Even without massive promotions or expensive advertising campaigns you can make a website audience can grow. Indeed, it seems to be quite common that sites can grow at a rate of 300% per year simply by adding lots of information that people want to read.
But in order to get this sort of growth, it is vital that you regularly add articles to your site, particularly articles which are more than just sales talk. In short you need articles which people who might buy your products or services might want to read.
For example, if you sell desks and chairs, articles about the different design of desks and chairs, and how the design affects behaviour, would be interesting.
If you would like to see a different example, you might care to take a look at one of the sites that my company runs.
This site sells directly to teachers, and also allows me and my colleagues to test out ideas in terms of marketing without making our clients the subject of our experimentation.
For example, you will see on the home page a list of articles. We try to add a new article each month or two, and then advertise its availability on our Facebook page and on our promotions to teachers and school managers.
Obviously the type of article varies according to what is for sale, but sometimes our promotions to schools have generated a click through rate of over 30%, simply because we are giving teachers information that they want.
Now the response I get sometimes to this idea is that we’re not selling anything through the articles, but that is only true up to a point.
What we are doing is making the site better known and encouraging teachers to think of our website when they have a question about dyscalculia. And there is no doubt that as a result some of our readers then do go on to buy from us.
This is not the sole part of the campaign, because I’d always agree that one needs to advertise via email as well, but it can add dramatically to the level of interest and the level of sales.
Of course, the more links you can create that lead into your website the better it is, but even so there still needs to be an ever growing number of articles on the site that will attract readers. The more you put up, the more readers you get.
Above all, if you can make your site look as if it is a helpful information site, rather than a site that exists only to sell, you will see the numbers rise.
Building a site that interests teachers (and indeed parents if they are part of your market) is not expensive nor difficult, but it really can make a huge difference to the number of people you reach.
If you would like to know more please do call 01604 880 927 or email Stephen@schools.co.uk We’re happy to talk about the way we approach websites and how we generate interest and awareness through them, without any obligation and certainly no charge.
