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I started planning a new web service. I started to write some effect maps to define primary goals that are basically related to growing numbers of:

  • site traffic
  • user registrations
  • user shopping (keeping at least constant conversion rate)

Relevant and high quality content is of course key and related to all three goals, but each of these three goals require additional scenarios to boost each and keep it growing.

I have an idea how to grow site traffic by integrating my site with social sites like Facebook and twitter so people can share site awareness by sharing information with their friends/followers. They will also be rewarded with bonuses when their friends register and make a purchase for the first time within a limited timeframe (this will boost sharing). This mechanism most likely has a much stronger effect than promoting site on forums, blogs etc that are directly related to site's content... If you have any other ideas let me know.

But there's a more complicated way of the other two goals... registrations and shopping...

With shopping there will be loyalty program with discounts for frequent shoppers etc...

Questions

  1. What other things can I do to increase site awareness (increasing traffic) beside social network sharing with shopping bonuses with sub pears registering+shopping...
  2. How can I encourage user registration?
  3. What other incentives can be used to increase shopping?
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1. Execute a well-targeted marketing campaign. 2. Provide compelling benefits to registration & communicate them properly. 3. Research consumer behavior. – dnbrv Jan 6 '12 at 14:59
@dnbrv: Marketing campaign where? It's supposed to be worldwide service for English, German, French and Spanish speaking community. And I don't want to invest money into marketing at first. All I have are free promotional channels... But yes I agree on 2. I'm trying to do exactly that. – Robert Koritnik Jan 6 '12 at 15:33
@dnbrv: BTW: Why don't you put this into an answer so we can comment directly on your ideas instead of general commenting where others can equally participate? – Robert Koritnik Jan 6 '12 at 15:33
Worldwide? English, German, French and Spanish? and you're apparently not well funded because you're not spending money on marketing. Sounds like you're trying to go too big too fast. Build a smaller product. Focus on a niche. Get successful. Then go big. – MikeNereson Jan 6 '12 at 17:03
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@RobertKoritnik: You've asked 3 questions unrelated to each other (except for being parts of the sales funnel) and unrelated to startup management. We can't help you if you don't provide us with specific problems that need solving - we can't brainstorm your business for you. – dnbrv Jan 6 '12 at 17:27
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3 Answers

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+500

It sounds to me as though you have a pretty good grasp of what you need to do already, along with plenty of good ideas!

My advice would be this... You have probably done enough thinking for now. Draw a line and get everything built and launched.

Any new ideas you get along the way - write them on a separate list and don't even consider them until after you've launched.

If you're not careful you'll spend so long coming up with more great ideas that you'll never launch anything. Furthermore, you'll never get everything right first time. By launching your site you can start the SEO process and you can start to collect some real-world analytics about what's working and what isn't.

You can then make your future development (and therefore investment) decisions based on real data rather than gut feeling.

Sorry if this is a bit of a non-answer, but I think it's worth considering all the same!

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These are all valid and very relevant ideas. Thanks. – Robert Koritnik May 23 '12 at 12:04
This is the best advice you can give anyone for their 1st startup. Chris is so right. You need to learn how to divide up features between must have, nice to have, and be able to phase them out into seperate build versions. The sooner you launch, the sooner you are profitable. The sooner you have profits, the quicker you can build future phases. That said, make sure you plan for the future in your business. For web apps, data structure and growth are worth considering at all phases. – Frank May 26 '12 at 20:59
up vote 2 down vote
  1. What other things can I do to increase site awareness (increasing traffic) beside social network sharing with shopping bonuses with sub pears registering+shopping...

Search Engine Optimization(SEO), if done correctly, will give you the most bang for your buck. There are many factor that play into your ranking in various search engines, many of which are out of your hands. You stated that you were planning to write high quality content, well one part of onpage SEO is called keyword research. keyword research is very important and can be done by one's self with a little bit of research on your own. Keyword research will help you rank for relevant queries in search engines. A good resource to help you get started on keyword research is: seomoz | begginers guide to SEO: keyword research

also, I know you've stated that you already plan on using social networks, but make sure you use the major ones as a minimum. These include: Facebook(largest by far), Twitter and Google Plus. There are however a few more that you should keep in mind, these include: Pintrest, YouTube, and Flickr. also, please note that Google(the search engine with something like 60% market share) is using it's social network, Google+, to track social signals to help enhance their search engine; so although it might not be as popular as Facebook, it is not one that you want to ignore.

  1. How can I encourage user registration?

You could try adding a popup to your website where once they've been browsing for a little bit(either time or number of page views) it would pop up telling the user that they could register now. In addition to this, you could make it so if they register and purchase something within a certain time limit they will be given a discount on a portion of their order.

NOTE: I stated that the popup should only occur after the user has been browsing for a little bit. This is because users generally dislike popups so if you were to have the popup occur at when they first enter the site, they would most likely hit the back button. However, once you have gained their trust and they feel comfortable with your website, they will be more likely to register

  1. What other incentives can be used to increase shopping?
  • Most popular items of the Day/Week/Month/Year
  • additional items that users purchased with the item they are currently looking at
  • Bundles(ie: Buy this cooking set, wash towels, and dish soap and you'll recieve a 15% discount)
  • if you're tracking the user's buying habits, you could try grouping your customers into categories. Then based on these categories you could recomend items that other customers in the category recently bought
  • have a section for items that are trending right now
  • have a section which has all items on sale

In addition to my above answers, I would suggest that you take some time and look at Amazon(THE top online retailer) for additional ideas.

I hope this helped,

-Logan Besecker

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Very well written indeed. I especially liked your last increased shopping ideas. I do try to look at Amazon myself. I agree that it is the internet retailer with likely best selling strategy that has shaped and optimized over the years. But studying their website often becomes overwhelming, since they became so big and provide so many features on their website. – Robert Koritnik May 24 '12 at 8:26
up vote 0 down vote

Let me tackle one of the overarching issues you mention: Growing site traffic.

Be constantly on the look out for related, useful free content that you can build into your site. Look for facts, information, collections, etc. that are (1) related to your business and (2) of interest to your potential customers, and (3) not terribly easy to find via normal search methods. Driving related traffic to your site for free resources will increase exposure to your service and improve your site's reputation overall with the search engines.

Here's our real life example: We make our money licensing and maintaining our time and attendance software. In the last several years we've added free content like state by state employee overtime rules, calendars of Federal and business holidays, free timecard templates, and a free online timecard calculator. This free useful content is clearly of interest to people who might also be interested in our employee time clock software. This practice has increased our traffic exponentially and dramatically improved retention and depth of visit for that traffic.

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That's all great and is directly related to traffic growth. But I have a tiny sub-question: Did this increased traffic also increase your profits? Exponentially? Because my opinion is that if you provide too much free content, it may make your relevant sell-able content invisible. In the end you start maintaining free content and your profits plummet while your expenses grow. – Robert Koritnik May 24 '12 at 8:19
The answer is a little complicated, but the basic answer is that yes, our profits have grown relative to our site traffic. Obliviously, only a small percentage of our "free" traffic becomes customers, but it's pretty easy to draw an enormous amount of traffic. A small percentage of a huge number has resulted in an exponential revenue uptick. Secondarily, by sticking to resources closely related to our business, we've enjoyed increases in revenue from much better placement in organic searches for a number of key words that matter a great deal to us. – Keith DeLong May 24 '12 at 19:19
Regarding the cost of discovering, posting and maintaining free content - it's negligible. This is especially true when compared to the costs/time associated with other forms of marketing. – Keith DeLong May 24 '12 at 19:23

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