“If you build it, they will come.” While that held true in Field of Dreams, reality for the rest of of is different. You finally took a jump into your creative career by building a website to display your content and information. Now you may face the problem of how to actually get people to visit your site. There are plenty of components that go into good website marketing and construction to gain site views, so we chose our top 10 to share with you.
Use Your Social Media Account to Drive People to Your Website
Posting a link to your site on social media is a great way to get your website’s name and existence out there. This will make it possible for your friends or fans to see that you have an additional area in which they can learn more about you and your work. Social media is also great because you can add links to your bio so anyone who happens to come across your profile can see and click that link which will lead them straight to your site.
Promote Your Website Through Your Email Contacts
It is common for creative professionals to have an email list with all of their fans listed on it. This gives them the capability to send out blast emails about specific events that they will be holding and other things similar to that nature. However, if you have one, you can also use your email list to email your fans about new posts on your website as well as send updates when something new is added. This is a great method to use because it goes directly to the person. So when they check their email they will definitely see your message. This is much more direct than social media, but works in a similar way of presenting your site to your established fan base. Just make sure emails are organized and scheduled in a thoughtful manner. Too many random blasts can cause people to unsubscribe.
Create Intriguing Headlines
A unique headline will be more likely to attract viewers than an average everyday headline. It is important to take into consideration what headline will display your message properly, but will also make people want to visit the page to learn more.
Link Internally
This basically means that your pages should have links to other pages within your website. For example, if you have a gallery with paintings of animals, at the bottom of that page you could have a caption, “if you enjoyed these paintings check out my blog article about how they were created,” or “if you want to view more paintings like these check out my nature collection”. Having these internal links will keep people within your website for longer amounts of time and create a more engaging experience for them because these links guide visitors through the sections of your website.
Have Featured Creatives on Your Site
If your site has a blog column or anywhere that you change the content on a daily or weekly basis consider featuring another creative who may have fans that would also be interested in your creations. Having a post about this person with an image of them along with a link to their website or social media feed could potentially link you to their fans or create an opportunity for you to be featured on their site. Not only will your site be seen by a group of new people but you are also helping this creative become noticed and creating a stronger connection with them.
Make Sure Your Website can be Viewed on Varying Devices
Although you may be thinking that most people will be viewing your site on a laptop or desktop computer, it is more common today for individuals to only own a tablet or smartphone. This is why it is a good idea to check and make sure that your website still looks professional and is accessible to potential viewers using any device. If people can’t reach your website they most likely will not try again.
Make Sure That Your Website is Fast
Life in general is extremely fast paced so it important that your site has to ability to connect quickly. The faster your site the better, because people do not like waiting for more than about 8 seconds for anything to load, whether it be an image or video clip. If things such as these take longer to load you could potentially lose visitors.
Attend Conferences and Networking Events
Events such as these are a great way to get your name out there and inform other people that you have a website with all of you creative pieces on it. These events also give you the opportunity to create connections with people within your field and converse about what you are doing. This could potentially lead to them visiting or sharing your website or even asking you to work on something with them. Check out our article about networking tips: General Networking Advice.
Submit Your Site to Major Search Engines
By submitting your site URL to major search engines it helps you with search optimization by letting the search engine know that you are out there. Websites such as Google let you submit your URL for free while others charge you to do so. Make sure you have well written content with keywords fans of your genre will use and search for.
Check out this video to see additional content about how you can set your website up for success with SEO:
Stategically Implement These Strategies
Don’t feel the need to attempt to use all of the strategies at once. Implementing one or two really well is much better than trying to implement them all at once. It is all about trial and error so see what methods work best for you and give you the best results. Once some are working well, add another to the mix as your time allows.
Conclusion
There are many things that you can do to help drive traffic to your website. Some of these methods involve marketing on your end, and others involve how your website is set up. When deciding which strategy to use remember that none are set in stone so do not be afraid to try new things and work from different angles to get the most viewers possible.
Sources:
http://www.artbusiness.com/artist-websites-how-to-increase-traffic-keep-visitors-on-site.html
http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/08/14/increase-traffic-to-my-website