In the offline world, you can set up a stall at the market and be sure of getting passing trade. But in cyberspace, building a website without telling anyone would be like opening a shop on Mars. That applies as much to e-tailers as to high-street brands. Whether for selling or for raising brand awareness, and no matter how splendid it may be, any new site has to strive to be noticed.
Paid advertising is perhaps the most obvious way to get attention, although internet users are learning to ignore the marketing messages that clutter their screens. Many companies choose to pay for search engine listings, but this, too, has drawbacks, as it can be a pricey way in.
Experts claim that in competitive sectors like financial services the CPC (cost-per-click) can be as much as 20p to 30p, with no guarantee of a sale to follow. Even rates of around 50p or £1 are not uncommon, and for small ticket items with a conversion rate of 3 per cent on average, this is often unrealistic.
Fortunately there are all sorts of cheaper ways to attract visitors. One is to optimise search engine listings by building appropriate keywords into your site. The trick here is not to rely on your own ideas of what visitors want to know.
Matthew Curry, head of new media at Wiltshire Farm Foods, says: "Make a list of what you think people search for - then throw it away. Customers don't use your business jargon and they don't think about your product like you do." Optimising search for the brand's new site, built by Coast Digital, has helped achieve a 25 per cent lift in traffic, while web sales have increased by 50 per cent.
Similarly, Revolution Vodka Bars used focus groups and other research methods when creating a new website. By identifying the keywords that people use when searching for a bar, food or event venue online, the company was able to ensure high search rankings.
Visibility on Google also depends on getting links to other sites. An offline business can start by linking to its suppliers, or to other retailers in the commercial centres where its shops are located.
However, by far the best way to generate traffic is to provide content of general interest to consumers, which hopefully they will reference on their blogs and social networking profile pages.
This principle of cross-fertilisation needs to be understood for a site to be successful. "If a brand wants to attract visitors it must create content that people genuinely want to read, talk about, bookmark and share," argues Justin Hunt, director of social media strategy consultancy ItsOpen.
One idea is to give customers opportunities to contribute comments about a brand through blogs and forums, Hunt suggests. He points to the example set by brands such as Dell and Starbucks, which place social media tools on their websites to encourage customers to create content. As well as generating links, this can be mined as a source of ideas for improvements to products and services.
The need to engage with web users on their own terms has been taken to heart by the COI when trying to get the Government's various messages across to the public. "We are very conscious that just developing a site and putting it out there isn't going to bring in the masses," says the COI's deputy director of interactive services Michael Smith. Internet users are constantly being bombarded by attempts to get their attention, and we have to find ways to cut through."
The COI focuses heavily on search, both by optimising searches and paying for listings, particularly for the bigger portals such as Directgov. It uses display advertising, too, first researching where the relevant audience for a particular site is likely to be found.
But the office is also highly active in the social media space. "People have far greater affinity with social networking sites than they do with the Government, and we need to take our message into those environments," Smith says. For instance, a site like Bebo is an ideal place for a member of the RAF to talk about their experiences and answer questions about military life.
Cadbury made good use of social networking earlier this year to drive 16 to 24 year-olds to its Creme Egg microsite. The theme of 'letting the goo out' was used within the Kate Modern series on Bebo, also in spoof editorial content on Yahoo! and MSN, and in online display advertising and paid search. The site attracted more than 3.5 million page views in three months and enabled Cadbury to collect 110,000 new customer details.
Viral approaches using games and gimmicks are an ideal way to attract younger audiences. Last year, the US online stationery company Officemax scored with a campaign site where visitors could superimpose an image of a friend onto the body of a dancing elf and send it as an e-card.
Archibald ingall stretton did something similar when it put a snow machine in its reception and set up webcams linked to a microsite so that internet users could see people going out for lunch. It told a select number of people that if they spotted any member of staff coming in late they could press a button and the machine would spray them with snow.
"We seeded it with a few bloggers and it quickly went mad. We got hits from all over the world," says the agency's head of digital Jon Buckley.
Brands can also drive traffic to their websites by featuring video content. For instance, newspapers and football portals such as Soccervoice and Footy Boots have been embedding Perform's e-Player in their sites and using it to show sporting clips.
