Why The Milk’s At The Back Of The Store

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Why The Milk’s At The Back Of The Store
or, there’s no loss in loss leaders

Bringing more website traffic to your website.

What if you put up a web site and nobody comes? This is a problem for some. Here’s some suggestions for adding more content and value to your site & attracting visitors.

OK, so why is the milk (or bread) usually at the back of the store? It’s what people go to the store for. How many times have you said, "Oops, we’re out of broccoli?" In order to get to the milk and the bread, you have to walk past everything else.

"Loss Leaders" work the same way. A store runs a great sale on a product. Prices it at or below invoice. They are willing take a small loss on the item just to get you into the store. Then this item, the loss leader, is put at or near the back of the store. To get to it - you must walk past, and hopefully buy - lots of other items you never would have bought. So, the loss leader generates sales - and customers - that would not have existed.

But on the web there’s no "back of the store" … That’s true. But, on the web you can put "road maps" on every page. These maps can be in the form of text links or banner ads. And, they point the way from your current page to where you hope your visitors will go next.

These links are usually done in two ways on the web:

You advertise your "loss leader" page, but the URL does not point to it. Instead, it points to a page of ads for your other things. Then somewhere on this page is a link that says, "Enter Loss Leader Now," or something similar. This is a practice commonly used by adult web sites and scam pages. Presumably you do not wish to be associated with them, so don’t use this practice.

As above, you advertise the "loss leader" page. But, the URL points directly to it. Then on this page you have links to your other pages. Notice the text links near the bottom of this page. They go to programs/services or other pages with links that pay commissions. You got this free article to read some tips, but you (or someone else) might sign up for something. You would not have downloaded or read this article if the ad said, "buy something." But, this article might be considered one of my loss leaders.

In the second example above, you are in effect bringing your visitor (potential customer) in directly to the back of the store. Then, you attempt to draw a path to the exit that leads through the front of the store. It’s a bit more "soft sell" than the first example, but is absolutely more user friendly.

Added value to your site means added visitors … And, that means added profits. So how do you add something of value to your website with a minimum of effort of high returns? Here’s some things you may want to add to your website (if your host allows it):

Everyone likes to use free classified ads, so give them some on your website. There are a lot of sources for hosted classified ads. These places do all the work for you. All you need to do is promote the URL for the classifieds. Be sure you use a service that allows you to customize your page. Without this, you may not be able to link the classifieds to your regular website.

Right along with classified ads in popularity are personal ads. This is a growing trend on the Net. There are a lot of these services, most of them free. If you have a website that lends itself to personal ads, just do a search in your favorite search engine for them. You should get a lot of choices. If you choose to use these type of ads to attract visitors, be sure they allow you to customize. You need to be able to link to your main website.

Another way to add value to your site is with internet auctions. This is another trend that’s gaining popularity. Like the classifieds and personal ads, these are usually remotely hosted, so you don’t need space on your server. You simply provide the links & a bit of promotion. Again, be sure you can add a link to your main pages on the one you choose. Use the search engines to find a good auction site, then decide if you want auctions for your site. An added bonus to auctions is that you get commissions on what is sold through your page.

You can increase traffic & sales by using FreeForAll links. You can get a free, remote hosted FFA page that gets lots of submissions. The thing about most FFA pages is that most of the submissions are automated. No one visits your page. But, a confirmation e-mail is sent out with each submission. This e-mail can have your sales pitch & URL in it. 100’s of people could get your sales pitch each day — spam free. For more information on FFA pages, my article, "Free-For-All … Schmee-For-All."

If you have the time and know-how, publish your own e-mail based newsletter or ezine. By sending out a regular newsletter (please, no more often than bi-weekly) you can tell your visitors what’s new at your site. This not only reminds them about your site, but gives them a new reason to come back.

The only things you need are the ability to maintain a mailing list, and the writing skills to write something people will want to read. Lots of places can help with maintaining the mailing list. These change from time to time, so you’ll need to do a search to find current ones at your favorite search engine. Also, if you can use CGI scripts or PHP scripts, you can get some good mailing list programs.

Once you have the newsletter/ezine ready to go out, you need to get your visitors to subscribe. Have sign-up forms throughout your website. If you don’t mind them, use "pop-unders" with a sign-up form. There are many easy-to-use scripts for these, too.

If it fits with the theme/topic of your website, create and give away awards. There are lots of people who are "award crazy" and want all the awards possible. The thing about awards is — when someone displays yours — they are also displaying a link back to your site. This can give you lots of really remote back doors to your site. You may or may not get a lot of visitors this way, but it will bring some traffic. There’s even some good free cgi scripts to help manage an award, if you know how to work with cgi.

If you can’t give an award, you can get awards. Most sites that give awards maintain a list of links to award winners. So, the more awards your site wins - the more links to your site. Once again, this won’t wear out the door to your site, but it will bring traffic.

Join a click-through service that helps bring traffic to your site. In my opinion, these are no longer very effective, but you might still have success with them - depending on the nature of your site. Keep in mind that most people who visit your site are just looking for the "click", so they will get a hit in return. The page you are using here must be better than good for these people to actually stay a while and look at your content.

There are other ways to bring traffic to your site. Some will bring targeted traffic (which you want), and others won’t. You can try the Hit Trafficker. This is a page of links to other members sites. As people sign up from your site, they are displaying your link on their sign-up page. This continues for six generations of sign-up pages. Your short ad is your link.

Along the same line is the AdNetwork. Except, with this you get a headline AND a 250 character ad. So, your ad can contain more information.

Linkscout is another traffic builder, though it uses a point system to determine how many return hits your site will get. Also available is an FFA page, discussion forum, and more.

There are many more ways to add value to your site, but you probably get the idea now. The key is to add something people want to see or get. Don’t worry if a small percentage actually "clicks through" to your main pages. The point is this — those are people who would not have seen your primary pages any other way.