nsEARCH ENGINES
Register with search engines and directories. They are the backbone of Internet marketing and can bring in high volumes of traffic.
nwEb LINKS
Establish Web links with complementary associations and other companies.
nLITERATURE
Make sure your Web site address appears on every item of internal and external literature and stationery.
ntraditional media
Print is the strongest off-line way for visitors to learn about your site. Ensure your Web site address features prominently.
ncontent
Develop information or features that are useful to your customers and unique to your organisation.
nPR
For something really newsworthy, issue a news release. However, journalists are tiring of press releases waxing lyrical about Web sites, so only do this if you’re really sure or it could backfire.
nE-LETTERS
Create a mailing list from site visitors and use this to publish really useful e-letters.
nCOMPETITIONS
Launch a competition that can only be entered by a visit to your site.
nBANNER ADVERTISING
Traditionally held to be a key traffic driver, banners are still considered important but have mixed responses today.
nMEDIA sOURCE INFORMATION
Track how your visitors arrived at your site and use this information to improve your performance.
AS SOON as you’ve set up your Web site, there’s a tendency to feel you’ve achieved your objectives and can now put a tick next to the word Web site on your to do list. Well, sorry but that was the easy bit. The real hard work, and the fun, starts now.
As you will have spent considerable time and money developing your site, its essential people visit it and building traffic will now be your single most important task. Your objective is to tell your audience about your site, where to find it and why they should visit it.
The beauty of the Internet is that it is infinitely measurable and infinitely changeable. You should aim to try out many things and monitor the relative successes and failures of each one. You will then see which ideas are driving traffic to your site and can focus future activities in these areas.
Today there is so much competition and so many different Web sites available. The worst thing you can do is to try and copy another site.
A strategy of differentiation will help create high levels of awareness through word of mouth. It gets people talking about you and gets you noticed.
For example, our recently launched Italian division created a special holiday to New Zealand to see Italy’s Luna Rossa compete in the final of the America’s Cup. They set up an auction on their site so that people could place bids for the holiday which captured the hearts and minds of the public and the press, generating high levels of site traffic.
Content is another way of differentiating and getting people to visit sites and with their unique access to focused information, this is where specialist tour operators and agents can really excel.
By producing really unique information that no-one else has access to and publicising it on your Web site, you can be seen to be offering an extremely useful service and adding value for your customers.
Two other key activities that you should definitely follow up on are registering with search engines and publishing newsletters.
Search engines are really important in helping you maximise your site traffic. They can put your Web site in front of potential visitors who are interested in what you have to offer and are a good way of maximising your audience size. The actual registration process is quite challenging and you should take care with exactly how you register.
Newsletters on the other hand are marketing manna from heaven. Used carefully they are a good way of reminding visitors what you have to offer and are useful for letting your customers know important news that’s relevant to their needs. Unfortunately, there are many instances where they have become simply junk mail undesirable and unread.
With so many opportunities for building traffic to your site, it can seem an easy task. In fact its quite hard work that requires constant refining, ideally on a daily basis, to ensure what you are publishing is current. But it should also be fun. Get it right and you will see the results.