Attract Customers to Your Website!
What do you need to do to attract customers to your website? This question we get asked the most. But success here, is more of a process rather than a pat answer. And it deserves special attention because this is the reason you are online in the first place, right?
Just as in the bricks and mortar world there are numerous tactics you can implement to attract customers to your shop depending on your line of business. And so it is on the web.
Most web and direct marketing statistics tell us that 1% of your visitors will actually BUY from you. Only 1%. You can achieve higher results, see the section called Make Sales; but if we are conservative and use this as a guideline, you can quickly calculate how many targeted visitors you’ll need to attract before you will start making your revenue projections.
Here’s a chapter from one of our Web Marketing Courses. It might surprise you!
Download our little Revenue Predictor Calculator to play around with the number of visitors, price points, conversion rates and revenue! We use this tool regularly to keep everyone motivated!(right click to save the Excel Spreadsheet)
But the very basics to attract customers to your site work like this:
1) Conduct your online market research using the key search terms that people use when they search for information on the Web. This is the keyword research that we talk about all the time. For more resources see the Resources Page. Ask yourself, if I were looking for my service or product what would I type into Google? Then ask all your friends.
Use the free tools such as goodkeywords.com first, but don’t rely on them. They are simply a place to start. Once you have confirmed your hunches using these freebies, take the plunge and get a one week subscription to Wordtracker. It’ll cost you about $30 but it is the best money you’ll ever spend on market research. It what we use every single day on online promotion and web marketing projects.
2) Based on these results create highly informative and unique content that answers the searchers’ questions and shows them how your product or service solves their problem. Write one page (article) for each of your best keywords – key phrases actually – with the goal of educating and informing your visitor. Do not try to sell them anything – yet!
3) Write your content in an engaging and appealing way – you must make connections with your site visitors to “convert” them to customers. Writing for the web is very different from other media.
Visitors tend to skim your site, so recognise that
- short paragraphs work best;
- bold important points;
- use lots of bullets
- and sub headlines.
And keep the tone of your words genuine. Don’t succumb to the “we we we syndrome.” We are the best….we have the cheapest….we do this…. You’ve read sites like the no doubt. Boring. Like going on a date with a person who just talks about them selves all night long. Yawn!
No, to attract customers your words must convey your interest in them, and an understanding of their motivation for being on your site – the problem they are seeing answers for. Use you you you! What you can do for them – remember WIIFM? What’s in it for me?
And then tap into the emotional frequencies that get people nodding their heads; that get them fired up. When they are emotionally engaged, they feel good and when they feel good they will buy.
4) Don’t forget your Call to Action. You may know this as the “buy before midnight tonight” tagline on late night infomercials. But it’s also used everywhere else too. Look through your Yellow Pages ads. Many of them will have an invitation to call for more information, call to set up an appointment etc.
These are calls to action. And psychologically we humans need them. We respond to direct commands. And as we read the sentence the commands us to act, we are more likely to act.
5) Minimize the risk. Buying online can be a scary act. Make it a breeze, by reversing the risk associated with the unknown. This may be a guarantee of some kind if you’re selling a product or a service level commitment. But the customer should know that if they buy and their not happy, you have a plan to make it right.
And there you have it, Easy, right!? Not quite? Keep reading, next up is How to sell by not selling.