Bigfork Present: Planning for Relevant Traffic Part of our successful website planning process is to look at driving relevant traffic to the new website. This article looks at why and how we decide to drive relevant traffic and what it means for the planning process. Why plan for relevant traffic before the website exists? Getting relevant traffic to your site isn t something to start thinking about after going live, it s as much part of the planning process as developing a strategy and customer profiling. The outcome of your decisions at this stage has a major impact on your website structure so it s something that should be done before design has even started. Planning for relevant traffic means that your website will be ready to receive targeted visitors, aka warm leads, who will be easier to convert into sales or potential customers. Not planning on how you re going to drive traffic often results in having to squeeze new pages into the website in response to new campaigns. Apart from being harder to manage, this can quickly ruin conversion rates with poor visitor experience. Remember: people can find your site in many different ways and you should never sacrifice one part of your website for another. Even if you have no immediate plans for all of your chosen traffic driving tactics, you should still make allowances for building them in at a later date. Some examples You decide that Google Adwords campaigns will be a key source of traffic, so you ll need landing pages for the adverts. These may be pages that are created specifically for an advert, or existing pages on your website, for example product pages can be ideal as landing pages. Sometime in the near future you plan to use email marketing campaigns as a traffic driver. The emails will encourage people to visit your website to continue reading articles that you start in the newsletters. This means you ll need to have an area on your website to feature these articles. 1
Bigfork Present: Planning for Relevant Traffic How to formulate your plan Hopefully we ve convinced you that your website design needs to take into account your traffic driving methods, this is step one. The next step is to decide on the best tactics for you to drive relevant traffic to your website. It all starts with your customer. Fortunately, our handy article on Customer Profiling discusses how to decide who your customers are, so if you haven t done this then take a look at this article: http://www.bigfork.co.uk/news/view/customer-profiling-for-fun-and-profit Once you have developed customer profiles, you need to work out the best ways to reach them. Interrogating your profiles Finding out the best methods to reach your customers can be done by asking two questions about each of your profiles: What media do they use (online and offline)? For example if your customers are B2B then they are likely to use Email, Search Engines, industry websites and LinkedIn. A consumer audience may use Facebook, Google, Twitter and YouTube. Don t forget offline media such as newspapers, radio and TV. Offline can be just as effective as online for some types of customer when it comes to driving traffic to your website. What is their behaviour online? How does the customer look for your products or services? A Google search is a common starting point, though asking questions on social media sites is becoming increasingly common. Try searching for your own products and services for a better idea of how people might be looking for you. Experiment with Google s search tools to restrict searches to certain types of website and within specific time periods. Do searches on Twitter for relevant conversations, find interest or industry groups on Facebook and forums, and as always, check out what the competition is up to. At the end of this research you should have a broad idea of how you can reach your customers and what measures to take to help them find you. 2
Traffic Maps: PPC Once you ve decided where to concentrate your traffic driving, what tactics can you employ and what do you need to have on your website to convert this traffic? Our traffic maps reveal the main tactics. Pay Per Click (PPC) Ads Where can they be used? Search Engines (Google Adwords, BingAds) Relevant website (Google Display Network) Facebook LinkedIn What are the benefits? Control over your ad content and multiple variations allow for testing and fine-tuning Can help build awareness even if ads aren t clicked Clicks and conversions can be tracked with analytics tools to establish ROI How to convert visitors? Catchy copywriting and where relevant, a great graphic. Your ads should describe what you re offering and get across why people should click on yours in a concise fashion. Make sure they don t build unrealistic expectations, this will just waste your budget with high bounce rates Landing pages that are designed specifically for PPC ads. These could be specific to the campaign or could be an existing page such as special offers. The aim of landing pages is to convert traffic to sales / enquiries / leads don t just send people to your home page! Product pages on ecommerce websites can also work well as landing pages for PPC campaigns. If you re planning on doing this, make sure that your product pages work as standalone sales pitches with clear calls to action (this is good practice even if you re not using them for PPC) Notes While PPC is often the most effective form of paid online advertising, your may find other approaches could work for your customers, such as targeted banner ads on niche websites. It all depends on your customer profiles. 3
Traffic Maps: SEO We re only covering online media with our Traffic Maps. Don t forget offline tactics such as the press, radio, TV and direct mail, these can also be successfully used to direct customers to your website. Search Engine Optimisation Where can this be used? Mainstream Search Engines (Google, Bing) Specialist Search Engines Industry Directories What are the benefits? With a good ranking, natural listings can be the biggest source of traffic for many websites No extra costs for your listing appearing and being clicked on How to convert visitors? Write your page titles and meta tags to grab attention and encourage clicks Higher rankings for relevant keywords means more exposure, more clicks and more conversions Appear in relevant searches by optimising your website structure and content to be search engine friendly and include targeted keywords Attract more visitors with unique and interesting content, such as articles, blogs, promotions, free content or whatever is suitable to your business. Again, targeted keywords to drive relevant traffic is the key but don t create content for content s sake, it should always add value Notes Think about how you can get more exposure in search listings, especially Google. Facebook pages, Twitter profiles, YouTube videos, forum posts, reputable business directories, blogs all these things can make it into the rankings as well as your main website. 4
