/Big Question/ Packing them in
03/02/2009 | Filed under Discover > Big Question
What do you see as the key ways to attract visitors to your site in 2009?
Web designer
Andy Clarke
Stuff and Nonsense Ltd
It’s simple. Write great content, content that people are going to love and love to link to. Give them something useful, remarkable, indispensable. Then publish that content in as many places as you can. Nothing makes a customer keep returning to a site like great content.
Andy is a member of the Web Standards Project, and an “Invited Expert” to the W3C’s CSS Working Group
B3ta guy
Rob Manuel
B3ta
Pornography and money-off vouchers
Rob is co-founder of the ‘best of the web’ site B3ta
Web analyst
Phil Sumner
Nielsen Online
The fundamentals in 2009 won’t be changing. Some of these include: keeping the site simple, clear pricing, decent search functionality and good pictures. For any commercial site, the ability to listen and allow customers to give feedback and interact will be a key way to set a site apart from its competition.
Pro-active, real time, 100 per cent available and reliable customer service will help sites create a loyal base of repeat visitors and customers. If listening becomes an effective way of marketing then it could allow a lot of smaller players to grow rapidly without a large (or in fact any) marketing budget.
Phil Sumner is account manager at Nielsen Online
Search guru
Gary Reid
The Search Works
Natural search will be one of the key ways to drive visitors in 2009. The opportunity is still huge, with many keywords having less than one per cent of websites optimised correctly for search. Crucial to gaining visits from natural search will not only be where you rank, but more importantly ranking for key terms that fit the demographic profile of your website, in addition to optimising creative copy to ensure the maximum click-through rate. The quick win for 2009 will be universal search. Utilising maps, video, local business listings, blog search and Google News will be key to dominating search results with content that potential visitors will click on. To further boost ethical SEO, the value of some ‘tricks’ such as buying links will be further eroded, making it easier for those who make great content to rank in the search results. Building authority will be less about buying links and more about joining the conversation.
Gary Reid is director of search performance at The Search Works
Content specialist
Craig Hepburn
Open Text
Get engaged and be useful! It’s no longer enough to expect search engines, display media and web ads to drive demand to your website on their own: you’ll need to inject a dose of personality and innovation to stand out from the crowd. Why not create a social marketplace through communities like www.dellideastorm.com and encourage your employees to engage with your customers or look to include rich media such as video or podcasts to differentiate yourself from the competition?
Craig Hepburn is head of digital strategy at Open Text Web Solutions Group
Hosting specialist
Neil Barton
Hostway, UK
I believe that 2009 will see a great deal of innovation in viral marketing and website design, despite the adverse economic conditions. Indeed, these conditions may well act as a catalyst to drive companies to bring more visitors to their sites because of the heightened need for revenue. One tool that website designers need to use in order to accomplish this is online video.
Most domestic broadband connections are capable of handling relatively high-quality video, and designers today shouldn’t limit themselves to simple images and text. Whether selling games, DVDs or holidays, video can provide a far more in-depth insight into products and services than pictures and descriptions, and if used well, will almost certainly attract more visitors.
However, web designers do need to remember that they will need to provision more bandwidth, and if they are expecting visitors from around the world, look into solutions such as content delivery networks in order to provide good video experience regardless of location. After all, one sure way of repelling visitors from a site is to have a clunky, unresponsive website that freezes because you’ve got huge bulky images or a video that takes minutes to load.
Neil is the director of Hostway UK
Hosting provider
Neil Hodson
1&1 Internet Ltd
Content will be a key driver in the year ahead. Surfers today are increasingly demanding and judgmental about the sites they use. Web designers need to invest in relevant and dynamic content that can earn consumers’ committed interest. The ability for web users to collaborate more and contribute greater content on corporate websites I believe will also be a big issue in the coming year.
Neil Hodson is UK general manager at 1&1 Internet
Hosting expert
Steve Holford
Fasthosts
SEO activity will be more extensive and rigorous in 2009. In response to the challenging economy, the role of SEO will be explored by a far wider spectrum of website owners in an effort to reduce marketing expenditure and increase visitor traffic. In addition to the usual well-publicised wranglings of large corporates, smaller players will tackle strategies for content-driven SEO and relevancy.
Steve Holford is chief marketing officer at Fasthosts
Web standards guru
Christian Heilmann
Yahoo
The basics haven’t changed: have great content, semantically structured
and update frequently. The difference nowadays is the channels – you don’t wait for search engines to index you or beg or buy inbound links but you use social networks instead. I find that a Twitter update mirrored in Facebook with the Twitter application results in a lot of visitors. The more interesting question is whether we should aim for numbers or for reaching the right people, but that is another problem.
