Home > Resources > 10 Ways to add value to your website

Whether your business serves consumers directly or businesses, the growth of Social Media and related technologies (what we now call ^Web 2.0^) has led to the development of many powerful tools that can add value to your website and increase the chances of a first time user coming back. The list below highlights just some of the ways you can harness the power of 2.0, learn more about your website user and generate extra traffic.Best of all, they are all available for free!

1. Online polls

Polls are a simple and effective way to learn more about your customers and websites users. Think long and hard about the questions you are going to ask - A well designed poll can give you insight about your audience, it also teaches the participant something new/interesting.

2. Organize a creativity contest

A relevant contest backed with an attractive prize can generate great interest virally. Make it easy to register and even easier to ‘spread the word’ about your contest. Often, entrants are lured by the chance to display their skills rather than winning the prize so ensure participants are duly acknowledged and their work displayed.

3. Be creative with your email signature

This especially applies to non personal accounts such as info@ or cust.services@. If you have a Special Offer going, why not include details here? Why not try up-selling using your signature – when customer makes an enquiry for product A, why not try offering a discount/incentive for product B, available via website.

4. Mobile power

As people increasingly turning to their mobile phones to browse the internet the need for a mobile-friendly website becomes important. Make sure your mobile website can be viewed on a range of phones to ensure maximum compatibility and therefore traffic.

5. Create a Facebook ‘fan’ page for your company

Besides offering free access to a user-base of 150 million (90 million active), Facebook makes making referrals effortless and good content become viral more easily.

6. Twitter aka micro-blogging

Twitter’s phenomenal growth lies not so much in driving sales but its brand building capabilities. The informal environment it offers encourages more personal communication between you and your ‘followers’ and can take customer service to the next level. Once you have established a Twitter presence, you can also monitor customer sentiment about your product/service via its search functionality.

7. Maintain a Business Blog

Blogs are an extremely powerful marketing tool allowing you to participate in dialogue with your customers and prospects. The additional benefit it offers over Facebook and Twitter is that whereas the latter comprises of mostly customers , blogs which offers rich and valuable content often attract customers and prospects, all of which can directly impact sales in the long term. Make sure to include your blog URL on your marketing collaterals such as business cards, brochure etc.

8. Have a E-mail marketing strategy

A good strategy beings with an opt-in policy. Include a sample of your previous newsletter next to the ‘Newsletter signup’ fields for the users evaluation. In order to see positive results, your email marketing campaign needs to be two things: relevant and consistent. Therefore, make sure your newsletters include rich and useful content and once you decide on the frequency of your mailshots – advise the customer and stick to it.

9.Social Bookmarking

Have a social bookmarking widget such as Addthis or Addtoany  within your website pages. This will make it easy for your website user to save/forward content that is of interest. Make sure you label the page titles appropriately and place the widget close to the bookmarkable content, so users know exactly what they are saving.

10.Share what you know via LinkedIn or Yahoo Answers

Contribute with the intention of adding value rather than joining the conversation and this can serve as a small yet effective way in positioning your firm as experts in your area. This will also help in generating extra traffic to your website.