Part 6 - Join the community on the net

In the sixth installment of our ongoing series on how to increase traffic and sales to your website we are going to look into making you have a little bit of fun while promoting your website.

How can running your business be more fun? By contributing content back to the internet. My guess is that your passionate about your business, you want it to succeed. You love talking about it to almost anyone who will listen.

Take that passion, and pour it into the internet, there are a million ways to do so. We'll look at a few of them.

Message boards and discussion group forums - There are people just as passionate about your products or area of service. Seek out these groups on Yahoo groups, Google groups, or specific message boards all over the internet. Create an account, and start contributing, post a question your having a hard time answering yourself, or help someone else learn about something you know all too well. The key to it all is to mention your business, either in the signature part of your message, or as part of the actual answer.

Bry.Net Web Services' goal is to build your website, help you promote your website, and help with marketing your website to clients. With that in mind, we constantly are finding we can help fellow web designers learn more about Search Engine Optimization, or HTML. And we use these same forums to learn things ourselves.

Blogs and Video Blogs - There again are other people in your line of work, they probably have a blog. Find them, and leave them a comment, encourage them on a great job, or help them learn something they didn't know. Again the key is to leave your website link on the form, so they can come back and visit your blog or website as well.

The key to all of this contributing though is to be consistent. Again set aside 15-30 minutes once or twice a week, or less depending on your schedule, and find these places online, and check back, update a post, or add a new one. Slowly over time you'll build up a massive collection of links on the internet all pointing back to your domain. All while helping others learn more about your products and services, and they didn't even have to find your website directly.

We hope you've found this article useful, if you have any questions or suggestions, please let us know!

Part 4 - Create competition

In the fourth installment in our series on how to increase website traffic, and in turn sales. We turn to a core value of democracy. Competition.

Of course there are other people out there selling the same products or services that you are. That is not the kind of competition that we're talking about. We're talking about your customers. Or people in general. They like to find a good deal. People like to find something that is special or one of a kind that they found.

A website that gets people coming back more often, makes more sales. Again I defer to on of our favorite websites, www.woot.com. They have perfected this model. Each day they have a new product, that is usually priced much lower than the competition. They only have so many of this product, whether it be 10, or 1000. In any case though, once they are sold out, that's it. No more.

So some ideas for you and creating a competition on your website. Give something away for free. Pick a product or service everyone would love, and give one away, say once a week, or once a month, or how ever often we want people to come back. Let them enter their email address, and get a chance at winning. It helps to build your newsletter base up, and gets them to come back once per day. Or offer them a chance to email this offer to their friends, to help spread the word.

If giving something away for free is too much for your business model, then give something at a good discount. Why does the grocery store sell that gallon of milk at such a low price? Because they know everyone needs milk. They are hoping that you also grab those oreo cookies on the walk back to the dairy section in the back. Most people will add those complementary products to help make their purchase complete.

So pick the services, or products you can give away for free, or at a deep discount, and start watching people stop by more often.

What do you think about Bry.Net offering a free website to a client? Would you stop back to enter your name into a hat? Let us know, we're trying to figure out what our contest and competition can be.

Part 2 - Topical Web Sites

In this second part of our series on how to increase traffic and drive more business through your website we need to look at another important aspect of the Internet. Knowledge.

More and more people are turning to the Internet for knowledge, information is power. From simple things like what is your companies phone number or email address, to more detailed things like how to make a superb soufflé, or where can I buy a Venus fly trap.

In whatever your business, you know your customers best. Help them realize that your website is a wealth of knowledge, and they will keep coming back for more "free" information. This will lead to them trusting you more, showing that you know what they really need, and in turn they will not mind paying a few dollars more for your product versus someone else, or they will check out the product on your website first.

So gather up all the one off emails you've sent to customers over the years, create a Frequently Asked Questions page on your site. Provide full detailed articles in how to hang curtains, or the best way to irrigate their flower beds. Whatever your business is strive to become an expert in that area, and share that information with them.

As you can tell, that is exactly what we are trying to do here with this blog. Show you that Bry.Net Web Services is more than just a website design company. We are here to make sure your Internet venture is a success.