Get the content right
Weber Shandwick Worldwide's managing director, Emilio Robles, says the key is the site's content, and how it is presented. -It has to be compelling. But even if you get someone there and the Web site is faulty or difficult to navigate, you are not going to get them back. -One of most powerful things in PR is word of mouth," he says. -So before we take on a site we like to go in and make sure it works. The site also has to be absolutely relevant to the audience, it has to have all the content they want, and it has to have a compelling reason for them to visit it."
If it is just to recycle internal company information that is not useful to customers, then Robles's advice is don't bother. He also believes that Australian sites specifically need to make sure they are the equal of sites worldwide, because of the lack of borders in the world of the Net.
-The way you attract people to your site, product, service or company is by knowing who your audience is, how they interact with other people, and what groups or associations they attend. Then it's easy to target marketing to that audience.
To market the Web site of a pharmaceutical company, for example, one should investigate to find lists of the professional associations in that field, and the major conferences. prize packages
Another way to get those eyes to your site is through the use of events, competitions, and prize giveaways. -Some companies create promotional Web sites and the PR company will do street stunts or street promotions that point to some Web site and offer a compelling reason to visit," says Weber Shandwick's Robles. -Or the Web sites might use a competition-based approachâ€"so if you go there and click, you might be able to win a trip or a prize."
Another way to attract visitors to a site, according to Robles, is through electronic communications, including viral e-mail, but the danger of this type of advertising is that it can annoy people if not used properly.
Robles considers a one- to three-percent response rate to direct or viral marketing to be good, and a response of five percent outstanding.
Search engines
While it is second nature for people who have built a new site to register it with multiple search engines, the engines themselves will not drive people to the site. They do, however, provide a good indicator of whether people will visit it.
The trick is knowing the key words that will bring your site up in response to a search. If you have difficulty coming up with good key words or phrases that characterise your site, then there is a good chance that it doesn't have the compelling content people require, and you might as well put away the cheque book.
Looking at links
Simon van Wyck from the Web development company Hot House has experienced both success and failure at driving visitors to Web sites.
-We did a site called Manhood that was based on the book by Steve Biddulph [a story about -how men can find the joy and energy of being in a male body with a man's mind and spirit", according to one description], but nothing we did could drive traffic to it, because what do you search for?
However, the opposite was the case when HotHouse created SexualityBytes.com.au. There was no need to promote it anywhere but online, and the traffic came in droves.
-Despite its name the site contained very straight educational material on sexual health," van Wyck says. -We put it up and then went to every Web site we could possibly think of that would want a link to it. Because the content was worthy and there was no reason for them not to, we got a lot of links and generated a lot of traffic."
Van Wyck agrees that having the word -sex" in a URL will attract visitors, but he says this is not necessarily all to your advantage.
-While it is a magnet, it also is a really blunt object and a lot of people were looking for something quite different than what the site had on offer.
-When looking for sites to link from we looked for any site that was publishing health and lifestyle information as well as organisations dealing with sex education or education in general. We asked them to have a look at our content and put in a link. We were generating 200,000 page views and about 6000 unique visitors a day and there would not be a lot of sites in Australia doing that."
According to van Wyck, although Sexuality Bytes was registered with search engines, it was a long process and took some time before it began turning up in serach results. However, the cross linking was more effective anyway.
