How to attract more visitors by keeping your staff happy

Everyone wants more people to click on their website and this is very important – after all, the more clicks you receive, the more sales and enquiries your likely to get, but what a lot of people don’t realise is that a website’s click-through rates can also have an impact on your search engine ranking. But just as important as the initial click-through is the dreaded bounce rate – the percentage of clicks that hit the ‘back’ button within seconds of reaching your site.

This means that your main aim should not only be to attract more visitors, but to keep them there as long as possible and guide them deeper into your site.

Coincidentally, this is quite similar to the process that managers and professional recruitment firms find themselves in when it comes to attracting and retaining good staff members.

In a HR Whitepaper by local recruitment firm Astor Levin, they state:

The key to attracting and retaining your workforce is to understand the needs of your employees and deliver maximum value in the context of what is feasible within the organisation itself and in relation to the other options employee have available to them within the marketplace.
It sounds simple. However, the 2007 EVP National Survey results showed that only 56% of respondents believe that their expectations upon joining their employer had been met.

If employers are failing at what should be a fairly easy task of making their staff happy, I hate to think how many websites fail to keep their visitors happy.

In most of the staff retention reports and articles I’ve read, money usually isn’t what motivates as many staff as you’d think – instead the culture of the organisation, the structure and hierarchy (ie. how easy is it to do your job without having to go through a dozen managers and how easy is it to advance within the company), and most importantly – how well the company understands the staff member’s needs, wants and desires and how they go about helping you achieve these.

So let’s take a look at some of these factors in terms of a website:

Your site’s culture

Every site has it’s own way of delivering it’s content. Some sites want to appear authoritative, corporate and professional, other sites have a more light hearted approach and joke with you in the content. Some want you to play and click on as many interactive elements as possible. Other sites want to dazzle you with flash, AJAX or other technologies that can look very pretty and impressive.

Whatever you decide your site’s ‘culture’ should be, just make sure it’s inline with the type of clients you want to attract. For instance if you’re users aren’t particularly internet savvy it might be best to avoid all the ‘bells and whistles’ and keep things as simple as possible.

Your site’s structure

How easy is it for someone to open your site and find what they’re looking for? How many steps are required to make a simple purchase? Does it require a dozen clicks just to find your contact page? Just like staff want to get through their daily tasks as efficiently as possible with as few hurdles and managerial red tape as possible, your website visitors want exactly the same. They don’t want to find themselves scratching their heads 20 minutes after adding a product to their shopping cart trying to figure-out how to get to the next step and submit their payment information.

Visitors goals / needs / wants / desires

When a visitor comes to your website, they will usually have a specific goal in mind, which can range from wanting to purchase a particular product to finding a certain piece of information that relates to your products/services/industry (or even something as simple as finding your phone number).

Understanding what this goal is will make delivering on your clients needs, wants and desires a whole lot easier.

If the goal is to make a purchase online, the user will most likely want some sort of reassurance the product is right for them (which can perhaps be achieved through testimonials or product reviews). They will need to know the features, benefits, technical specifications of the product. They’ll also need to know their payment will be secure and that there is some sort of return policy or guarantee in place.

Once you have a decent structure in place, a culture that fits nicely with your ‘ideal’ customers and you’ve delivered on your clients needs and wants… you can then add ‘desire’ through things like value-adds, loyalty programs etc. etc.

Every website, company and staff member is unique in their own special way, so some of the above points may not apply specifically for your situation, but perhaps now could be a good time to review things within your organisation. I’m sure by re-addressing your culture, structure, goals, objectives etc. etc. you’ll see an improvement in your website… or your staff… or even your business as a whole.