Think back to when you first launched your web site. The birthing metaphor is apt to describe the longer-than-expected gestation, then the emergency-room rush near the launch date. By the time the site goes live, everyone’s sick of the wait and just wants to see the darn thing out there in the world in all its adorable glory.
At this critical juncture, many companies do a funny thing. They abandon their site. Oh, they might spend hours pouring over page hits and statistics, but it’s easy to think that’s the same thing as working on your site. (Small companies tend to reach this stage with alarming speed. “I built a darn web site,” they think, “why aren’t new customers beating a path to my door?”) So all these orphaned web sites are just left in the cold.
Fact is, you can’t just shove a web site out on the street and expect it to attract hot prospects like a charm school valedictorian. You have to promote it, check in often, feed it a steady diet of NEW and RELEVANT CONTENT, and (can’t stress this enough) make some noise to drum up traffic.
Lots of ways to do this: First, make sure you keep the new content coming, to satisfy your customers who’ve actually made you a resource for improving their lives, solving their problems, getting their daily humor or wisdom, or whatever your web site is designed to deliver. Content-rich web sites are the ones that get used, and the ones that sell product. “Tell me something I don’t know” is the given expectation, and if you can deliver, bingo! Bookmarked! Sold! Blogged!
Second, promote the URL not just as a rote addition to any ad or packaging, but offer it as a solution to a problem or connect it to a topic of interest for whoever’s reading the ad. Landing pages are a great, inexpensive way to max out your ad relevancy, add content to your site, and grab a target audience’s attention/loyalty.
An example: Say you own Jen’s Bike Shop. You want to advertise your new top-of-the-line mountain bike in the local press. So you do up a nice quarter-page ad showing the tricked out bike, and you add: “Visit www.jensbikeshop.com/totallywickedtracks for a list of Jen’s favorite trails.”
Readers go to the landing page, which is of course on your site, and you give them great info on trails they might not know about, tell them how incredibly well this new bike handles on these trails, and lots of free tips. Link back to other pages that have relevance to such a reader, and see what happens. My guess is you’ve gone a long way in building trust and esteem–after all, you gave away free information they can’t get anywhere else! And now readers have a reason to walk into your shop for a test ride.
Main idea: Keep your web site vibrant and relevant, not on life support. And for heaven’s sake, don’t abandon it. Launching it is just the beginning.
Wily Dog Speaks! 