Christian works for Yahoo as a web developer
Software specialist
Siim Vips
Modera
With the recession in full swing, business owners will be putting greater emphasis on more cost-effective and measureable services.
In such challenging and competitive times, businesses need to have the site in order first, before they take the steps to drive traffic to it. They need to audit it and ensure that it works from the first visit through to providing the product or service to the end user. Beyond this, it’s all about building a strong rapport with your consumer base, so customer service is paramount, especially beyond the sale.
For small, medium and large organisations alike, there are few options that are likely to be more readily available for them to employ. Search is still regarded as a main driver and with a number of tools to assist marketers. Software such as Google Webmaster Tools (and Google Web Analytics) should be at the top of the list that can be the beginning in getting to know how a website is performing. Businesses should arming themselves with this information before natural search (search engine optimisation or SEO) is adopted in line with any paid models such as pay-per-click (PPC) to ensure the efforts are integrated and seamless.
With so much interest in social media last year, it’s obviously going to be a key player throughout 2009. There’s a plethora of apps, tools and widgets and many have the potential to be both traffic and brand builders. Get it right and reap the benefits, get it wrong and you may dilute your brand quicker than you can blink. Don’t forget ‘older’ mediums such as online PR, viral marketing and email marketing. These are closely related to social media and if managed properly, can be brought in seamlessly. At Modera, not only have we brought their essence into the development of our modules, we have provided developers with the components to create, build upon them and generate revenue from their success.
Some of my top tips to keep ahead and drive consistent, relevant and repeat traffic to websites are:
1. Plan ahead. Build and long-term online strategy and integrate traditional approaches. Over-used and rarely implemented well, the key word is integration.
2. Bring technology into your services and localise your efforts. Many content management systems (CMSs) and customer relationships management systems (CRM) are geared up to manage online marketing but fall at the last hurdle: make sure yours is working harder for you.
3. Look to incorporate and educate all areas of the business from advertising, marketing, PR and sales through planning to delivery.
4. Measure, analyse, reassess and modify accordingly as the environment changes.
5. Play to your strengths and find more solid niches and market to them, especially for your environment, and seasonal and trend demand.
Siim Vips is founder and CEO of Modera
Ecommerce expert
Ben Dyer
Actinic
If I were to coin a phrase to sum up my ‘09 web hopes, it would be “One bite and you’re hooked”. It’s what I call zombie content. The days of people just expecting to have a good user experience is so last week. 2009 is all about making it personal.
So how would I use this principle to attract more visitors? Well that’s simple. Make it easy for someone to be part of your content. Embed common services such as Facebook Connect, OAuth or Open ID. Bridge the gap between a user’s personal online world and yours. It’s a surefire way of pulling them in.
If you’re selling stuff, the zombie principle applies even more! Attract and encourage a higher order value by making sure that you have both personal and relevant offers. Don’t just discount blindly, give them a generous deal if they commit more. Entice them in, make it compelling. It should only take one bite.
And most basic, but incredibly relevant right now – always listen to visitors and act on their advice. Getting your customers recommending your site is the most powerful business generator imaginable.
Ben Dyer is director of product development at Actinic
PART TWO
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Comments
Jim Doane / 15/02/2009 / 21:02 / http://www.internetmarketingforcompanies.com
Web marketing for 2009 will rest on 5 pillars and one foundation. As has been noted, the foundation of website marketing is its content.
The 5 pillars are PPC/paid traffic, organic search, social networking, mobile marketing, and site visual creative/functionality. I break out a site's visual component from its "content" because presentation directly affects traffic through word-of-mouth, back-links, image search and video search. Its important that companies start actively managing presentation as a separate element from content.
How a business tracks and manages these elements will determine success and the price paid to reach it.
Albert / 20/02/2009 / 07:41 / http://www.marketopinions.blogspot.com
I believe being in a network like associating with social networking groups such as DIggs, and Stumble Upon are great ways to publicize your site to many. Also, contents and relationship building is a huge factor in maintaining your readers as well as getting ranked high in the search engines.
Online Driver Education / 05/01/2010 / 09:53 / http://www.drivereducation-online.com
What you have said is 100% correct. Writing some thing which is interesting or hot topic or it might be about some thing which is not know by many people will for sure become popular. That is that blog or the site will be linked by many people who wants others who come to there site or blog to read too. So always prepare content which is interesting and informative.
