Web site Promotion | Website Development

You Won't Necessarily Get Customers - Just Because You Have a Website

It goes without saying, doesn't it? You get someone to build you a website (usually paying hundreds if not thousands of pounds) and then you get customers from it. If only it was that simple! I know lots and lots of small business owners who haven't got a single customer from their website and are completely demoralised and frustrated by the whole thing. So, how do you get customers from your website?

Well, the first step is for people to find your website. There are tons of websites already in existence and it would be easy for your site to get lost in cyberspace if you're not careful. Search Engine Optimisation companies will promise you the earth in getting the search engines to find your site quickly and easily, but it doesn't always work like that.

For Google and all the other search engines to find your site, you'll need to add not only KEY WORDS in your website - the words that tell everyone what you're about (in my case, they would be things like small business, marketing, start-ups etc), but also LINKS.

We've all seen links before. In your website, they'll be the words that are underlined and in blue and when you click on them, they take you to another page. They are internal links within your site. External links are those links which are on someone else's website and when clicked take you to your site.

The way the search engines work is that they say the more links you have, the more popular your site is and the more popular you are, the more you'll be promoted to the top of search engines. You can get links to your site by swapping links with other people, writing articles and tips sheets with links to your site, posting on forums and blogs, having a newsletter with links to your site and so on.

If you build up your links, not only will you be found on search engines, but you'll also build your reputation up around the internet.

Ok, so you've got people to your site. What do you do with them once they're there? Well, at the moment, you probably don't know the names and contact details of those people who are looking at your site unless they directly contact you. But, if you had something of value to give them like subscribing to a newsletter, joining a membership scheme or putting a question to an expert, chances are they may give you their contact details in return for access to this. If they provide you with their contact details, they are telling you they're interested in whatever you have to offer.

Your job now is to find out how interested they are. So, you need to start following up with that person by sending them free reports, your newsletter or other things of value. Apparently, it takes an average of 7 contacts with the same person before they buy anything, so you'll need to keep slowly following up with them and building that relationship.

Having a website is definitely not as simple as putting it out there and hoping it will do the job for you. You have to take some actions in order to make it work for you. But, provided you're willing to spend a bit of time and energy building this side of your business, you will find that you end up getting customers from your website.