You’ll have put a lot of effort into the development of your website, so it will be a little bit disheartening if you’re checking the visitor stats and the numbers just aren’t all that impressive. And this will especially be the case if it’s a business website, and you’re relying on the success of the site to bring in revenue. The good news is that most websites don’t just fail for unknown reasons; there’s usually a cause, and when there’s a cause, there’s a solution. Below, we take a look at a few reasons why your website might be suffering, and also offer some advice on how to overcome these problems.
Social Media Goodness
If you’re running a business, then you’ll surely have social media accounts. While these are, of course, important, it’s crucial that you’re not making your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages the priority. The main focus should be your website. So don’t put all your best ideas and content onto your social media pages — it’ll help your business a little, but it’ll be more beneficial for the companies that run the social media websites than for you. Have your postings point to your website. Your channels should be a funnel in which to grab interested parties.
Hard to Find
Who types in a full web address anymore? People just open Google, type what they need, and follow the links that appear on the first page (they rarely go beyond the first page). If your website isn’t showing up when people search for items or topics that you specialize in, then there’ll be a problem. It’s hard to get visitors when no-one knows that you’re there! If your numbers are low, consider getting having a technical SEO audit performed by an outside company. They’ll be able to tell you the weak spots in your SEO strategies. Once they’ve been patched up, you should see an increase in visitors via Google and other search engines.
Old Content
It’s not possible to just create an excellent website, and then sit back and relax. Running a successful website requires ongoing management in various ways, but specifically in terms of your content. It’s important that you’re posting regularly. This way, you’ll be offering your visitors an incentive to revisit your site, and this is really what counts. You can’t rely on new people stopping by all the time — long term success will depend on people bookmarking your site, trusting that it’ll always offer what they need, and so on. Posting new and engaging content on a regular basis will help this.
Annoying Aspects
And talking of building up a loyal fanbase, remember that you can lose visitors (even if they like your content) by having annoying practices. For example, if you have too many pop up advertisements, or you have autoplay videos, or you’re using dark patterns, then you might annoy people to the point where they click ‘X’ before they’ve even had a chance to see all the good stuff your website has.
