If you build it, they won’t necessarily come

One of the biggest misstatements when it comes to websites is that if you build it, they will come. So many times I’ve seen a website launch and the owner expected to immediately be flooded with visitors and new customers, and that’s usually not the case.

Reasons why you may not have visitors

1. No one knows it’s been built. Consider it this way – if you hired a contractor to build you a store, would you expect the contractor to find your customers and send them to your store? Of course not! Just having a website is the same as just having a storefront – if you aren’t marketing it to your potential customers, nobody will know it’s there.
2. Your site isn’t indexed in the search engines. Google is always crawling the web, looking for new sites, but if you haven’t told Google that your site exists, and it’s new and never had a link to it before, then it might take a long time to be found. Don’t sit around and wait for Google, tell Google where your site is and what’s on it by setting up a Google Webmaster Tools account and submitting an XML sitemap. You can do this with Bing too. Even after submitting it, it can take days to weeks for your site to be fully indexed by Google, and that doesn’t even guarantee you’ll rank in anyone’s search.
3. You aren’t on social media. I have strong opinions about using social media for business, but if you want to get people to click to your site, sharing it on social media will drive people there right away.
4. You haven’t invested in SEO. I know SEO can be scary and intimidating, but taking the time to learn what people are searching for, how it applies to your site, and using that information to target visitors can be enormously helpful. Unfortunately, SEO is a marathon, not a sprint, so it takes time to start being found
5. You aren’t adding new content. I feel like I give this lecture on a weekly basis. If you aren’t adding new content on a regular basis, the chances of a quick rise to the top of the search engines are nearly impossible. Blogging is one of the best ways to drive more traffic to your site because it shows Google you are an authority on your topic because you are providing current, quality content about that topic. (So yes, these have to be on point and can’t be about your dog or your lunch. Unless you’re a dog trainer or a restaurant.)

Getting a website is the start of your online journey, not the end. Set it and forget it and watch the money roll in? That’s not an investment strategy, that’s a set up for failure. Plan a strategy with how to drive traffic to your site. Do you do trade shows? Make sure you  have business cards and signs with your URL on them. Are you on social media? Start sharing! Do you have an email list? Send a blast with a link to your website. And of course, start churning out quality content.

You can’t expect your website to work for you if you aren’t doing work too.