Is Your Site a Traffic Trampoline?

Do you hear it? "Boing, boing, boing boing." That is the sound of traffic bouncing off of your site. It's the sound of search advertising dollars jumping off into the ether. It is the sound of a Web site that doesn't convert traffic to leads and sales.

It is the sound of good prospects finding your competitors.

Don't worry. You can fix this, and with this series of posts, I'm going to tell you how. Stay tuned, and I'll show you how to:

• Know what kind of site your customers need
• Implement strategies that give visitors what they need
• Give you the best practices for converting visitors to customers

Your Site is Different

The first thing you need to realize is that your site isn't like every other site. Your customers don't want the same things from you that most Web sites offer. They're trying to solve a different problem.

Fortunately, I can tell you what pattern your Web site matches. From there it's relatively easy to know what you should be doing to keep visitors from bouncing like a bad email.

Finding Your Site Pattern

I'll spell it out for you here: There are five basic kinds of Web site, and I guarantee that your site fits into one of them. They are:

1. The Brochure or Sales Support Site

2. The Portal or Thought-leadership Site

3. The Classic eCommerce Site

4. The Considered Purchase Site

5. The Site is the Product Site

Do you know which of the five your site matches?

You Don't Get a Vote

The truth is, you can't know which type of site you should have because you don't get a vote. Your visitors determine what pattern you should follow. They're the ones trying to solve a problem. They're the ones who know what their looking for.

If you can put aside what you think you understand about your site for just little a while, you'll soon be given new eyes with which to make decisions. You'll soon understand what you need to do to stop that irritating sound.

Boing, Boing, Boing.

The Series Continues

I'll next talk about why your demographic research won't help, but show you what information you do need to understand your visitors.

Subscribe to this series now and you won't miss a post.

photo courtesy samagee85 via sxc.hu