The most effective way to drive traffic to any website is to first know your audience. Four questions to be answered in accomplishing this task are: Who is your audience? Why would your audience want or need to visit your website? What is the expectation of your audience when visiting your website? and finally, how will your audience use your website?

A good practice in answering these questions is to interview people who may represent the type of audience that your website is intended to attract. For example, if one wanted to create a website for dog grooming services then interviewing dog owners is a great way to obtain information and insight on how to attract potential users to the site. Also, having a theme-specific design is appropriate for various types of sites

In addition, considering cultural variables as you write your content will help to narrow down the most basic, to the most specific needs for the website’s attractiveness. Consider politics, economics, social, religious, technical and linguistic factors when creating a website design and content by carefully using words, colors and language that varies internationally when creating website content. The color black in China, when used in a certain manner, represents evil, corruption and illegal activities. Another example of cultural variable on the surface are the use of words, which may translate as an opposing word in another country; The word “Bing” in China means “sickness”, and was once the cause of the Bing websites lack of success in China because the word itself actually drove traffic away from the website.

Imagery is the key to catching and keeping the attention of your intended audience. Pictures, drawings and other art used should be as original as possible; if your audience recognizes an images or drawing from a previous site or anywhere else for that matter, they may automatically associate the visual with information from their previous experiences relating to that image, and the association could quite possibly represent a negative memory for individual audience members or any particular group of people.

After you have studied your audience and determined how you’d like to introduce your website to the world, the next step would be to organize your content and display it in a way that is effective and easy for your audience to absorb and follow. Determine how you want to present your information; The name of the website and any subtitles should be clearly presented on the welcome page and all headings, subheadings and lists on subsequent pages should be clear, easily legible, accessible and consistent in format and structure. Also, use of short phrases in appropriate areas, avoiding over-use of decorative graphics and proper use of white space will prevent your audience from being overwhelmed with trying to locate and decipher information. In sum, keeping it short, sweet and simple is an excellent idea for attracting website visitors and keeping their attention.

Having knowledge of your intended audience gives you the advantage in creating eye-catching and appealing content with art in which your audience could relate, that will not only capture the attention of visitors but will also leave lasting impressions on website visitors. One last strategy in driving traffic to a website is to perfect an elevator pitch that would persuade potential audiences that the website is the best place for their attention to be at any given time.

Interactive websites tend to attract more traffic than others, so creating a community within the website that allows for users to leave comments and engage in discussions are a great way to ensure that visitors not only feel connected, but that their voice and opinions matter and keeping the website active by regularly updating and responding to your users may draw in additional traffic as well.

While originality is the best practice in attracting website traffic, knowing what is trending could help connect modern day societies with those that are not so modern, which may also help to bridge gaps between what is new and what is old – giving your website an edgy type of presence and making the site relatable to multiple classes of people.

Once you have mastered how to effectively draw in your audience, it is a good idea to brand your website before actually making the website public. To do this, a good suggestion would be to come up with a design logo and market the logo by advertising, word-of-mouth and using social media to spread the word about the up-and-coming website. Using search engine optomizing tools is a good way to boost traffic on your website that is abundant and organic. If a website is based on a product or services, existing customers and/or clients are good ways to promote the site in gaining traffic, and if the website is dedicated to providing entertainment, information or a combination of the two, using social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook are sure fire ways to bring in traffic that is on-going and sufficient. Once all of this is mastered, test the site in a controlled environment with those you had formerly interviewed to determined it’s effectiveness.

To sum in all up, websites should be geared around intended audiences in such as way that they become regular visitors and advocates of the website. New and innovative ideas grabs attention, and consistency in structure and growth is what keeps readers interested. The audience is always the focus, so learning who your audience is, what they want and how they want it is the perfect start to generating traffic. Below is a basic breakdown of elements needed to attract people and even third party engines to your site.

Driving traffic to websites

1) Know your audience, appeal to that audience

2) Interview people who could represent your potential audience ( then test the site in a controlled environment)

3) Consider cultural variables such as text, words and colors when creating website design and content

4) Organize your information properly

5) keep it short, sweet and simple (exceptions are for informational pages, where information should be categorized and consolidated as well as presented in a desirable manner)

6) Perfect an elevator pitch to persaude visitors that they need something your website has to offer

7) Perfect your design and/or logo and brand the website before actually making it public in order to give audiences something to look forward to

8) Utilize social networks, SEO’s and other media to promote the website

9) Create a community within your website where people can feel like they ‘belong’ (make site interactive)

10) update, comment and respond to users regularly