How to Drive Visitors Deep Into Your Website
image credit: Cellular Immunity
The Web, right now, is the ultimate competitive environment for attention. Everybody on the Web has limited time (even if they spend 24 hours each day surfing Websites).
It simply isn’t possible to view all of the quality content on the Web.
So the battle is on for you to put out content and market that content so your Website can gain the attention of the limited resource you’re after – the attention of hunters.
How you structure your Website or blog (or combination of both) is just as important as the quality of the content itself. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t have a great product or service or content without equally great marketing and you can’t have the best marketing without a quality product to market.
I think it’s important to focus on how you present your products, services, and content on your Website just as much as you focus on creating your product, services, and content.
If you own a Website and you see the stats of your visitors or if you pay attention to your own Web browsing habits, you’ll probably understand that most of the time you bounce off Websites that don’t have structure and interest and stay on Websites that do (this is of course assuming the sites have content that interests you).
So while you’ll need to create remarkable content, it’s also important to focus on the structure of your Website if you want to be the source of satisfaction for your readers’ attention.
Website Structure
The structure of your Website is important, especially during the planning stages of the development of your Website, because you have to think about how you can make it easiest for your customer to go through the buying process efficiently and effectively.
You want the visitors to your Website to be able to navigate your site no matter what stage of the buying process they are in.
One important thing to remember is that you are not your customer. You already know more about your business and your products than anyone else. Your customer may just be looking to discover an answer to a problem they have while stumbling upon your site. They may be looking for as much information about your product before they actually make the decision to purchase or they may be ready to purchase this very minute.
Let’s take a look at those three types of business offerings (product, service, and blog content) and discuss a few ways you might be able to drive your customers deep into the content on your site.
Product (or Service) Company
If your hunting business specializes in making remarkable products that significantly help hunters in their pursuit of trophy game then there are two different types of Website you can have 1) Informational (no selling on your site) 2) Informational and E-Commerce (you sell your product on your site).
The important thing to remember is that your customers are going to find your Website during different stages of the buying process. Not all of your customers are going to discover your Website and product for the first time and not all of your customers are going to have done their research on your company and product and are simply looking for a place to make their purchase.
Let’s look at a few quick tips for each of product sites. (They really aren’t that different.)
Information Site
For an information site your main focus is going to be on putting out enough content to convince your customer to purchase your product. Your target visitors are going to be in the discovery and research stage.
Your customers in the discovery stage will likely find your Website via a search query then enter into one of the search engines, like Google. They’ll be searching for slightly more specific terms than you may first suspect like “top bows for 2009” or “best tree stand for bluff country”.
You’ll want to focus your content on terms like these.
This is where a blog becomes important.
Search engines love blogs because blogs are generally a source of constant information. Search engines like your site if you are continually putting up valuable and unique content.
Search engines will also love you because they’ll be showing their customers (people who search) relevant and up-to-date content.
With a strictly informational site you’ll also want to make sure to include more detailed information about your product.
When your customer is in the Discovery Stage they don’t want a bunch of detail – they want to be intrigued by the benefit your product might provide them.
However, when your customer reaches the Research Stage, they are interested in learning as much as they can about your product. This is where you can provide more detailed information in an easy to follow and functional way.
Information and E-Commerce Site
With an information site plus an e-commerce site you’re going to want to have all of the aspects of the information site plus you’ll want to focus on the Ready to Buy Stage of your customers purchasing decision.
With an e-commerce site, you have the ability to suggest complementary products during the stage when your customers are already in the buying mood. You’ll want to focus on providing them options that add even more value.
Some Ideas
A few ways to drive visitors deeper into a product Website include:
Text linking
Related products
Complementary products
“You may also like…”
Suggested products
Our Top Ten Products
Our Top Searched Terms
Related information
Product reviews
Testimonials
Etc.
The thing to remember if you’re a product company is that it’s easier to provide your current customers with something more than they’re already buying from you. Look for products to complement the products they are already purchasing and allow them to discover these products as they’re going through the purchasing stages of the products they’re already committed to buying.
