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I’ve just been looking at a question on one of the business forums.

It went a bit like this…

I’ve had a web site up for a month and I’ve no sales. What’s the problem?

The questioner runs a pet store that concentrates on dogs, cats and smaller pets, like hamsters and also does a nice line in food and toys and other stuff for pets.

When you look at the web site the home page is succinct. It says something along the lines of “…we’re based in this location and would like you to buy some pet products from us.”

You then had to guess how to buy stuff from one of the 4 buttons down the left hand side. The shopping experience itself lost items selected for purchase from the basket.

So what do you think?

Firstly, no one, but no one is going to use such an unprofessional site to spend their money on. However, apart from that it seems to be a small business.

Trying to get a presence on the Internet is good. But expecting people to find you shows you’re unaware of the amount of pet web sites out on the Internet. All of them likely to come before this site in any Google search. Therefore, no one will ever find you. So what I said to her relates to many other companies. So how do you get people to visit your site?

How To Get People To Visit Your Site

Before people visit, step back and look at the site. If it looks unprofessional, untidy, or badly designed nobody will buy from you. Why would they trust someone who can’t do a basic web site with their money?

Now having established that your site is the best thing since sliced bread, let’s get visitors.

In the pet shop’s case I suggested handing out magnetic cards people could put onto their fridges with the site URL and a nice offer of a special recurring discount on an item of food or bedding. Any other business could do exactly the same.

In the pet shop’s case I suggested handing the cards out to people who buy anything from their stores because they’re going to want to buy feed at the very least.

I also suggested PR with little reports related to dog training, catch catching and hamster baiting. All with the site URL in.

It’s all a matter of making people more aware of your site.

Could any business do the same? You bet. Have a go, you may be surprised.

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