If a site isn’t getting traffic, it’s not going to make you money.
People can’t see a site if it’s not put in front of them, or if they see the main page but aren’t clicking beyond it then they aren’t seeing the sites full potential.
What it they’re shown your page, like it, but then nothing on it works?
Or, what if you have the product/service they want but aren’t giving them enough information, do you think they would stay?
Are your wheels turning yet?
Value
When I go to a blog, I want to know that it will offer me something that no other blog can offer me. It has to have some sort of value that I can’t get anywhere else. If your blog isn’t offering this value, then you are wasting your time and the time of readers.
Interest
What makes your blog interesting? There has to be something to make it stand out from every other blog. If you are doing what everyone else is doing, then you are just a rehash.
Unique
The topic, although the same, must be different in some way. There can be two articles written on the same topic and both article can give two different meanings. It is your job to make your content stand out.
Clutter
When I began blogging more than a decade ago, the more clutter was intriguing. Readers had plenty to click on and lots of places to go. The problem was that these clicks would lead them straight off your blog and onto another site. Fast forward to today and I have become wiser, or I hope I have.
Clutter is no good; it distracts the reader and junk doesn’t belong splashed all over your page. I see pages with Twitter feeds and Facebook feeds in their sidebars and have no earthly idea why they are there; this produces clutter and slows down the page when a social media button would suffice.
If someone wants to see your social media feed, put a social media button on your site.
Homework: Go to a few pages and see what you like and dislike about them. Compare them to yours and change your site to meet your needs. Look for other ways you might clear the clutter.
Grammar and Spelling Errors:
Last Thursday I visited a friend’s photography website and the first thing I noticed was her photos weren’t loading, the second was a short blurb or “About Me”, section below the images. The blurb was not a pleasant read. The grammar mistakes made me question if she had done what most first time website owners do and posted the first idea that entered her mind.
The purpose of a website owner is to get it seen by thousands, and so nothing on your page should be considered lightly. Website owners who are understanding this and paying others to create their “About Me” page for them. If you aren’t great at writing, perhaps you should outsource it to someone else.
Homework: Read over your site and run it through a grammar checker, or have a friend check it. Reading it aloud also helps. While reading, listen for unnatural pauses, these are often mistakes or where the content does not flow well. Rewrite as needed until you are satisfied.
Load Times
The three main browsers are Internet Explorer (Slowly integrating to Microsoft Edge), Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox; pull your site up on these three browsers and see how it loads. There are also websites you can use to check your load time. Visitors are impatient and won’t wait for a website to load when they could Google another site and get the information.
Homework:. If your site isn’t loading, figure out why. It could be something as simple as a new plugin, or maybe you need more bandwidth.
Clickable Links
Links can lead a potential customer to their targeted product. If a link isn’t working, they will search the internet for it and could go elsewhere to buy the product. Every link on your site should lead to somewhere and it’s your job to make sure they are working.
Homework: After making clickable links, check them. Check every product to see if they lead to the right page and the customer can buy the product without any problems.
You’re Just Not Putting Yourself Out There
I’m not talking spam either, but plain old fashion word-of-mouth advertisement. Social media has worked for over a million websites build their readership with consumers. If you haven’t danced on the gravy train, get to choo-chooing. Just because you build website doesn’t mean people will notice it.
If your site allows for a blog, or if your website is a blog, every time you update it post a link back to social media sites. The trick is to not bombard your social media followers.
An old friend told me that people grow tired of staring at the same material over and over and if an individual is friends with you on Facebook and follows you on Twitter, he doesn’t want to see the same thing. What I did was alternate between the two, and with Facebooks “post time-stamp” I can schedule my post so that I have all my new post going out to Twitter and older post going out to my Facebook page.
Domain Name
A domain name should be memorable, short, and say something about your site. If you have a blog on a free hosting site such as blogger and your name is your site.blogspot.com, it would be hard to remember. A site with a domain name such as yoursite.com is much easier to remember and looks more professional.
Domain names aren’t expensive and can be forwarded to free hosting sites like blogger, or you can pay for hosting and have more flexibility.
Homework: Weigh the pros and cons of having a domain name. Decide on one that suites your business, is short, catchy, and represents your product.
There Aren’t Any Prices or Estimates
Prices can either push a customer forward or drive them away. We live in a fast pace world where everything is in the here and now. If your blog doesn’t give them what they want, they will find someone that does. A business may not be able to give an exact number for a service, but they can give an estimate or a price range.
Customers are more likely to give the business a call if they know what to expect. If they don’t see a price or estimate, they will go somewhere else.
Saying something is between $129 – $229 and to call for an estimate is better than telling a customer to call for pricing. If you tell them to call, they will assume you are higher than the other ten websites who are offering the same service at $230.
Homework: Look at websites in the same genre as you and see how they compare What is it about them that would make you buy their product? Is it something you could integrate into your own website, is there something you could change to make yours better?
One more piece of advice.. I periodically go through my old post to check for grammar errors and to see if I can add anything of value to them. Reading my old post makes me smile at times since I can see how I’ve grown as a writer.