Why Websites Don't Attract Visitors

Websites

MP3 File

Question

Why aren’t people visiting my website?

Answer

Let me answer that question with a question

Did Jackie O have a little black dress?

You bet she had several because she knew they got her attention. Website design is a lot like fashion design. Catwalk designer outfits look good on a select few but most of us look best in basic traditional styles that bring out our best features.

It’s the same with websites. Don’t be talked into the latest design fade when a basic site will be what brings the compliments and the visitors.

Most websites result in the search engines going straight over the top without even pausing for a look - quite simply because the site is invisible to them. Remember search engines love relevant text not pictures!

The majority of people who visit websites only stay 10 seconds. If you make it hard for people to see your site, or haven’t given them a compelling reason to stay you can rest assured they will be hitting the back button and will be gone in under 5 seconds. They will NEVER come back. You only have to look at the way you visit websites yourself to know this to be the truth. Isn’t that depressing!

The bad news only gets worse. Most search engines find you via four methods and many websites have these areas blank.

• Titles – these are the words that appear in the tabs of your browser and is the heading that appears in a search engine ranking
• Meta Tags – the description you see when a site comes up in a natural ranking
• Keywords – are coded into your site and help search engines match your site to a search string
• Text - the actual words you see on your website

The more these four items match and compliment each other, the higher up the search engine ranking you go. People seek up to the minute information and for that reason blogs frequently out rank websites these days.

This nifty tool will let you see what a search engine sees when they pass through each page of your site click here - it’s sobering!

So check your text and make sure you have the required items that search engines can see.

Further resources

This blog forms part of an article I wrote for the Empowering Women website. You can read the full article here

There is further information about this topic on the Ladies Who Launch blog

Also you can purchase the "How To Get the Most from Your Website" workbook on my website