After months of preparation and hard work, you finally have a website you’re proud of. Surely, it will resonate with your target audience and deliver the results you have planned for.
But the website goes live, and weeks later, you’re disappointed.
You wonder why you haven’t heard from any customers, prospects, or readers. You assume it’s time to make some changes to your website, but have no idea how to edit it. And then, you wonder if anyone is actually visiting your website in the first place!
Drive Traffic to Your Website
The first step to overcoming (or avoiding) your disappointment is to employ an ongoing and multi-faceted campaign to drive traffic to your website. This can be accomplished through blogging; social networking (Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.); search engine optimization; email; and even traditional forms of advertising and public relations.
Connect the Dots with Web Analytics
Next, you’ll want to use Clicky or Google Analytics to help determine if and how your promotional efforts are paying off. For example, which marketing channels (e.g., Facebook, Google, Linkedin, etc.) are delivering quality visitors? Did you see a spike in traffic after running that pay-per-click ad campaign?
Keep Your Content Fresh
Hopefully, your web designer recommended and employed the use of a Content Management System like WordPress to make it easier for you to edit your website and publish content on a regular basis. Still it is wise to plan for some training and ongoing assistance from your web designer. Otherwise, the last thing your visitors will want to see is outdated information.
Optimize Performance with Regular “Tune-ups”
Many popular Content Management Systems like WordPress are free. However, they do require regular software updates to improve security and performance. You’ll also want to create a backup strategy in the event your website is hacked, or, if you need to revert to an earlier version. Again, you’ll want to work with a web designer or web developer who can take care of these things for you, on a regular basis.
Hopefully, you will have read this post before you had your website created, but if not, all is not lost! A website is very dynamic in nature. Your business and marketing strategy will change over time, and you’ll continue to learn how to improve the experience for your visitors.