Becoming a Consumer Magnet
“Ahhh, success”! After weeks of planning, sketching, researching, and tossing ideas around all over the place, your website is finally up and running. What an amazing feeling. However, the process of actually obtaining “success” is far from finished. The next step in creating a website is figuring out exactly how to drive traffic to your page.
Driving traffic to your page means drawing people in to click on and view your page. This is vital to creating a successful website because without an actively engaged audience to view your content, your website will not be serving its goal as a public resource. Additionally, keeping website traffic is important because this will ensure long-term website success. Keeping website traffic is an every-day ongoing journey because the world is always changing. For example, thet tools and strategies people used to use 5 years ago are different now, and I predict they’ll change again in another 5 years.
Website Examples
Website #1: Amazon
Amazon is a primary example of a website that drives and keep traffic for a variety of reasons. This is the landing page when you click on Amazon.
As you can see, amazon has appealing and “clickable” tabs rather than only standard tabs. Most websites’ navigation bars only have options such as the home screen, content page, about me, and contact me page. However, Amazon has all the necessary navigation links like shopping cart, sign-in, returns/orders, etc and they also have numerous tabs geared specifically for consumers. Take a look at the tabs below.
These tabs are each are geared toward encouraging people to spend time on their site searching through things they may like. This is beneficial because even if people don’t have the intention of buying anything when they first come onto Amazon, by the time they log on they already have options of things that most people would like to purchase laid out right in front of them.
Another strategy that Amazon uses to drive consumers back to their site is Amazon Prime Day. This was a genius marketing idea similar to Black Friday where almost all products on Amazon were on sale for 1-2 days during Amazon Prime Day. This encouraged massive traffic to the site by reminding consumers that they will get “once-a-year deals” that they “can’t miss out on”. Consumers, including myself, cannot stay away from this type of marketing.
Lastly, amazon also has a “prime delivery” feature which is a form of incentive that intrigues people to continue to come back to their site.This prime delivery feature encourages people to sign up and pay for amazon prime, allowing Amazon to generate more income. With Prime delivery, people will get their orders faster and experience higher customer satisfaction. Successful deliveries lead people more likely to come back to the site and shop again. Altogether, Amazon is a great example of a site that drives in and keeps traffic coming into its website.
Website #2: WTNH News 8
This website belongs to a local news station in New Haven, CT. Something that they do well is they incorporate related article links into their stories. These guide viewers to continue reading their news content by placing similar stories into each other. For example, take a look at the article below:
The link that reads “VIDEO: Woman confronts…” is placed in the middle of the story to encourage viewers to click and keep them on the site.
The story above is about 911 records found from an incident that happened in May. To provide good context, and to also keep traffic on the site, the digital producers have placed a direct link to the story from May. See the article that they linked here:
This is the article linked in the middle of the article shown above.
WTNH News 8 constantly uses this tactic for all their stories, causing readers to get stuck in intentional loopholes of news that is all beneficial for the website.
Website #3: DSW
DSW’s website sells shoes to men and women. The part that makes this site special and intriguing to viewers is the timer at the top of the page; see below.
When you click onto the site, the timer is one of the first things you notice. Timers often create nerves, anticipation, and a need for urgency; which is exactly the goal of this tactic. DSW is choosing to use a sale timer to emphasize the importance and urgency of staying on their site and using the sale code. This leads consumers to stay on the site until they’ve purchased something, eliminating the idea that they can just come back later, and keeping traffic onto the site. This is a smart way of keeping consumers once you’ve got them. Additionally, its rewarding for consumers to know they’re saving money.
Website #4: LoveStylize
This website is a newer jewelry website that I actually became hooked on all because of an ad I saw. Like many websites are now doing, when you click on this site, this message pops up:
Convincing website viewers to sign up for offers and discounts is highly beneficial to website traffic because it reminds consumers to come back to the site. For example, whether its signing up for texts or emails, when people get that notification, they will be reminded of the site, and it will drive them to go there. Plus, it keeps the same consumers that have already been to your site, and adds news ones when more people click on the site. Having the opportunity to send notifications when there are new deals, special offers, or just important notices, is helpful to keep each consumer looped into your content.
Website #5: LuLu Lemon
Lastly, we have LuLu Lemon. LuLu Lemon applies many of the same tactics as the website’s we’ve seen. However, something different that they do is that they have strong social media advertising on other platforms, including TikTok. As an avid TikTok user myself, I’ve come across many ads from different companies, including this one from LuLu Lemon.
The best ads are the ones you don’t realize are ads at first. See the images below.
This ad is engaging to viewers because its timely and applies to something I’m interested in. Since I am a student, I’m interested in back-to-school clothing and the back-to-school mindset. By placing this ad on the For You Pages of other students similar to me, LuLu Lemon will gain traffic on their website because people will click on the products they’re displaying. Plus, even if the viewer isn’t interested in buying anything, this ad is creative enough to put ideas into their viewers heads. By giving ideas for different ways to style this product, LuLu Lemon is increasing their chances for viewers to not only click on the site, but also buy the products they’re displaying. People are easily convinced by what they see, therefore displaying a practical day-to-day use for different products is a wise way to increase traffic and revenue.
Altogether…
There are many ways to increase traffic and keep traffic on your website that expand beyond having just responsive design, good content, and fast loading times. There are plenty more factors that play into it, and plenty more that haven’t even been explored yet. The beauty of this is that consumer patterns and habits are constantly changing which leaves room for fresh ideas, tactics, and ways to create a successful website.