by Simon Wright

Created on: March 22, 2007   Last Updated: April 13, 2007

The answer to this question probably depends upon whether the website that you are trying to attract visitors to is a business website or a personal website.

I'll concentrate on how to attract visitors to a business website.
Large companies will typically employ the following strategies to attract visitors:

- communications campaign to existing offline customers. e.g. If your company is a bank and you have 11 million customers but only 1 million is using your site, you might choose to send out an e-mail or a mailing to make them aware that your website exists and why they should use it.

- inclusion of your website address in all offline communications. Your website address should be included as part of the footer of all the letters and e-mails that you send. It should also be quoted in leaflets, posters, and even TV adverts.

Tip: If you own premises (e.g. a network of high street stores) make sure you include your website address within those premises. An example I saw of this was the clothing chain River Island. When I went to the counter to purchase some items, I saw their web address displayed upon the wall behind the counter.

- online marketing. You can have banner ads, affiliate programmes, etc, to drive traffic from other sites to yours. You will need to think carefully about how best to spend your money. Will the money paid be covered by the extra revenue you expect to achieve from increased traffic to your site?

- Search engine optimisation. Make sure that you get a prominent listing on search engines. Again though, you will need to make a call on how much you are prepared to spend and how far up the listings you need to be.

- 'Recommend to a friend' links. You sometimes see sites that give people the opportunity to refer a page to a friend by entering the friend's e-mail address. A good way to get word of mouth referrals.

Note: If you have a personal website, you can probably adapt some of the above business strategies to your own use. For example, make sure your web address is quoted on your e-mails. You could even try something like etching your web address onto your shoes, or skateboard, etc. I'm sure there's lots of creative ways to bring your website to the attention of people without having to spend a fortune!

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