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smaran
Joined: Apr 27, 2006
# Posts: 68
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Posted: 11/07/2006 03:56 am
Hi All,
I have been following flying rose's posts on website design and usability thoroughly. At this point i need help from you guys.suggest your thoughts and views on increasing traffic?
I mean we are getting traffic from various sources like search engines, blogs, forums, reciprocal sites, directories, social book marking, Google base, local etc… Most of the traffic from reciprocal sites & directories is not convertible or useful. There is a need to generate more convertible traffic. Other than the above methods please suggest me with more ideas in increasing the traffic.
We do not do any PPC or run AD campaign for our site.
Any further help is appreciated.
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flyingrose
Moderator
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 11/09/2006 01:10 am
What do you want the visitors to your site to do? What traffic is converting now?
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smaran
Joined: Apr 27, 2006
# Posts: 68
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Posted: 11/09/2006 01:56 am
we are quote providers and we need people to fill the form. presently the amount of converting traffic is almost negligible.
Thanks
Smaran
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SportsGuy
Moderator
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3586
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Posted: 11/09/2006 04:57 am
Are you asking for too much information on the form? It's been shown that asking for lots of personal info is a quick way to turn away users. Might want to try breaking the form into two or three smaller forms on individual pages to ease users through the process.
In the end, it's always best to ask for the absolutely minimum you need.
Make sure you have a well written privacy policy up and provide an obvious link to it.
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smaran
Joined: Apr 27, 2006
# Posts: 68
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Posted: 11/09/2006 06:05 am
Thanks Sportsguy. I will look into that issue.
But what particularly i ask for is getting traffic to my site? Speaking hard increasing number of visitors for my site.
Reciprocation is awaited
Thanks,
smaran.
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SportsGuy
Moderator
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3586
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Posted: 11/09/2006 06:53 am
search engines
These can be gold in terms of useful traffic. You'll have to understand the basics of search optimization, then apply that to your site, and work in a solid link building campaign. In the end, organic traffic may end up accounting for a high percentage of your overall traffic. Folks who are searching, however, are usually researching, so lower rankings on a phrase may still drive traffic, yet not convert as you'd hoped. Ranking higher not only ensures more traffic, but folks who are intent on making a purchase are more likely to choose form the top ranked results, IMO, to purchase through.
Search optimization affects your entire site and takes a while to plan, implement and see results from - sometimes more than a year, in fact. In some cases, you'll see results faster, but there are so many factors involved, it's hard to tell - each case is unique. if you want to learn more about SEO, you're in the right place. Read, read, read - there are no quick answers or shortcuts.
blogs
Excellent tool for building interaction with readers and spreading the news about new products or services. They generally take on a personality of their own. be sure to run a blog form your own domain, as opposed to a hosted one from blogger.com etc. This attaches everything to your own domain, so your main site sees benefits form the blog's traffic. be sure to submit the blog to the blog-only directories and make sure you post to the blog several times each week - 3 - 4 as an average - to keep it fresh and keep the spiders coming back often. Doesn't matter if you set it up as a subdomain of the main site, or in it's own folder, or as the site itself - just be sure to research how to best optimize your blog platform (Wordpress, for example) for best results.
forums
Great if you can get users talking about your product on their own. If you go in trying to post about your own product, you'll either get laughed at, ignored, or banned for self promo activities. Dropping a link to your site in a signature is fine, when allowed, but won't drive much traffic. if your intent is to start a forum of your own, well, the require a lot of work to start, and if users see it's empty, they'll go elsewhere. if you can get one going, it might be useful, but I'd suggest this is not the first course to follow.
reciprocal sites
If you mean links from related sites - yeah, getting links form them can drive traffic to you. if they happen to be one-way links to you, so much the better, but in reality, you should look for links form related sites to drive interested traffic to you.
directories
Submit and forget - they're great if they drive traffic, but don't pin your hopes on the directories driving heaps of traffic to you.
social book marking
New source that I personally think is great. be certain to bookmark items other than your own items or you might be labeled a spammer and booted form the service. 
Google base
No idea - haven't used it.
local
If it makes sense to chase local traffic, go for it - but you'd better have an actual presence in that area, or it won't do much for you. Going local isn't as simple as dropping a city name in your title tag and suddenly you rank well...
Most of the traffic from reciprocal sites & directories is not convertible or useful.
Do you have actual stats to back this up, or is this just a gut-call? Be sure you are basing business decisions on data, not gut reactions.
There is a need to generate more convertible traffic.
...or there is a need to review the current website to determine why it is not converting now. More traffic to a poorly designed site won't mean more conversions - it'll mean more missed opportunities. I'll suggest this be priority number one for you.
Other than the above methods please suggest me with more ideas in increasing the traffic.
Seriously - you about covered it all short of hiring a clown to wonder around Times Square with a sign on his back...
We do not do any PPC or run AD campaign for our site.
You should - a well run PPC campaign can pay for itself right out of the gate, but again, be sure the site is well laid out to encourage conversions. Ad campaigns can be useful, but stick to CPC-style campaigns only to start (Cost per click). This ensures you know how much traffic to expect and that you'll get it. It helps you still drive traffic even if your actual ads aren't the best.
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flyingrose
Moderator
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 11/09/2006 10:05 am
Conversions are more important than getting more traffic. In addition to SportsGuy's point about not asking for more information than necessary, WHEN you ask for the information is critical.
If the first thing a visitor to your site sees is a request for information from them they're likely to leave. Even if you're offering free quotes you've got to provide a reason why they want one from you instead of all the other sites.
Visitors must feel confident that they may want to do business with your company before they're willing to provide any personal information.
Those who do use PPC ads can easily prove this to themselves. Land your ads on the form and the bounce rate will be sky-high. Bounce rate is the number of people who leave from the page they arrived at without visiting any other page.
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