When it comes to your website, nothing online will be more important. Ask any marketer or business owner what they'd like most in the world, and they'll probably tell you, "More customers!" Many website owners make the mistake of creating their new baby - then leave it to grow on its own. When this happens, nothing happens. Targeting specific audiences, along with fresh content that is attractive and inviting is a must. You don't have to spend big bucks at all to keep the customers coming. Consider these three things to direct the traffic in your direction:

1. FREE GOOGLE LISTING

A Google listing is one of the most important free things you can do as a business owner that's critical to your growth. Your business profile appears when people are searching for your business or businesses like yours on Google Search and Maps. Google My Business makes it easy with step by step instructions to create and update your business profile so you can stand out, and bring customers in. Take charge of what people see when they do a local search for your business, and make sure the information is an accurate representation of your company. 

Keep your business profile info updated so people can find you. Need to adjust your hours for the holidays? Or add a new phone number? Make changes in a few easy steps with Google My Business and your business profile will update across search and maps. You can turn snapshots into sales. Draw in new customers with photos of your products or favorite menu items. Pictures show what's unique about your business, and you can add as many images to your business profile as you like.

Build loyalty by starting a conversation with your listing and by responding to reviews. Reviews are now a two-way conversation between you and your customers. Be the first to know when you get a new review on your local business profile so you can respond right away. Save time by answering your customer's questions before they ask. With Google Q&A, customers can easily ask a question right from your business profile on Google. To save time, you can pin frequently asked questions and highlight the top answers.

If you've taken over a business, or the google listing already exists, gain control of the listing and make sure your business is verified by Google. You can do this by using the original gmail email used to create the listing to log in. If you don't have that email, you can request help from Google's help center.

VisionAmp can help guide you in this process. We love to teach our clients! It's important for business owners to know how to access and update their own Google listings.

2. SOCIAL MEDIA AD CAMPAIGN

Another tool that can be used to drive more traffic to your site is by using social media and ad campaigns. What is a social media campaign? It's a coordinated marketing effort on behalf of a business that's designed to reinforce information or sentiments (about a product, service, or overall brand) through at least one social media platform. Campaigns are strategically focused, have measurable outcomes, and are ultimately aimed at influencing social media users to feel or act in a certain way.

As an example, here is a social media campaign Starbucks ran for one short week in April of 2017. As part of the rollout of its Frappuccino Happy Hour, Starbucks introduced their Unicorn Frappuccino. The purple-and-pink nightmare seized on nearly everything that makes millennials tick (and their older counterparts sick): limited-time scarcity, a fear of missing out, and the sheer Instagrammability of the frozen, pastel-hued abomination. WHY DID THIS WORK? The Unicorn Frappuccino and its hashtag, generated nearly 155,000 Instagram posts during that time period. Amazing!

Another powerful platform is Facebook. You can certainly get as creative as you like with your Facebook targeting options. If you're stuck on who to reach, we often recommend targeting custom audiences such as website visitors, specific landing page visitors, newsletter subscribers, leads, or customers that you are looking to upsell or cross-sell other products. Make it easy for your audiences to overcome any hesitation in opening their wallets by providing a valuable deal. Valuable doesn't necessarily mean a huge discount. Deals aren't about discounting the value of your products worth. Offers are just an extra tool you have to test out, if and when the time is right. Try out various deals to see how little of a discount it will take to convert users so that it's a mutual win for both your business and your customers. 

YouTube is also a growing tool, especially if video is something you're considering to promote your site. There are tons of free video-editing software available for you to use. Even YouTube has built in editing software should you decide to edit it there! Instagram is limited to video length, but with the new IGTV, videos can be longer. Regardless of the social media platform/s you decide to use, use them frequently. 

VisionAmp loves to help you brainstorm social media campaign strategies and use the data we have from your website traffic to guide when, where and how to reach out to audiences. Social media campaigns are really affordable, low hanging fruit for advertising locally. 

3. THE CCC: CREATE CONTENT CONSTANTLY

Content on your website is king! Creating five web pages and letting them sit forever will produce little, if nothing. The saying, "Build it and they will come" simply does not work in the digital realm - especially if you build it and leave it. Our advice is to define your goals, then perform some easy market research, producing topic ideas and keywords to use, then just write! Write content that is relevant to your audience and that is being searched! 

How do you know what to write? Google is one of the best resources to search for new keywords. An easy and FREE way to do keyword research is by going to Google and typing in search terms and phrases YOU THINK people might be searching for. See how your site comes up in the search results and then check out the related terms down at the bottom of the page.  Write some fresh content using some of these relevant terms.

Consider adding a blog to your site once or twice each month. Boost them on social media and ignite your content. Rewrite content on your five main website pages every quarter. Your content needs to contain call to action links within the text - links onsite and offsite. Have more than one set of eyes looking at EVERYTHING. Consistency in how you word it, phrase it, describe it is important! 

More traffic won't always get you what you want, but your goal should always be to generate relevant and targeted traffic. You have to know what you want people to do once they arrive on your website. It's one thing to WANT more traffic, but there has to be a REASON for it. A KEY is finding the element that separates you from all of the rest. Is there a unique angle? Unique idea? Fresh content? What are your call to actions/headlines? David Ogilvy famously said, "On average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy." 

If your website is out of date and not producing the traffic you desire, consider these important tips. If you need help, contact the pros here at VisionAmp. "We are storytellers, learners, website creators, photographers, visionaries, marketing analysts, pioneers, software designers, mobile strategists, writers and musicians" - here to help you navigate the waters of technology.