Does the above picture look all familiar to you? No, I'm not talking about a family road trip or being lost on a barren highway; I'm talking about your website.  Too frequently we find ourselves investing time and money into learning the reasons for website 'high traffic' periods and 'low traffic' periods.  With these variables aside, one thing that is certain for sure: traffic needs a means by which to reach a website.  Better yet, traffic needs a reason.  Just like we set out on the open road in our car, we are searching for something or traveling to a specific destination.  It doesn't matter which route we take as long as its the shortest and most efficient for us. 

How can we as a company provide the shortest and most direct route to our website?  Which keywords (roads) will facilitate that traffic?  The answer to these may be simpler than you think.

It starts with a foundation:

A website strategy:

What market are we targeting? What product or service are we selling? What factors are in our favor? What resources can we tap into? Does our site design represent our brand/company image?

These are all important questions that need to be asked in the preliminary stage.  Thorough analysis of these questions, and questions like them, will provide the best return on investment. Try this for a change: run a consumer feedback program for six-months on the existing website.  Ask questions that will return answers pertinent to age, income, gender, location, and buying habits.  This will help your company to extrapolate the important data; doing so will help build a better strategy and foundation.

Move to a plan:

Implementation:

Take the data return in the strategy forming phase and interpret it.  For example, the previous website design and strategy was aimed at 35 – 50 year old males who live predominantly on the east coast.  The data you have just received from this new survey suggests that 21 – 35 year old males from the Southwest are now the majority of site frequenters.  Takes this data and change the site content according to the data received while still keeping the integrity of the company’s brand image.

Now that the site is changed accordingly to target the correct market, how do you create site traffic? CNNMoney.com features a great article on Jan. 16, 2008 about some tips that will create website buzz.  “Offer something free-of-charge to those who do visit your site - and it can be as simple as information or advice…” For example, the website the targets males in the Southwest, offer links to other sites that offer: cheap flights to southwestern cities or ticket deals to sports games (NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA, etc).  This will give an incentive to this target market to return to the site.

Maintain the Traffic:

Maintenance:

Site traffic cannot sustain itself.  Traffic must be generated through maintenance of the website and the blog.  A good way of doing this is to re-evaluate the site’s target market and target demographic every so often.  In more volatile industries, a six-month review period may be the best solution; industries that have a less volatile environment, a one, two or three year review may pose the best option.  In this re-evaluation, rerun the survey in the strategy phase.  Find out who your customer is and why they are frequenting your site.  On top of this, find out what your customer wants.  Analytical programs such as Google Analytics can serve as a starting point to uncovering the most hit webpage on your website.  If the site begins to draw less and less traffic, switch it up! Feature new offers, games, videos, and other engaging activities that will hook the consumer to the website and, eventually, the company.

The kicker? This all costs less than any T.V commercial, magazine advertisement, radio spot, or SEO consultant. 

What does Compendium offer? The solution to all of the above, at a low cost, and feedback to help your company sustain this success and grow to the next level of customer conversion.

Compendium can help your company to get familiar with traffic...