Gradually Make Your Website a Store of Treasures

Slowly building his variety of wares and freely sharing knowledge made his shop a well-trafficked destination. Can you apply the same to your website? (Photo by KrisHaamer)

Summary: It is not rare for a new website to get off to a very slow start. However, rather than becoming discouraged, you should focus on increasing the quantity, variety, and value of the content (e.g. articles, videos, diagrams) and items for sale on your website. By focusing on helping people and through patient endurance you will eventually notice an uptick in your visitors and sales. The fictional story of Bartolo, an Italian fisherman, illustrates how a website can suddenly go from being perceived as having little value to being seen as an essential online destination.

Bartolo and His Ever Expanding Variety of Wares

Bartolo was an old man with an untiring zeal for helping others. As is the case with most zealous men, he was not one to give in to the geriatric lifestyle of his peers. His energy far exceeded his years, and his eyes maintained a brightness like the sparkle of white wine on a sunny summer day. Though well into his eighties, he still found plenty of adventurous projects to busy his day. And Bartolo still had one more endeavor he wanted to embark on.

For Bartolo’s whole life he had been a fisherman. His mind had become a treasure trove of knowledge regarding the most arcane aspects of his trade’s tools and vernacular. So now, several years after he had hung up his nets to dry for the last time, Bartolo decided to help his fellow fisherman by opening a fisherman’s shop on the rugged coast of Manarola a small village on the Italian Riveria.

Bartolo started small, with only a few of the oddest tools that a fisherman will find he needs in that one rare situation that is encountered perhaps twice in a lifetime; and because of his shop's specialty nature, Bartolo received nary a visitor. Occasionally the stray fisherman would stroll into his shop looking for advice on his trade, but purchases were few.

The small fishing village of Manarola where Bartolo started his shop. (Photo by ezioman)

It is worth noting that Bartolo was highly respected by other fisherman for his knowledge, but the oddity and narrow selection of tools available at his shop puzzled them, and his shop’s emptiness left him the butt of some ridicule. But Bartolo did not let this deter him. In his head he envisioned a day when his shop’s selection would grow to provide such a variety of useful items that no fisherman would find his shop unneeded.

So Bartolo steadily added to his shop's selection. Each week he increased the variety of tools and items available. As the number of items slowly began to multiply, a change of perception occurred. Suddenly local fishermen were interested in more than merely Bartolo’s advice. With amazement, each fisherman began to realize that Bartolo’s shop offered a tool for every strange event and odd happening that he might encounter out at sea.

Thus, Bartolo’s shop became known as a must visit destination for local fisherman to brush up on the knowledge of their trade and also find the odd tools that could be found no place else, or at least no other place brought together in such useful profusion the wide variety of odds and ends that a fisherman could need.

So Bartolo’s patient endurance was ultimately rewarded. By continuously searching for more odds and ends to add to the store of treasures available at his little fishing shop, and by freely sharing knowledge with his fellow fisherman, Bartolo was able to grow a thriving store that became an essential destination for the fishermen of Manarola.

Conclusion: Constantly Expand Your Website

Here is the key point from the above story. If you, like Bartolo, focus on steadily expanding the information and products your website offers, you will find that eventually more and more individuals will see the value of your website and over time it will become a well-trafficked destination.

Announcing PRWeb Webinar: Use PR to Grow Your Business - Increase Website Traffic

To learn how to use press releases successfully, I recommend you read the press release case studies on PRWeb's website.

Summary: PRWeb is hosting a free webinar teaching you how to use Online PR to grow your business. You can find out more and register by clicking here. The name of the Webinar is Small Business Marketing: Use PR to Grow Your Business.

PRWeb is one of the world's leading Press Release organizations. They serve press releases for Fortune 500 corporations as well as small companies. If you are trying to find additional methods you can use to increase site traffic, increase website awareness, grow web exposure, or grow sales their upcoming webinar, Small Business Marketing: Use PR to Grow Your Business, will be beneficial to you.

