Build Your Website and They'll Come. Oh Really?

Do you know: 

• how many people have visited your website? 
• what they were searching for when they arrived at your website? 
• how long people stayed on your website? 
• which pages people are leaving on? 

These are important questions. Many don't even know the answer to the first. They spend lots of money on a beautifully designed website, spend much time tweaking their colours and images, but in reality only receive a couple of visitors a month. How about you? 

#1 Method To Be Found Online

There are many ways to be found online. Web searches like Google play an important role especially in countries like Australia and the US. The main reason being - people use them to search for information and websites!

I have heard social media experts say that "search is dead". Obviously it suits them to say this since they want to sell you on social media advertising. It's what they know. But, you want a broad approach to your online marketing. Use more than one marketing medium.

If you only focus on one method though, then an objective analysis - like you find in Nielsen's Australian Online Landscape Review - reports that Google has the highest active reach of 85.96% of Australians (July 2013).

Is that significant enough for you? How much do you spend on Yellow Pages or Sensis? How much do you spend on offline methods like local newspapers, brochures and direct mail? Where is most of your money spent? For businesses that span the country in particular, to ignore the Internet and specifically Google, is to do so at your own peril.