What your website may be missing

f, s covrnNrEs coNTINUE To LooK for ways to grow leanlA.er and meaner, the Internet is finally getting the attention it deserves.It's 2010, and there are now very few companies who still think that the Internet is not a vital part of their sales and customer relations strategy.

However, there are still many companies who have trouble producing value from their online marketing efforts. In my seven years in this industry, here is what I've heard the most:

"I can't get traffic. Nobody comes to my website."

The difficulty in resolving this problem lies in the nature of what you sell. If you are in a niche market with real demand, garnering traffic is not difficult. You can produce traffic immediately through running a sponsored search campaign. Google Adwords is the best place to start. Running a campaign and getting traffic based on the keywords you choose is easy-running a good campaign isn't. But if you're totally new to this, just getting a campaign up and running is a good place to start. Later you can understand (or pay someone who does) the specifics of tweaking your campaign for optimal performance at low cost.

If you are in a "trend-making" industry, you can follow trends and create content around these trends. An aggressive link building campaign, YouTube video creation, and periodic article submissions to publishers could produce a lot of "instant" traffic-but only if what you make is in national news headlines fairly frequently and there are real eyeballs to put yourself in front of.

Other traffic strategies that are effective-but much longer term if you want to use them effectively-are search engine optimization (you've been hearing about this one for years) and social media (probably not the first time you've heard about this either). Search engine optimization is about producing quality content over an extended period of time, building inbound links, raising your site's page rank, and a myriad of other simple tasks that require constant dedication and work. Using social media requires dedicated attention to services like Twitter and Facebook-finding new friends and customers, supporting existing ones, and commenting on the activities of others just to show you care. Truthfully, these are full-time endeavors that will not produce quality unless they are given full time dedication.

You might be surprised to hear this, but this is a good problem to have. Why? Because it can be resolved with a bit of analysis, building a strategy, and following through with execution.

The truth is, most websites don't convert their existing traffic because: l. Users don't trust the website. Either you look professional or you look like you're selling stolen TVs in a back alley. Your website appearance has a lot to do with this. Also, including associations you belong to, your SSL certification, and other items can increase website trust.

2. Users become frustrated with the website (they can't do something they should be able to do easily, like order a product). Your website could either be broken, it does not work well in certain scenarios, or critical processes are simply difficult to complete.

It could surprise you how often both of these items go hand in hand (i.e., users don't trust the website because it doesn't work well). This could be for a number of reasons you probably didn't even know existed: l. Your user is facing browser-specific problems (i.e., something is broken in FireFox but not Internet Explorer).

2. To function properly, your website requires certain technologies that not all users have access ro (such as JavaScript, or certain plug-ins).

One of the best ways to monitor for such instances is to install analytics software. There are several free (and some paid) options that provide incredible levels ofdetails.

Getting your website to perform isn't rocket science. But it does require some thought and analysis (and execution afterwards), which perhaps you've neglected thusfar. Don't worry; an effective website is closer than you think.

- Calvin Froedge is a partner at WebUsabilityCheck.com, a service owned by Creative Logic Media, which helps maximize the effectiveness of websites. He has been involved in the creation of hundreds ofwebsites and web plaforms. Reach him at (801) 754 4466 or calvin@ cr e at iv e lo p.icme dia.c om.