The New Shoe Dilemma: What to Do if People Aren’t Visiting Your Website

As the shops start to reopen and people go back to work, every highstreet shop has some killer discounts and seriously good sales. 

A few weeks ago when Primark reopened its doors it made the national headlines! 

People were standing in line for hours, with queues curling around the block just to get inside and grab themselves a new pair of Harry Potter pyjamas and a handbag. They even had people setting up tents the night before they opened! 

Now, I like new things as much as the next person. There’s nothing better than being able to put on a nice pair of shiny, new shoes when you go out. 

It could be my military background, but I love to look smart. 

During lockdown, I too was targeted by all the sales ads – on my Facebook timeline, on YouTube and even in my inbox. 

Have you ever felt like the people advertising know you better than your best friend? Like they’ve been listening to your conversations or even reading your mind? 

One day you mention “new shoes” to your wife in a Whatsapp and the next day your timeline is filled with ads offering exactly that. 

Now, there’s some debate about whether Facebook and Google are listening to your conversations and reading your messages: on the one hand it would be a huge breach of privacy laws – on the other hand, people are adamant that it must be happening due to their own experiences. 

Either way, I fell foul to a good ad for some shiny new shoes. I put my hand in my pocket and placed the order. 

I’ll be honest, I was quite excited about my new shoes and when they arrived they were every bit as shiny, comfortable and smart as I’d been expecting. 

There was one problem. 

No one was going to see them. 

No one was coming to my house and I couldn’t go out to a restaurant, pub or even a business meeting! 

The shoes became a little pointless. If I can’t wear them out anywhere and no one will see them, what’s the point in having them? 

This got me thinking – it was a very similar problem that I’d been discussing with a client just the other day. 

He’d spent thousands on a shiny new website – but no one was seeing it. 

It wasn’t showing up in searches and he wasn’t doing anything to drive people directly to it. 

It’s a common problem – but with one big difference…

As lockdown lifts and restaurants, hotels and bars reopen I can start to show my nice, shiny shoes off to the world. My problem is a temporary problem. 

If you’ve got a nice, shiny website that no one is seeing – that’s a permanent problem. You’re going to have to actually do something start driving traffic towards it if you want to show it off. 

There’s three simple ways to get more people visiting your website: 

Organic Search – SEO – If your website doesn’t show up in search engine results then the people looking for your services won’t be able to find you. SEO can help to optimise your website so that it shows up in more searches and brings more people to your business. 

PPC – Paid Advertising – Paid ads are a fast, effective and profitable way to get people on your website quickly. Google Ads can get you on the first page of Google in less than 24 hours – and Facebook ads can show off your business to hundreds of thousands of potential customers for an affordable price. 

Social Media – Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Linked In and Twitter can be a great source of traffic for your website. Build a relationship with your customers and drive them to your website when they’re ready to buy. 

It sounds like a lot of effort, I know. 

But if you want more people to visit your website you’ve got to do the work – or hire someone else to do it for you! 

So where should you start? Is SEO the answer for you? Should you run a paid Facebook ads campaign? Over the next few weeks, I’m going to write a series of blog posts explaining everything you need to know to decide whether search engine optimization, paid advertising or social media marketing are right for your business. 

So watch this space…

And in the meantime, if you want to have a little chat about how I can help bring more customers to your website then get in touch. We can have a phone call or book in a zoom meeting – I might even show you my shiny, new shoes!