Re-Vamping your Website

Getting people to click onto your site is one step- the next step is re-vamping your website to make it traffic-worthy. You are re- releasing your website back into cyber space. To make sure you are ready for the grand cyber-opening, follow these heavy weight traffic-generating tips.

• Conduct a survey- everyone wants to put in their two cents and with a survey, they can. You can conduct a survey about your niche both on and off line. Publish the results on your website.
• Bookmark - Add a De.lic.ious, Facebook and any other bookmark to your website for easy access from social networking to your webpage.
• Include Forums or Comments for your clients- another great way to generate traffic on your site is to include a customer-friendly forum or comment center where your customers can put in their two cents. Ask questions, set up online chat rooms or games and give your niche market a reason to come to your site. If they are a part of the action, they will most likely visit.
• Include testimonials- let your potential customers see what others have said about your product or service. Testimonials can help your customers make that final decision about what to do- although the traffic is already there, testimonials help push this traffic into actual profit and sales.
• Offer something for free (if you can) - everyone loves free stuff. A website that offers free goods is a website that gains traffic. Think of it like this- more people are likely to stop by a Baked Goods store if they are offering a small sample table where they can taste a piece of Danish. You cannot exactly give away Danishes in cyber space. However, you can give away information such as eBooks or online coupons to use in stores or through the e-cart checkout. Be creative.
• Make sure your contact information is widely available- many people use the Internet as their yellow page directory. Often they are simply using your website as a way to find your store location or your contact information. So include this important information on the main page, bolded so everyone can easily see it.
• Change the content frequently - make sure you are always updating your websites. This is important as a way to compete with the other constantly changing World Wide Web. Set up a certain time once a week or once a month where you completely re-vamp your website. Keep the logistics the same (for easy navigation), but feature different products, offer different sales, and include a news feed with various publications and events.
• Offer various ways to contact you- phone is not good enough anymore. More people are turning to the web for contact information. So, instead of just including a phone number, you need to include an email address, Skype, MSN and anything else that you are a part of.
• Pictures, pictures and more pictures- websites with pictures are proven to be more successful. In fact, aim for at least one to two pictures on every webpage. Pictures bring color and vividness to your website. If you have a catalogue of various products, make sure you include pictures of these different products. This is a great way to multiply your traffic and your ROI.
• Make your website user-friendly- perhaps Granny is not going to be your main niche market; however, consider the fact that not everyone grew up in the cyber-savvy world. Some of your customers may not be familiar with browsing, YouTube, Facebook and other Internet phenomena’s. That’s why you need to ensure that your website is as simple and easy to use as possible. If it’s not, no one, not even the super-savvy will put in the effort to find what they are looking for. They will simple click onto the next search option on the list.
• Create a Custom 404 page- no one likes to see that ugly ‘Page Error” page. With a custom 404 page you can re-direct your customers somewhere nice if there is a broken link or the web hosting is down. This is much nicer than that annoying ‘Error’ page.
• Set up a 301 re-direct page- another great idea is to get a 301 re- direct page that can take traffic from your non www. Address to your www address. Some web hosting companies offer 301 re- direct pages with their plans. However, you can also search online for 301 re-direct page options.
• Use an easy to navigate menu option- there is nothing more frustrating than having to look for the information that should be right in front of you. Make it simple by always including a Menu tab on the left hand side, or across the top. Your customers do not want to waste their time scanning through pages trying to find what they want. So keep it simple!
• Spell check- avoid silly errors by spell checking all content that goes on your site. If you don’t, then you can end up looking unprofessional. Furthermore, it’s incredibly annoying to have to go back, edit and re-launch because of the wrong ‘there.’ So get it right the first time and spell check.
• Buy enough hosting- there are many different web-hosting plans out there. In fact, it is quite overwhelming picking the right company and web-hosting plan. Make sure you choose something that offers enough bandwidth per month that your customers will not have to succumb to a slow website. If you find the website is simply too slow, upgrade or think of switching web hosting companies to something a little more advanced and reliable.
• Respond quickly to enquiries- if someone emails you looking for answers give them the answers they need, in less than 24 hours. You need to be on the ball when it comes to email enquiries.
• AND FINALLY…. Test your site - it’s one of the simplest tips we can offer you, but it’s also one of the most important. You need to make sure everything is absolutely 110 percent perfect before you launch.