Increasing traffic to my webiste... discouraged

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Permalink Reply by Steve on June 11, 2009 at 4:52pm

OK, one thing you could do to drive a bit more traffic to your site, and also get noticed by web crawlers to try to increase your rankings in the search engines is to post messages in Events in the "Community" or the Events or Sm Biz Ads in the "business" section of Craigslist and Backpage. Make certain you put a link to your web site with description of the events. Downside is you may get some tacky emails but hey, that is what the delete button is for....
I think the more parties you book the more word of mouth advertising you will get so keep it up. Ever think of taking a booth or table at a Wedding Show? This is the time, actually a bit late but every town or any size has these events. Check out events that the chamber of commerce sponsors, some showcase small business in their town and surrounding areas. Look for any event where ladies may gather where you can advertise with handouts.
Keep at it!

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Permalink Reply by Laura Quillen on June 11, 2009 at 4:57pm

Thanks Steve! Great advise.. and I'll check out the Events as you suggested!

Laura

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Permalink Reply by Paul E. Jones on June 12, 2009 at 6:25am

One of the first questions I would have to ask Laura is what is your website about? Next would be who is your target? and next would be what do you want them to do.
I have been using the Internet to market for myself and my customers since Al Gore Invented it and I can tell you right now that each and every website is different. There is no stock answer to your question.
On mistake I see people make is think they can send e-mails and get traffic. I send thousands of e-mails a month through VR and other partners. Results will vary depending on what I am sending and what I want the results to be.
You are on the right path by using a service like VR for sure...now you just need to understand what it is you are trying to actually trying to get people to do. It is getting harder and harder to get through to people let alone get them to open, click and respond...
Paul

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Permalink Reply by Darcie on July 9, 2009 at 1:32am

I have been using VR for over a year now and have realized that the time of day and day of the week that I send my emails is CRITICAL. Maybe that is because of the nature of my business but it might be something for you to consider. Also, your subject line - make sure it is intriguing enough for people to want to open it. Next, testing, testing and more testing. It seems silly to do so much testing for a small business but you are on the right track by tweaking and refining your content. After awhile you will see what works and what doesn't.

Finally - a call to action. You need to make sure that your call to action is jumping out at your recipients. I use a web 2.0 style glass button in my emails along with an image, as well as several text links with compelling text (just in case the recipient has the images off) to drive the traffic to my site.

Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Ralph on July 9, 2009 at 11:03am

Sometimes it is the simplest of things, as others have mentioned make sure that the subject is suitable for your target audience. This seems to be the case for you however since you are complaining about clicks, one thing that I have found is that you cannot have too many hotlinks to your site. Every image, and every product or service related item should have a hotlink to that relevant page on you site, one generic link to your homepage is insufficient. Also make sure that the links are within the first few lines of the text. Many people write a letter with only links at the bottom; your potential customer has probably already written you off by now and will not scroll down the page, make sure that they can click within the first few lines and you will see a huge difference. I use approximately 6-8 hotlinks on a campaign and get on average a 40%-50% click rate, admittedly to a very targeted audience but still I've discovered that you have to give them a good reason to click or they won't. Perhaps a 'click here to see this week's special' or some other call to action.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Nygren on July 12, 2009 at 8:36am

These are all awesome suggestions and great advice and here's a little trick that has increased the open rate of my campaigns with very little effort. I have found that Only 20-30% of my list will ever even open any of my email I send them the first time.So what I do is take the list of people who didn't open my first email and send them the SAME mail again the next day with a different headline.Just a different headline. Takes about two minutes.It's simple but powerful.I find that for every 100 people that open my first email I will usually get about 50 to open the second and between 20-40 on my third an final mailing.Of course it depends on your list size on a large list you may be able to get a forth mailing but I usually now stop at three.

As for getting people to click through to your website one they open your emails may be greatly affected by the quality of your list and the relevance of your copy to their interests.

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Permalink Reply by Claire Alcock on July 14, 2009 at 11:32am

Hi Laura, Don't lose heart! What we find works well is to vary the content from month to month and really focus on headlines that promises answers to the burning questions you had about our topic the moment you click through.

Recently we launched a small business webinar series to help small business owners grasp the benefits of blogging and when we kept the headline broad e.g. "find out more about blogging for small business" the click through rate was lower than when we ran with a specific need being address e.g. - Find out the secrets of a professional blog design, or how to create a personal brand using a blog. Hope this helps a little.

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