I have used Press Releases successfully in the past to grow traffic and grow website awareness.

PRWeb has a case study that discusses a real world example of using press releases to move up Google rankings. It is worth the time to read this case study to understand how a press release can greatly help your search rankings.

The webinar starts October 22nd. I hope you enjoy it!

When Fishing for Customers Use Educational Information as Your Lure

Just like the fisherman, a successful website must have a lure to attract customers.

Summary: No fisherman lowers an empty hook into the water; if he does, the fish take no interest in the hook and he catches nothing. But the fisherman puts a lure on the line and it attracts fish to the hook. Likewise you, to attract customers to your website can’t rely on product pricing and offer alone. You must first attract customers to your website using unbiased, informative information as your lure.

The #1 Internet Shopping Activity is Research

74% of men and women research on the internet before buying a product or service (BIGResearch, 2007). By offering useful, un-biased information on your website, you can help these 3 out of 4 of men and women accomplish their objective using your website.

Think about what type of research your potential customers might be doing. Remember, customers are interested in more than just researching product prices. Some customers aren’t even sure what to buy. They need to know what to buy, before they can even start looking at prices. Can you help the customer decide what to buy? (See Item #4 in this list)

Educational Information is Your Lure

Consider this example. A certain tourist wants to buy a digital camera for his vacation. However, seeing so many options he is not sure what to buy. So he goes to Google and does a search for ‘good vacation cameras’. He finds a website that tells him which cameras are good for vacations because of a long battery life and support for different countries’ power outlets. Happy with their prices, he buys a camera from this website.

Do you see the point? The website that told the tourist which digital camera is better for a vacation lured the customer in, and then hooked him with a good price. All the camera websites that merely list their digital cameras, with no information about using these cameras on vacation, were not even considered. If you want to increase site traffic, you need to provide information, such as articles, to answer the variety of research questions they might have. (See #10 in this list)

Conclusion: Educational Information is Your Lure, Price and Offer is Your Hook

To attract customers provide educational information that goes beyond merely listing the products you sell. Unbiased, informative articles and advice will attract website traffic. However, to get the sale you must have a compelling price and offer. Having a great price and offer but no educational information is like having a hook with no lure. Having educational information without a great price and offer is like having a lure with no hook. To increase site traffic you must give the customer information beyond just a product list with prices.


References

BigResearch.com. 2005. "More Consumers Researching Online Before Buying in the Store"

Guest Article: How can Patience Provide Rewarding Sales Growth?

What lessons can we learn from the success of LightningLabels.com?

Summary: Over a 2 year period, Peter Renton's blog has helped him grow his website, lightninglabels.com, from zero visitors to 22,000 visitors per month (Compete.com, 2008). This is impressive for a business with such a small niche. Today, Peter is going to discuss the rewards of patience as you build your website and how he benefited from writing a business blog. Recently, Peter estimated that his blog drives at least $2,000 per month of additional business to his website. I hope you enjoy this article.

I believe every business should have a blog, but to launch a successful blog you need to be patient and committed. You simply cannot judge the success of your blog for at least 12 months, so you need to continually update your blog even when few people are reading it. Unless you are very lucky or famous, building blog traffic is a slow and gradual process.

A blog can do a number of things for a business. First and foremost, it should provide a more personal face for your company. The blog author or authors should be visible and be allowed to write in a personal, conversational tone. A blog is not about telling the world how great you are; you should leave that to your main site. Instead, you should use your blog to educate and inform, and possibly entertain if it is appropriate.

When you start writing your blog you should do a handful of posts and then announce to the world that you have a blog. You can do online press releases, contact industry publications, email your customer list and get the word out any way you can. This should provide an initial bump in traffic for you which will hopefully result in a number of regular readers.

