Getting Relevant People to Your Website

Credit: Visual Capitalist

Using your website to sell requires you to get relevant people to visit as a prerequisite.  But how can you get people to view your website?  And it needs to be relevant people - those who are potential buyers.

These are some suggestions on ways to attract visitors.

Keywords in the meta descriptions and in the text are important.  These are not just products, colours and other aspects of the work, although essential.  They are why people are buying.  Elements of this are buying gifts, e.g.:

• Holidays
• Celebrations
• Awareness days and weeks (Mother’s Day, birdwatch month, Gardening week, etc).

These need to be detailed in specific terms to bring people who are buying for birthdays, aniverseries, weddings, etc.

They may be buying for a purpose:

• Windows, 
• Kitchens,
• Decorative,
• Functional,
• Garden

Again, these need to be described in specific terms, e.g., splashbacks, dinner sets, wall art, etc.

Use the specific terms in your titles and early in the descriptions of each item.  This process is not easy, and you may want to enlist help from friends and family to get the right terms.  SEO is not the complete answer to getting visits, though.  There are other things you need to do

Categorise your pages with specific names rather than generic ones such as collection or portfolio. Use names such as splashback, tiles, birds, bowls, etc.  Leave the mention of glass to the description of each item. It doesn't really have a place in the title for your pieces.

Promote your social media and site at every opportunity. If you have been mentioned somewhere, let everyone know.  Use specific links to the work relevant to any communication within the post. All your printed material needs to have the addresses of your site and social media, also as part of the signature of your email address.  Link between all your social media platforms, your website and any selling sites you participate in.  

But it is not only your own site that you need to promote.  In promoting other sites that you are associated with, you spread the knowledge of what you do.  By linking and liking sites or businesses that have been useful to you, you may also get reciprocal mentions.  These all spread knowledge of what you do to a wider audience. 

Share

Make it easy for people to share the content of your site.  Have buttons and links that viewers can click on with no extra effort. Share links to other articles that you have found interesting.  The readers of those articles will pick up on your links.   Include internal links to other works on your website and any other selling platform in which you participate.

Update your website.

Updating the website is time away from making.  But it is essential to the selling of what you make.  Of course, you update your site every time you complete a piece of work - don't you?  You let people know of developments in your business life at they happen, surely.  This refreshing helps the indexing web crawlers to recognise a site that is current and so index the new stuff. By using all the specific terms in describing things, you will provide human browsers with the terms to direct them to you.

Respond to current matters

React to timely and trending topics.  These can be relevant general news items, upcoming events that are relevant to your potential customers, awareness days relevant to you and your work, etc.  What is happening in the craft world, or your section of it is of general interest.  It helps develop the audience for craft, which in turn, gives you a bigger audience.  Not everything needs to be about you. 

Write about your customers’ questions.  Give information about the questions and the background to them along with the response.  Use the customers’ language.  By doing this you are making use of the search terms used by your potential customers.  You don't get questions on your site?  There are other sources.  

• Keep track of the questions you are asked at craft and trade fairs and use them. 
• Use the questions you have of other crafts and craft workers, adjusted for your own work. 
• You can develop questions by googling for answers to your own questions and see how they are phrased.  Then use that kind of approach in outlining responses to the questions.

Use case studies in your updates and posts.  Providing in-depth descriptions of a commission or development of a product goes a long way to giving an insight to how you work and about your values.  These are interesting things for prospective buyers. And it engenders confidence in your approach to your work - your ethos.

Write for other sites that are relevant to your customers.  There are websites and blogs that publish guest articles.  You will need to develop a relevant pitch for each of the ones of interest.  Do only one pitch at a time to ensure you are not overwhelmed.

These suggestions are not exhaustive, of course.  It may seem like a lot of effort for uncertain results.  As you become practiced, you will find it easy to add a few paragraphs each day to one of your online presences.  These entries will provide the entry points for potential customers and develop the personality of your business.