad display all allowing the campaign to be optimised for the best possible conversion.

Email marketing is fairly self explanatory and yes it has been given a bad name by spammers in the past but when done professionally to qualified lists of prospects and existing clients it can give you a great return on investment. Just remember to measure the delivery and click-thru reports in order to continually improve the return on investment.

There are a number of other Internet marketing techniques and strategies you can use such as the latest and most powerful of all Social Media. However this is a whole topic on its own and while it can bring the benefits of search engine optimisation in a shorter time frame it offers so much more.

In conclusion I would always suggest that you have a detailed Internet marketing plan which involves at least two aspects of internet marketing and do not stop your current offline marketing or pull money out of thin air, simply allocate a percentage of your current marketing budget to the internet. Some people are still sceptical about internet marketing and have probably tried it before with limited success and I would say that all aspects of Internet marketing are a very involved process and unless you have the time and the budget to blow on trial and error then get the advice of a professional and set KPI’s.
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