Nothing. That’s what happens when you publish new articles or include new items on your website. This is a difficult problem for many entrepreneurs and marketers nowadays; they all strive towards building their online audiences, but it seems like a dead end. Additionally, you might even feel worse when you hear different stories about people turning their business around or making money off their site, solely by blogging.
Although this is an amazing thing for those people, and it may be inspiring for some, it isn’t that helpful to people who are working day and night, creating good content that ultimately doesn’t get noticed by anyone. If you are trying to figure out the problem with your website and why it’s so dead, keep reading this post, as we will explore some things that you might need to fix before you give up on your website. There are so many things to consider and chances are that you might have overlooked something crucial.
Your website might be scaring people away
When a person visits your website for the first time, it is their first impression of your business or of you as an entrepreneur. This is why your website must not feel awkward or weird. If this is the first impression a person gets when entering your site, it’s only natural that he or she will leave and never return again. So, what do I mean when I say “a creepy website”? By this, I mean those old flash videos, where you get a random person walking towards a user’s face while saying something, or a large number of fake photos with people on them, or ancient icons that seem like they haven’t been changed since Windows 98 was used.
Your website is the backbone of your whole online presence; there is no online effort you make that is not related to your website. Think of your website as your brick and mortar store in the digital world. Would you allow your store in the real world to get messy, empty and rusty? No, of course not. Well, the same thing applies to your website as well. You cannot allow your store to repel potential customers away from you just because of the first impression you make. Don’t leave your site for dead.
The best thing to do if you have no experience in web design is to go through some web design company reviews and see the work they’ve done in the past. In my experience, the best tool for making a nice looking and functional website is WordPress. This is also the most popular website platform in the world and I’m sure that it’s for good reasons. Either find the time to learn the basics of WordPress and build a website on your own or find a reliable company that can help you design a memorable site.
You are not investing enough time in blogging
In case you are certain that your website is at least decent, then something else might be the problem. You also included a blog section on your website in order to offer new, valuable information and good content. Still, you only have the time to post one new article per month… This is a good start, but still, it is not enough and you cannot expect to get good results this way.
In case you don’t already know, websites that publish blog posts more frequently get a lot more leads than those that have less than 4 posts per month. It may sound like something irrelevant, but it is important to post at least 2 times per week and to be consistent with your publishing.
If you want to have a blog that has a purpose, prepare to write new posts frequently and publish them on a regular basis. The best thing to do at the moment is to create episodic content, as this is currently one of the hottest trends in the content marketing world. People want short articles (no longer than 700 words), which are a part of one big story, and they want to read it in bits, part by part.
If you think that you cannot manage to write quality blog posts constantly, then you should consider hiring a blogger to write for you on a regular basis. Posting regularly is important for various reasons. Not only will you have fresh information that people might be interested in, but you will also have something to share, to boost the SEO ranking on your website. Once your site has a better SEO ranking, you will have better organic traffic and more visibility online.
Your blog revolves around your business and has no valuable information
The days of spamming your blog with content about your business are over. Nobody cares about reading how awesome, cheap, or beneficial your business might be. You have the rest of your website for this kind of content, so stop talking about your business in your blog posts. Consumers will get ready for all you have to offer in a while, but if you bombard them with that kind of promotional content, they will likely leave your website for good.
The one and only goal of your whole blog section should be to give valuable answers to questions that could be significant to your current customers and potential ones. It doesn’t matter if people already asked those questions or if you feel like you could give valuable answers in advance; you should do all of these things through your blog posts. If you position yourself this way, then your blog will have a meaning and you will attract readers that need valuable information.
If the nature of your business is not that unclear and there are no new issues for you to address, then it is good to talk about the whole industry; how things are changing in your business, what is in store for the future and similar topics. This is how you will build credibility and show people that you actually have knowledge about your work and that you are deeply into it; and not just in it for the money. This is how they will come back to read your blog and passively become more open to buying something from you or hiring your services.
You don’t invest enough time into social media
If you think that you will be annoying if you start promoting your content on social media, then you should stop right away. Stop thinking like this and start posting on a regular basis, each day, multiple times. Now, when you have fresh and piled up content, you should distribute it on all of your social media channels. Don’t be afraid; you will be fine as long as you are not reposting one and the same blog post constantly.
Post at least three times per day, in different time periods, when there are the most active users on social networks. Bear in mind that not all social networks are the same and people are most active during different parts of the day. Get into that and learn when it is best to post on certain social networks. It is also a good idea to schedule your posts so that people can know when to expect new posts.
You should also follow and add people who might have an interest in your products or services and comment on relevant topics, while offering them your expert knowledge in your chosen field. Try to genuinely help people and avoid simply promoting your products or services on their posts or in the middle of conversations. Give them direct links only when they ask you to do so.
Optimize your website for mobile users
If your website is fairly old, there is a good chance that it is not optimized for modern mobile users, or not optimized for mobile devices at all. This is something you simply cannot allow, as there are so many people nowadays who browse the web strictly via their mobile devices. If a person comes to your website using a mobile phone and your site is not optimized for it, he or she won’t be able to open a thing and everything will fall apart.
Remember that all of these people leave your website right away and they won’t come back ever again. This is something you cannot allow. Another thing that is very important is that Google has announced (in 2015) that they will start favoring mobile-optimized websites in search results, meaning that, if your site is not optimized, it will probably appear on the third page or even worse. Therefore, search for ways to make your site mobile-friendly as soon as possible.
The important thing to remember is that it will take time before you get your website back on its feet. Building a base of followers is a long process and even some of the most successful websites invested a lot of time and money before they got to where they are today. Work on your site constantly and the results will follow sooner or later.