Strange as this may seem, but how often do corporate website owners visit their own websites? If you don’t even visit your own website, then how do you expect strangers to visit them at all? The mantra that we’ve always been promoting is to maintain a dynamic or active website. And by that, we mean a website that’s being updated with fresh contents regularly. So by virtue, if you don’t even visit your own website, then you definitely don’t keep your website updated.
“I Already Have A Website, So What’s The Problem?…”
I’m always meeting with new people, and they’re always curious about what is it exactly that I do for a living. So when I tell them that I’m into corporate branding, it automatically begs for an elaboration. So the easiest way to clear the air is to tell them that I help companies develop and maintain their brand identity. And this will almost always lead to asking how exactly do I do it… Simple… I use the tools made available to everybody – the internet.
“Ahhh!… So you build websites!… But I already have a website!”
First and foremost, I don’t build websites… Well, not in the literal sense anyway. And secondly, it’s not a question whether you already have a website or not. Most of the people I meet already have one (or more). It’s more about how productive your website is in generating traffic. In simple terms, how many people (humans, not bots) visit your corporate website on a regular basis. In even simpler terms, how well known are you to the residents of cyberspace? Because, the more well known you are, the more traffic your website will get.
The “Problem” That Most Website Have In Common
The most common “problem” that most corporate websites have is that nobody knows they exist at all. So if nobody knows that you exist, then nobody will visit you. You may have engaged a professional web designer to build you an elaborate website, complete with all the bells and whistles. You may even have interactive features embedded into your website to facilitate communications with your visitors. But if nobody knows that you exist, then all the time, effort and money that you poured into building it will amount to nothing.
And the reason this is a “problem” is that even professional web designers won’t tell you what to do once they hand over the website to you. It’s like handing over the keys of a newly purchased sports car, without telling you what the maintenance interval is, or what special grade engine oil to use. Sure, you can drive it around town, and show it off to the town’s folks. But before long, it’ll be confined to the garage, due to lack of spare parts and oil change. Eventually, it’ll be completely forgotten, known only to you.
Likewise, once a corporate website has been built and handed over to the owner, it’ll start the spiralling downtrend towards inconspicuity. The reason is pretty simple – if there’s no reason for you to visit your own website, the same will apply to your audience too.
How Do You Increase Your Website Traffic?
The reason why people even want to visit a website (or read a magazine) is because there are interesting contents to attract them to it. Nobody in their right mind would keep buying a monthly magazine if every issue contains the same articles. Might as well save the money, and reread the old issues.
Likewise, the reason why people want to keep visiting a website is because there are fresh and interesting contents. We’re only talking about repeat visitors here. And if there are repeat visitors, they’ll automatically attract new visitors with them. What you’ll get will then be a result of a snowball effect, attracting ever more visitors, and interactions.
Another indirect effect of this surge in visitor traffic will be the rise in the website’s SEO rating. And all these happens organically, without having to pay somebody to artificially inflate your SEO rating at all. An artificially inflated SEO rating will go up very quickly, and come down just as quickly too. Whereas an organically developed SEO rating (naturally grown) will grow very slowly, and more likely to maintain its position in the long term.
How To Increase Your Website’s SEO Rating?
To increase your traffic flow, you’ll need to increase your visibility and searchability. And your SEO rating will ultimately determine your searchability with the search engines (read: Google).
The bonus of increasing traffic to your website is that it will be more visible to search engines. And this will automatically raise your SEO rating. The wonderful thing about this is that it’s completely free. Hence, spending your effort to increase traffic automatically makes your website more searchable.
Of course, you could always pay somebody to artificially boost your SEO rating (as mentioned above). But unless you intend to keep paying that somebody to continuously keep your SEO rating artificially high, it’ll eventually drop… very fast… Well, you can’t expect much if there’s no substance to naturally keep your SEO rating high in the first place, right? It’s the case of the faster your climb, the faster you’ll fall.
This is opposed to building up your SEO rating organically, by having a naturally high web traffic. This high traffic will be the “substance” that will naturally “build” your SEO rating, and keep it up there. And like all things natural, it’s not gonna be an overnight affair. It’ll take a lot of time and effort to build it up. But once it’s up, it won’t drop like a tonne of bricks just because you haven’t updated your website in the last two months.
So the question is whether you want it done naturally… or artificially?…
All This Goes Back To How Often You Visit Your Own Website… Well, Indirectly Anyway…
This whole article, about how often you visit your own website, isn’t just about your visits per se. Well, not directly anyway. It’s more about your motivation to want to visit your own website. The logic is that if you’re motivated to visit your own website, then there’ll be motivation for others to do the same too. And more visits means higher traffic, which also means higher SEO rating…
Well, how about that?… Killing three birds with one single stone…
Need help to create contents and make your website dynamic? Contact us for a coffee session. You buy the coffee, and we’ll give you suggestions how to do it.
