How To Get Visitors to Your Information Website

Information based website differ in quite a few ways from e-commerce websites, and can use other means of attracting visitors. Before we go into that, let me just clarify what I see as some of the differences between the two.

Information vs. e-commerce

First of all, let me point out that these two types of websites are not exclusive. You can easily have a site with both elements, but it's more common to just focus on one.

I see e-commerce websites as sites with a product catalogue, a shopping cart and possibly a bit of static text describing the company behind the site. This might be very stereotypical, but I find it to cover most sites that sell products. An information website, is a site that either has no products or sells services. If the site has no products, it is either a blog, a "web presence" (e.g. static, descriptive text of a company) or something intended on establishing a brand. A site that promotes/sells products like custom made jewelry or fitted dresses, falls within my e-commerce category since the products can still be displayed and ordered only, making it possible to have a type of catalog etc. For some this might be a bit of a stretch, but I need to generalize a bit to make it easier to see the value of the suggestions.

Following are suggestions to what you could do to attract more visitors to your site, divided into my two types of information websites. Again, they're not exclusive. They are just the most important things you should focus on, if your site falls into one of these two categories.

Blogs, web presences and brand sites

1. Make sure you constantly update your website with new and related information so that it wont die. You can't get people to come back by appealing to their need for a specific product, so you need to constantly provide new knowledge, entertainment and experiences. This point covers many of the points in my list of "10 Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Website" but I wanted to stress this again, since it's even more important for these types of websites.
2. Be a media-whore, but not always. This one's a bit tricky. You need to get the message about your site out to as many people as possible, but you don't want to be perceived as some extremely attentions seeking politician who'll do anything for a story in any type of magazine. It's not popular with everyone, but posting links to your own site on places like Del.icio.us, digg.com, Google Base etc. actually attracts people. But only to a certain degree, and only if you have something of interest. Don't post links to simple press releases or irrelevant news about your company. Post only links to valuable content, that would be of interest to a larger number of people. I've used this technique to link to a few of my latest post, and have gotten both a peak of users, but also a bit of name calling on the way. Whether the new users stick around, only time will tell.

Selling services online

If you're trying to promote your company's services, you'll most likely have an economic interest in new users, and the ability to see if any of these new users become buyers. Because of this, you can spend money on getting people to your site, with the prospect of getting these back again soon. With the other types of information websites, they're rarely able to generate income, and if they do it's most likely based on the amount of users on the site, and not the type of users.

Another thing that usually differs from service selling websites and other information websites, is that you rarely update your site or add content. Unless you combine the two by starting a blog about your company, your site will probably be fairly static.

With this in mind, you should seriously consider doing this:

1. Use AdWords or similar tools to advertise your services, and remember to link the users directly to the main page describing a particular service.
2. Form strategic partnerships with like-minded companies, and make sure you promote each others services equally (and that your partners site is as busy as yours or even busier).
3. If you're selling services connected to a specific product or supplier, make sure you're listed on their list of resellers/installers/consultants etc.
4. Take active part in user groups, conferences, seminars etc. that has something to do with your services. If none of these exists, consider starting them if you see a need in the market.

The most important thing is to stay "top-of-mind", to make sure your users already know where to look, when they realise a need for services like yours. This can be very difficult if you only act online, or if you only act offline. The trick is to find something that might get your users to return to your site once in a while, or some other way you can remind them of your services and tell them about new services. By organizing seminars, knowledge sharing meeting or the like, with a certain interval, you might just achieve that.

You choose the level of difficulty

None of these things seem easy at first, but it depends on your level of commitment. You can start out easy, and escalate later, or if you've got the finances for it, you could start out big and hope your idea floats.