Meanwhile, online retailers can take advantage of consumer portals that offer price comparison or rewards. One is pigsback.com, which provides high visibility to a wide range of on and offline merchants, from big brands such as Debenhams and John Lewis to smaller ones, including Underkeks, Mankind and Golfbreaks.com.
The company claims this gets maximum exposure to the right target audience, without the brand having to worry about what tools they use to drive traffic to their own site.
Conventional direct marketing is also used, particularly email. Lida has had good results from buying space for messages on Pop Bitch, a popular celebrity gossip newsletter, which is emailed to subscribers every week. "It generates loyalty, it's popular, and you are much more likely to get joy out of it than buying a cold list," says Lida's managing director Ian Crocham.
In practice, a variety of online approaches can be combined. Revolution Vodka Bars taps into the youth audience by hosting a facility for visitors to upload their own video clips. It also uses social media such as Facebook to create links, and runs email viral campaigns by sending games and encouraging recipients to challenge their friends.
"The website has achieved fantastic results, averaging around 80,000 visitors per month, compared to less than 25,000 visitors per month for the previous site," says Andy Windsor, marketing manager at Revolution Vodka Bars. "Bookings are up by more than a third", he adds.
Offline media can also help get a new site's name about. Ambient media, posters, press and TV should all prominently display its URL address. This doesn't have to be to the main web address: Colgate ran a poster ad during the summer that carried a URL to a Bebo profile containing videos, photos and competitions based on its advertising.
"It's surprising how many companies don't bother to add their address to TV ads, or put it in tiny type that no one can read," says archibald ingall stretton's Buckley. We notice that whenever a URL is included on a TV ad, hits to the site rocket."
That was the case when the agency launched a site for Skoda's Fabia: initial online advertising got a good click-through, but hits really took off when the TV ad started running a few days later.
On a smaller scale, website created by Mabox was the focus of a recent campaign by the Learning Trust to raise literacy rates in Hackney. The agency carried out extensive above-the-line promotion, including posters, local press ads and PR. A launch event outside the town hall was attended by teachers, community groups and librarians, and the impact was widened by heavily branded t-shirts and balloons being handed out. Between October and June this year, the site achieved 57,000 page views.
If web traffic could be categorically bought by paid advertising the big brands would dominate, while the rest would barely get a look in. Fortunately that's not the case: financial muscle can certainly help, but as consumers start to take charge of the web, site owners of all shapes and sizes can find ways to attract large audiences. All it takes is a bit of thought and imagination.
SMART THINK!NG
Web traffic
1. Identify the keywords that people use to obtain information about your product or service and embed them in the website to get good search engine rankings.
2. Make sure you provide interesting content on the site, and refresh it regularly, to keep visitors coming back.
3. Display social networking buttons on the site so that visitors can easily share content.
4. Check out any consumer information portals where you may be able to get a free listing.
5. Make sure the site's address is prominently displayed on stationery, email signatures and all offline advertising.
CASEBOOK - How O2 got people in the Blue Room with pints and pies
O2 has just launched a new version of the Blue Room (o2blueroom.co.uk), a website that provides customers with free tickets to England rugby matches and other exclusive items, along with priority for concert tickets at the O2 venue. The site was built by archibald ingall stretton, which is now running a multi-channel campaign to drive traffic.
A TV spot is backed by posters and ambient media in London, and national and local press advertising. Customers are also sent letters and postcards. Previous ads for the Blue Room have carried the site URL, but this time they feature instead a phone number that customers can dial to receive a text message that drives them to the site.
SEO (search engine optimisation) has been undertaken to ensure high Google rankings. "If people are searching for England rugby or concert tickets, we try to make sure that the Blue Room features high on the list," says Jon Buckley, head of digital at archibald ingall stretton.
Visitors are encouraged to spread the word by linking to social networking sites, with bookmarking tools prominently displayed.
The first version of Blue Room featured a game where consumers could compete with England rugby players in a staring contest. The new site includes the eye-to-hand coordination game Batak, which again enables visitors to pit their skills against England players.
Other initiatives are being made to create an online buzz. "There are some influential bloggers out there, and if you give them exclusives they will talk about you, which helps to drive traffic," says Buckley.
The site has a physical counterpart in a bar named The Blue Room at the Twickenham rugby stadium for the exclusive use of O2 customers. Leaflets handed out at England matches invite O2 customers to text a number to get a free pint and a pie.
The site gained more than a million unique visitors last year.