Increase repeat visitors to your Web site
Microsoft Office Live Small Business makes it easy to create a Web site for your company. Turning that site into a tool to help grow your business requires some strategic planning.
This article addresses how to develop a strategy for increasing repeat visitors to your Web site and how to use the tools in Office Live Small Business to help you accomplish that goal.
In this article
Establish a realistic, measurable goal
For a goal to be effective, you have to know how achieving it will contribute to your business. Increasing the number of repeat visitors to your Web site can support your business because a repeat visit clearly signifies interest in your site. But a goal also needs to be specific so that you can track progress toward that goal and use it as part of your business strategy.
For example, if you say that your goal is to have a lot of repeat visitors over the next six months, but you don't have a basis for comparison, the goal isn't measurable. Instead, make the goal specific, such as increasing repeat visitors by 10 percent over the next six months. Targeting an increase over past performance gives you a measurable goal. And specifying a reasonable, attainable percentage makes it easy to work toward this goal as part of your overall business strategy.
The sections that follow provide methods for increasing repeat visitors to your Web site. As you review these sections, consider using the site reports that are available in Office Live Small Business to help you determine where to begin. To learn more about using reports to help you get started with a new online business strategy, see Use your Web site to help achieve your business goals.
Note You must activate the Reports feature before Office Live begins to collect the data to be reported, such as page views and keyword usage. To activate Reports, on the Office Live Small Business Home page, at the top, click More, and then click Reports. On the Reports page, click Activate for FREE.
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Update site content frequently
Think about the Web sites that you visit repeatedly. Most of us frequent sites that provide a wide range of information that we use as a resource, such as a favorite blog, or they provide information that changes often, such as news or weather.
Adding or changing content is an easy way to help increase repeat visits to your site and build interest in your business. Consider the following examples:
- If your business provides creative services, such as graphic design or photography, add images of new portfolio samples each time you complete a project.
- If you provide professional services, such as computer consulting or accounting services, create a page for expert tips, and add a new tip each week.
- If your business sells products, feature a different product or provide a new special offer each week.
Regardless of your type of business, providing opportunities for visitors to interact with your site can also be an effective way to bring visitors back often. For example, add a blog to your Web site where you can share news and information about your products or services and invite comments.
A Windows Live Spaces blog is one of many available modules that you can add to the site that you create with Office Live Small Business. You can also add modules with information that is updated automatically, such as your local weather or selected stock prices.
For help adding a blog to your site, see Add, change, or remove a blog. For more information about using any of the modules shown here, see Personalizing pages, and locate the relevant Help topic.
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Create a database of visitors
When you give visitors the ability to interact with your site, you can use that interaction to build your customer base at the same time. For example, customize the Contact Us page on your site, or add a Contact Us module to any page to give visitors the ability to send you questions by e-mail. The properties for the Contact Us form include the option to automatically add that visitor's information as a new lead in Contact Manager, as shown on the following screen.
You can also use the Form Designer module to create your own contact form for custom order requests. For help using the Form Designer module, see Collect customer information through a Web page.
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Connect with site visitors
When you create a database of visitors, you can use that information to connect with site visitors and build customer relationships. Send newsletters and other messages about your business to individuals who have expressed an interest in receiving e-mail communication from your company.
When you send an e-mail newsletter, you can draw repeat visitors to your site by including links to specific pages. Then measure the success of your effort by designating those pages as conversion points.
A conversion point is a location on your site that indicates growth in your customer relationships, for example, when a visitor submits a newsletter sign-up form or makes a purchase in your online store. With the Reports feature in Office Live Small Business, you can track the number of visitors who reach each conversion point,
the referring sources (such as an e-mail newsletter or search engine), and the keywords that result in the most conversions.
For more information about working with conversion points, see Add, change, or delete a conversion point.
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What else can you do to draw visitors to your site?
In addition to the efforts that you take to specifically support your goal, remember that everything you do to maintain and promote your online business can affect the number of repeat visitors to your site. For example, consider the following:
- A site that looks professional and works well is more inviting and more likely to attract repeat visitors. Do the links on your site work? Is your text grammatically correct? Have you provided an easy way for users to contact you? Even if your site contains valuable information, a visitor who is frustrated when trying to use your site is less likely to return.
- People value expertise. If you participate in professional forums online, do you provide links to relevant pages on your site in your posts?
- Help potential customers find you. Have you added keyword meta tags to your Web site pages to improve search engine results for your site?
- Offline contacts can become online customers. Do you promote your Web site in your physical store or when you attend community groups or industry events?
For help creating a professional-looking site and improving search engine results, see the articles Change the look of your Web site using Page Editor and Site Designer and Make your site attractive to search engines.
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Determine key performance indicators
After you decide which tools you want to use to draw more repeat visitors to your site, you can determine how to best track the results of your efforts. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are factors that provide essential information about the success of your specific efforts. For example, when you use the tools discussed in this article, consider the following:
- Do you see an increase in page views for the pages on your site that you link to from an e-mail marketing message?
- If you designate and track conversion points, which pages show an increase in conversions?
- Which referring sources (such as a search engine, a forum, or a partner Web site) provide the most traffic? Which of those sources result in the highest percentage of conversions?
The site reports available in Office Live Small Business can tell you exactly what you need to know about the KPIs that you identify. In fact, you can customize the Web Site Usage Overview report to provide a dashboard that shows you exactly the performance indicators you most want to see.
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Develop a long-term strategy
When you set a goal, such as a 10 percent increase in repeat visitors over six months, consider that goal as one milestone in a long-term strategy for growing your business. Then, you can experiment with different types of efforts to support each milestone —
such as changing the types of special offers, e-mail marketing messages, or conversion points that you use.
Track your success rates across different types of efforts to determine the best tools to support your particular business. You can then develop a long-term strategy of continuous improvement for your business goals.
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