Inner Website Advertising
Posted by Lindsayanng on February 22nd, 2009
Did this little graphic catch your eye? It’s simple, to the point, but it is eye catching, RIGHT?
I do a LOT of feedback posts in forums for people’s websites. The main reason I do it is because in looking at their websites and critiquing them, I am getting new ideas for my websites. One of the main things I seem to recommend to everyone is inner website advertising.
You must be thinking, “They already made it to my website, why do I have to advertise to them on my own site?”
My response to you would be simply, just because people made it TO your website doesn’t mean that they will purchase. Google Analytics has something called “Bounce Rate.” This is something that you should pay CLOSE attention to, but you MUST have google analytics installed on your website first. So head over here and get it working. Its not too hard, but if you need help, just email me.
“Bounce Rate” is when people go on your website and then just leave. They do not click any deeper and they decide that they don’t want to be there without reading into any of your content. The average bounce rate for a blog is around 60% so don’t feel bad if yours is up there. It is ok. However, you would not want a 90% bounce rate because that means almost all of the people that visit your site just leave.
So the goal is to get people on your website and then get them to click further into your website, and Inner Website Advertising is the way to do it.
I see a LOT of people who have an e-commerce website that, when you go to the home page (or landing page) there is a paragraph or two of text explaining their mission statement and their strive for excellence. Now, this is all fine and dandy, but when you think about it, when was the last time you read anything on an e-commerce site other than a product description. And with blogs, when was the last time you read through the entire list of text links in those side bar columns? Rarely.
So your goal is to get people to CLICK. So what you should do is look at the text that you are using to get across your idea and pull just a line or a few words out of it, turn it into a headline, and make it fun and enticing.
Blogs are all about words, so having a lot of text on your home page isn’t a bad thing, but if you have pages that you really want people to read. Maybe its a mission statement, or something about yourself, or your favorite blog post. You should create a funky little graphic with some enticing text to get people to go there.
If you want to see an example of inner website advertising, go here. You can see on the side column there is an advertisement for BRIDAL REGISTRY. Its a graphic that could go on ANY website and entice people to click to ours, but it is being well used right there on the front of it’s own website.
You can see LOADS of examples by just clicking through some of the most popular websites.
If your a blogger, check out these:
Huffington Post You can see that even when you are on a post about one thing, there are pictures with text that are trying to get you to click on the next post up there at the top. AND on the right there’s a box called “10 Top Huffington Post” with pictures! Adding images makes a world of difference!
Gizmodo has little advertisements right in it’s header with little blurbs of posts and the little “bestmodo” button is a little addition as well.
It might be as simple as changing your template, or just adding an image into a widget, but it will make a WORLD of difference in not only your bouce rate, but also the overall LOOK of your site.
For E-Tailers
You can look at just about ANY big time e-tailer, but I will post a link just because.
Wal-Mart You don’t get any bigger than Wal-Mart, and right there you see a barrage of graphics and advertisements for their own website to get you to click. If Wal-mart is doing it, that means there HAS to be something to it.
E-tailers have a little more as far as content to work with. Sometimes it’s as easy as putting a product on your home page as a featured product, or offering free shipping using a graphic instead of text.
No matter WHAT type of website you have, you should realize that internet browsers are visual people. They get pulled in by fancy graphics and enticing head lines. If you can put those on your home page in order to get people to delve deeper into your blog, you will see a lower bounce rate, more subscribers, and hopefully more sales.
Want to know who is offering this awesome content? Here it is! Someone who is relatively new to web design. I am new enough to still remember how absolutely frustrating it was to try and get anything done in this field, but have also been around long enough to be able to help those that are where I was a year ago.
Aside from web design, I run the office of my dad's engineering business, and do book keeping by trade.
I love my pets.. All 6 cats, 1 peg legged dogs, and 1 hedgehog. LOVE THEM!!
Oh yea, and my husband. He lets me chase my dreams and I let him do the same. We are happy people because of it. Read more from this author
