If You Just Build It, They Won't Come

Your company is not The Field of Dreams. If you're looking to bring Ray Liotta and a team of dead baseball players back to life for some pickup games in your backyard, then by all means, hit up Kevin Costner for some guidance. But, if you are a little saner than that, and are instead looking increase your web traffic (and your sales and leads along with it) then don't think that this ultra-cliched movie line applies to launching a new website.

Simply put, re-designing a site alone will not result in a drastic increase in web traffic. It can, and should help you change how visitors are converted into sales or leads once they've found your site, but if you want more visitors there's more to it.

Think of your website as a retail clothing shop. You want to give your customers a better experience (hopefully resulting in more sales) so you give the shop a complete makeover. You paint the walls, get some new lighting, move the cash register, and move the products you want people to buy to the front of the store. After all this, your customers tell you that things are easier to find, and they love the new look and feel of your shop... but you aren't really getting any more customers than you were before.

Well if you didn't increase or change your outward marketing and promotions, then how would new customers hear about and find your freshly re-vamped store? Re-designing your shop (or website) changes the customer's experience when they come in, but it doesn't really do anything to bring new customers by itself.

To bump up your traffic, there are a ton of tools your marketing team can utilize. Here's a quick rundown of some tactics that you should consider for driving more traffic (and these are by no means the only ways to do so):

1. Submitting to web directories - a quick Google search for "website directory" will give you a glimpse of what's out there. Some are free, some are pricey and there are plenty of industry specific choices as well. The biggest thing to keep in mind: do some thorough research before shelling out for any of the pricey ones.
2. Ongoing social media - Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are all pretty much household names these days for marketers. To be really useful for driving traffic though, time and effort (which is essentially the cost of your social media efforts) are needed to establish a presence and a voice for any social media site.
3. Regular newsletter blasts - services like Constant Contact and Mailchimp make it incredibly easy (and not too expensive) to send regular email newsletters with company news, new clients, or info about events and sales that can drive potential customers to your site. Just be careful of where you're getting your email addresses from (you should really only be using lists where people have opted-in to receive newsletters or other mailings) and don't send too often or your subscribers will dwindle quickly. Feel free to sign-up for the O3 World newsletter at the bottom left of this page.
4. A search engine optimization (SEO) or search engine marketing (SEM) campaign - one of the most popular and proven ways to increase traffic ways to your site... but a successful SEO campaign can be pricey and definitely requires some patience. And if you have the budget, using a company that specializes in SEO is typically a good route to go.

In the end of the day, you should have a solid mix of tactics for driving traffic to accompany your website because there's no absolute best way to do it... what works for some doesn't always work for others. A little trial and error (and patience) is typically the best way to find out what gets your site good results. Re-designing your site alone doesn't cut it.

Have a success story for increasing traffic to your site? What worked best for you?