Traffic Maps: Email Marketing Email Marketing Where can this be used? Everywhere! It s all down to your mailing lists. What are the benefits? Opt-in mailing lists backed up with good emails can have greatly above average conversion rates Even without clicks, a good mailing list can help maintain brand awareness You can track who opens your emails, when, where and on what device Going beyond that, you can track users all the way to your website and measure conversions How to convert visitors? Never ever use a bought list. They have poor open rates, even poorer response rates and carry a much higher risk of being flagged as spam On the other hand, a well built opt-in email list can work brilliantly Use a well planned email marketing strategy, think about factors like frequency, branding, content and calls to action Provide people with content that interests them but never give the full details, take them to your website for that. This helps engagement and makes their interest measurable Notes It s worth repeating, but paid lists are a big no. Apart from being a waste of money, spam complaints can lead to your email marketing account being terminated. If you would like to know more about email marketing, we ve produced a handy guide that you can download for free here: http://www.bigfork.co.uk/news/view/successful-email-marketing-design 5
Traffic Maps: Social Media Social Media Where can this be used? Facebook Twitter YouTube Pinterest Google+ and beyond What are the benefits? Social media allows direct interaction with your target market Allows you to build audiences in niche markets Retweets / shares / repins / +1 s etc allow your content to spread virally How to convert visitors? As with every traffic driving tactic, it all starts with great content. You need to give people a reason to like / follow / circle you. If you need a quick boost then bribery in the form of competitions can work, but you still need to keep people interested beyond that Interaction is key, if your customers are using social media to contact you then replies should be in minutes or hours, not days With a few notable exceptions (product offers, job adverts), social media rarely leads to direct conversions. Instead you should measure results by comparing your visitor behaviour with the same data from before your social media campaign Related to the above point, number of followers / likes / shares / retweets is not a measure of success. Campaigns should be measured in terms of brand or product awareness, which can be monitored through changes in website behaviour and by social monitoring tools Notes Social media websites are free to sign up to but that does not mean a good social media campaign costs nothing. Like any other traffic driving method, it needs a strategy, it needs content and it needs people to run your accounts. Scheduled updates are fine but they need to be reinforced with interaction and engagement it s not strictly business with social. 6
Traffic Driver Examples #1 Here are some traffic driving tactics examples for two fictional companies, one consumer and one B2B. We re using sample profiles that we developed in our Bigfork Guide to Customer Profiling to show how it ties together. Green Shoot Gardening Centre (Consumer) Rachel, Gardening Enthusiast Female, aged 28-40, professional, medium to high income, lives within 15 miles of our outlet. Frequent internet usages and often uses: Google search Facebook Online shops Local news sites In terms of our product they are interested in: Offers Gardening advice Plant information, what to buy and when Online ordering Our Traffic Driver Tactics Optimise our website using keywords based around our brand name, area and garden centre Write regular website articles on gardening and seasonal advice, then promote the articles through email marketing and social media Run special offers and competitions exclusive to our email list, encourage people to sign up to the list through social media and in-store leaflets Set up a Facebook page and gain likes through promotion on the website, in-store and by contacting our email database. The page will include unique content such as picture galleries, seasonal advice and Facebook-only offers Contact local news sites and offer to write guest gardening articles for free in exchange for including a link to our website 7
Traffic Driver Examples #2 Our customer profiles make it really easy to find out who are customers are and what they want / need, so traffic driver tactics should mostly follow naturally! The Easy IT Company (B2B) Frank, Small Business Owner Male aged 45+, owns a small business within 50 miles of the Easy IT Company. Uses internet for business including finding suppliers, preferred channels are: Google search Social media contacts LinkedIn connections and recommendations Business events and exhibitions are important for generating new leads and making new contacts. Our Traffic Driver Tactics Optimise our website for keywords based around IT services and our location Create a Google Local listing with our business details and link it to a Google+ page that we can use to post latest news and updates. Ask existing customers to leave reviews on our listing to help establish credibility Send regular email newsletters to our list which includes existing clients and sales leads generated from enquiries, networking and exhibitions. The emails are focused on IT issues and solutions for businesses with articles that link to content on our website Establish a presence on LinkedIn, actively posting in relevant LinkedIn groups to start / join discussions and answer questions, especially on IT subjects Start using Twitter regularly, tweeting information based around IT news and gadgets (but not going overboard on that latest idevice!) as well as content we ve created for the email newsletters. Also joining in conversations with local businesses to help get our name around 8
And Finally To conclude, gaining relevant traffic is really important and should be planned during the early stages of your website process. While planning ahead is vital, there s only so far you can look into the future, so be sure to take advantage of relevant traffic driving opportunities as they arise. For example, a new species of plant could be discovered or a local gardener could win an award for shrubbery of the year, both of these stories could be used by Green Shoot Gardening Centre as a starting point for driving relevant traffic (think blog posts, Facebook updates, local press releases, related offers). The Easy IT Company might take advantage of the latest Windows release and produce a quick guide for new users, showing where things have moved to and provided tips and tricks for day to day tasks. This information could then be promoted through SEO to gain natural backlinks and distributed through LinkedIn and Twitter to establish expertise and help their name stick in people s minds. 2012 Bigfork Tel: 01603 513080 www.bigfork.co.uk 9