The Secret to Growing Your Site Traffic with “Authentic” Content

There are many ways you can increase traffic to your site. One way is to create compelling content that keeps your users coming back for more.

Are you ready to learn the secret sauce to develop captivating content that grows site traffic and reflects your authentic perspective? Here’s how.

1. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes

We’ve all heard that we need to think and speak to our customers but studies show that separating our own perspectives from our customers’ can be challenging. Look for ways to build personal connections with your customers that will help you truly understand them.

• Send out surveys.
• Invite customers to email you their feedback.
• When possible, meet them face-to-face.
• You can also be more empathetic to your customers. Remind yourself of your own bias so that you don't project your preferences onto your customers likes and dislikes.
• Be sure to consider opposing opinions to help you shape your approach. Whether its incorporating feedback from online comments or offline discussions about the topic with a friend, consider all viewpoints and not just your own personal one.

2. Convert what you know about your customers into insights

Your readers may have dozens of places to purchase the same products that you sell or get similar information elsewhere, that you have on your site. Your customers are not coming to your site to spend money. They are there for a deeper benefit that they believe comes with the purchase of your product or service. Connect your product or service to a solution that will fulfill exactly that need.

For example:

• Starbucks doesn’t sell coffee – they sell an indulgence you deserve.
• Nike doesn’t sell you sneakers – they sell you confidence that you can achieve your goals.

Learn from your customers what emotional benefit your service offers. Helping your customers achieve exactly that in a relevant, meaningful way should be the goal of your website.

3. Speak from the heart – but offer a well-rounded perspective

Writing about a topic you truly believe in can help you communicate enthusiasm and captivate your audience. But being overly emotional or passionate can be perceived by your readers as unreasonable and worse, can even alienate them. As you write, be cognizant to inform and educate and not to be overly promotional. Ask yourself what your customers would truly want to read and see on your site.

4. Stay relevant to your customers

Being relevant is crucial to converting browsers into customers. Relevance starts with knowing your customers but also relates to being current.

Conduct a site review at least semi-annually to identify outdated content that is no longer useful.

• Did the information you discussed change?
• Was new information presented?
• Is there a better way to accomplish the same task?

Outdated content should be updated so that it is valid. If your industry moves quickly, your reviews need to be more frequent. Seasonal products and data, for instance, should be reviewed and updated as often as needed to keep them current.

5. Follow proven guidelines and standards.

• Hold the attention of your users by keeping content short and easy to digest – I promise, you two things: First, you won’t lose credibility. And second, your readers will comprehend and retain your ideas more reliably.
• Design your site navigation to make finding relevant content easy.
• Make sure your content is easy to view on a mobile device.
• Help customers find you by using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) best practices like alt tags, titles, descriptions, and descriptive image names that use the same keywords that users enter when searching for content like yours.

By getting to know and speaking to your customers with current, emotionally appealing information, you’ll create captivating content that will attract more visitors to your site and ultimately grow your business.

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