Blog
If you’ve seen a few posts on this site you’ve probably recognized that I’m a big fan of blogs.
Take a look at a few of my previous posts and pages:
20 Steps to Starting Your Hunting Business Blog/Website
10 Ways to Create Stunning Hunting Blog Posts
Reviews of Remarkable Hunting Blog Posts
Effectively Using Keywords in Your Blog Titles
Write Better Blog Headlines: Tonight at 6
How to Start a Blog that will Grow Your Outfitting Business
The First 4 Days of Your New Hunting Blog
How to Use the Web to Grow a Successful Hunting Business – A Tutorial
The reason I’m an advocate of blogging for your hunting business Website is because a blog will provide search engines (and your customers) with tons of up-to-date and useful content, unique insight, and answers to problems.
A blog also provides you many ways to drive your customers deep into product/service relevant related information.
You can use text links, lists, categories, archives, and highlighted posts to drive your current and new customers deep into your posts.
Here are a few more ways you can drive visitors deep into your blog content:
Related post links
Related offsite post links
Suggested reading links
Post series (Part 1 through 6 for example)
Favorites
Favorite Lists
There are so many ways to direct point your readers.
I’m sure you can come up with more suggestions.
If you have any please feel free to share in the comments.
Summary
You have to remember that Web users will do what they want, but there are a few things you can do to try and capture their attention while they’re on your site.
The goal of any Website owner is to provide valuable content, products and services for their target customers in a way that is easy to digest and follow.
Figure out ways to drive your visitors deeper into your site by providing them more value than the content they first discover on your site.
Even if your loyal visitors come to read your new content, things like text links and suggested reading are important.
I visit many blogs nearly every day that provide text links that still drive me to content I haven’t discovered on the site yet.
Do you have any more ideas for driving deeper engagement on your site?
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Dayne,
When you get a chance, I’d like to talk to you about driving traffic deeper into OUR sites. I have an idea that I think is pretty cool. Would help out the entire online outdoor community.
Dayne,
I would suggest that commercial enterprises also consider synergizing with established bloggers. Trying to blog, even on a limited subject, is time consuming. Getting a group of bloggers to review, test, use, and write about your products might be more cost effective and seen as more credible by the consumer than an in-house blog.
Best regards,
Albert
TROC Reviews the Nikon Monarch 8X42.
We Review the OTB Ferdelance Boot!
@Cory – Sounds great. Anytime.
@Albert – Great addition. Blogging does take time and effort. It’s important for anyone to understand how to allocate their time and resources.
I dunno that I have any to add – my favorite way is to link to other content within the site…and I don’t really do it nearly enough.
I have considered creating a blog Dayne, but as Albert stated, my main reason for being hesitant in going through with it is the creditability factor.
I am afraid that an in house blog would be perceived as just extended advertisement for N.H.E. Inc. and not be taken seriously by the readers.
What would you suggest?
@T. Michael Riddle – I would encourage you to start a blog T. Michael.
From your comments here it’s obvious that you have something valuable to provide readers who may be your target audience for your hunting business blog.
I think an in-house blog is really the way to go because blogs are great for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Blogs are frequently updated and full of keywords, which are things the search engines love.
Your readers know about your business, but as long as your posts are focused on providing them with the information they want to know about hunting and outfitters, they’ll view your blog as a valuable resource and not as a way you are pushing yourself and business upon them.
A good place to start I think (concerning potential blog topics) would be to think about the questions your customers ask you about outfitting, guiding and touring the outdoors.
Then simply answer those questions with a well-written blog post. This would be a valuable resource for your potential customers.
Blogs are great for forming connections and if you participate with your readers on the blogs with comments and such (just as you do so well here) you’ll have no problem with a blog for your hunting business.
If you have anymore questions just let me know. If you want I can even email you.
Thanks again for all of your wonderful comments here.
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