Our company blog is now two years old, and is the oldest blog in our industry. For many months, though, I would write blog posts and look at the traffic and be disappointed. Here is the breakdown of approximate number of daily visitors and how it has grown:

Month	Daily Visitors
3rd	25
6th	31
9th	45
12th	65
18th	114
24th	147

The numbers above are for unique visitors viewing pages on the blog web site, but with any blog you can subscribe to the content without visiting the site by using an RSS reader. Our growth in the number of subscribers has followed a similar curve to that of daily visitors, and today we have about the same number of subscribers, around 140.

These are not huge numbers but for a vertical market such as digital label printing you can’t expect to have thousands of readers. One important feature that every business blog should have is a prominent link back to the company’s main web site. We get more visitors to our main site from our blog than any other source other than the search engines. People find our blog go to our web site and become customers. I estimate that we get around four new customers a month resulting in around $2,000 in sales directly from the blog.

So how do you grow the number of visitors to your blog? Here are a number of ways we have done it:

1. Search engines – every new post is indexed by the search engines within a day or two and after two years we have over 170 posts and more than 50,000 words written about our industry. All these words are indexed and able to be searched with more words being added with every post.

2. Promoting the blog – we promote the blog at every opportunity. We provide a link to the blog in our customer emails, press releases, articles, even in my email signature.

3. Commenting on other blogs – I subscribe to dozens of blogs and I regularly make comments on these blogs. These comments usually provide a link back to our company blog. One word of warning: be careful to make the comment meaningful otherwise it will be deleted as spam.

4. Blogrolls – Develop a relationship with other bloggers and you can get your blog placed on what is called a blogroll. This is a list of blogs (with links) that a blogger publishes on their blog.

5. Your main web site – a link to your blog should be prominently featured on your main company web site.

We get many people who visit our own main site, then go and check out our blog and place an order. We have no way of measuring the actual impact that our blog has on these people but I know the blog helps create the impression that we are an industry leader. Our blog is also mentioned in trade publications now and has resulted in speaking and writing engagements for me that increases our exposure in our industry. But this all took time and perseverance.

Peter Renton is the founder of Lightning Labels, Inc., the leaders in digital label printing and custom labels. He writes regularly about the label printing industry on his company blog at http://blog.lightninglabels.com.

References

Compete.com. 2008. "Snapshot of LightningLabels.com"

[Video] Site Review: Increase Site Traffic and Sales By Using a Loss Leader on a Discount Website

Summary: How can a discount website increase web site traffic and generate buzz rapidly? Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, perfected the art of using unheard of discounts (a loss leader) to generate foot traffic and buzz. In this video review, we discuss how a discount website can leverage this strategy to increase sales.

How Can You Get Free Website Promotion For Your Website?

Logos of different social networking companies that can help you gain exposure.

Summary: Social networking sites are great sources for free website promotion and great tools to increase site traffic. This includes sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, etc. This article on the SEOCO Blog outlines not just which websites can help you, but also how much traffic each can generate. You should make sure to regularly post any good content (emphasis on good) you have on these social networking sites. However, don't spam these sites, as that is sure to hurt your company in the long-run. Just let them know, every once in a while, when you have valuable information you want to share with others.

Do you struggle with getting your site visibility? How can you rise above the clutter on the web?

Unfortunately, there is no simple answer. However, the most reliable answer is to provide your visitors with helpful content such as articles, research papers, use cases, etc. The reason is that if you sincerely help people, they will come back to you and they will tell their friends about you.

However, what if you have helpful content, but you still have no readers? Then consider posting your content to social networking sites that will let other internet users know that you have something valuable to share. This is an excellent free way to promote your website. Who doesn't want free website promotion?

SEOCO has a blog with an excellent list of social networking sites you can post to. I don't want to plagiarize their content, so rather than re-display their list, I am providing a link to the original article.

I hope you succeed at getting visibility for your website. If you need more help promoting your website, feel free to give me a phone call.

Well Written Press Releases Will Generate Traffic

Summary: Press releases are an excellent way to promote your company and website. My last press release was read by at least 745 readers over a period of 28 days. Spend some time thinking about what your company has done recently that is worth writing a story. Don't wait until you have earth shattering news to release a press release. You should release whenever you have news that you know some people will find interesting.

Have you written a press release in the last six months? If not, you're missing out on a good way to generate exposure for your company.

I was looking at the number of readers my last press release received and I was pleased. Within a period of 28 days my press release was read by 745 readers. To put this in perspective, if only 1% of readers end up attending one of my classes that would result in over $1,117.50 in new business. (Assumes a conservative estimate of $150 per attendee.)



You might be thinking, well $1,117.50 isn't much. But it only cost $80 to publish the press release. That would represent a return on investment of 1,397%!

Furthermore, this number of 745 readers doesn't even include the readers that read my press release as it was picked up by other websites. Even if these readers don't purchase automatically, it is still valuable to get my company's name and content in front of thousands of new readers.

Why am I telling you this? Is it to brag about my success with press releases? Not at all. It is to encourage you to try using a press release for your company. You may be pleasantly surprised at the success you achieve. To help you get started, I am including a link to PRWeb's explanation on writing press releases.

The best online service to use to release your news is PRWeb. You also want to try local newspaper or magazine editors. Also, if there are periodicals for your industry, send your press release to them directly. Editors are accustomed to receiving press releases directly in email or by snail mail; be tactful with your approach, but don't hesitate to contact them.

What can you write about? Here are some ideas:

1. New product releases.
2. New discoveries your company has made.
3. Company milestones (e.g. 1,000th customer, 100th employee, etc.).
4. New employee hires of note (e.g. new CFO or new Sales Director).
5. New office opening.
6. Store opening.
7. Customer success story.
8. Exciting ways customers are using your products or services.
   

The list could keep going, but hopefully you're starting to see the variety of press releases you can write.

So make it a goal to write a press release within the next month. Start getting your name in front of thousands instead of hundreds. Upload your press release to PRWeb and send it to newspaper and magazine editors in your local area or industry. A well written, interesting, press release will get results.

Additional Reading

Barebones Guide to Writing Successful Media/Press Releases
Submitting Press Releases to Help Search Engine Optimization
How to Write a Social Media Press Release

Your Website: You've built it, but they DON'T come...

Summary: Frustration about website sales is common. It isn't enough to have a website built for your business; you need to advertise your business through other means. This is the surefire way to generate website traffic and sales.

"I've spent lots of good money designing my website, but I'm not getting any phone calls! Can you help me?" This was the question I received on the phone this past October from a frustrated business owner. I was able to give him some ideas for which he was grateful. However, this story reveals a key point.

"Build it and they will come," does not apply to the internet. Why? Because, there are millions of websites on the internet. Thus, you must realize, your website is only one needle in a barn-sized haystack.

Among so much noise, how can your voice be heard? I have assembled a list of suggestions you should follow to grow traffic and sales. Go down each item on this checklist, and ask yourself, "Am I doing this already?"

1. Purchase a phone book advertisement. Customers looking for your service are more likely to find you in the phone book than using Google. (< $100 per month)
2. Purchase ads in local newspapers. Newspaper ads build awareness and motivate readers to check out your website. (< $300 per ad for a major newspaper)
3. Conduct a direct mail campaign. A good direct mail campaign can do wonders for awareness, but it is expensive. (< $2,000)

You might notice that a lot of these suggestions cost money. Unfortunately, the saying, "You have to spend money to make money," is very true on the internet. There are free methods, but most free methods take more time. Nevertheless, most of these suggestions are not as costly as you would think.

As always, make sure you calculate the costs before you invest money in any of these suggestions. Make sure you will make enough money from increased sales, to justify the advertising and marketing expenses.

By spending money in the right places you will increase your traffic. Increased traffic will lead to increased sales.