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How can Barcodes Build Traffic?

Using offline media is an important way to attract visitors to your site – placing your URL on business cards, leaflets, menus, receipts, invoices and other collateral is a proven and effective way to create direct traffic. But with the growth of smartphone usage, 2D barcodes provide a more immediate way to copy the details of a business directly to their phone. So how does it work?

Creating a 2D Barcode

A 2D barcode differs from a traditional UPC barcode in that it contains substantially more data, and has a recognizable square shape with three calibration markers in the corners. You can create these easily using ZXing’s QR Code Generator, which produces codes for several different types of content:

• Contact information: your name, contact details, website and description.
• Email address/phone number/URL/text: a smaller 2D code containing only a specific piece of information.
• Geolocation: this is similar to an address but more specific. You only need the latitude and longitude of a destination to use the barcode to show a point on a map.
• SMS: takes the phone number and 160-character message, and translates into a barcode ready for sending.
• WiFi network: encodes the SSID, password and security type.

Select the code type you want to use, enter the details and click ‘Generate’ – at this point you have created a usable 2D bar code.

What can you use these for?

This concept may seem somewhat alien if you haven’t used an iPhone, Android or similar smartphone. The visitor uses a barcode capture application to photograph the barcode, which the phone then interprets to take the next action. Since these barcodes can be printed on anything from point-of-sale receipts to window signs and billboards, there are a wide range of uses. For example:

• Business cards: place your human-readable details on the front and 2D code on the back. This enables other people to immediately transfer all your contact details directly into their phone book, without needing to keep the card.
• Text message campaigns: instead of asking users to text a word to a shortcode number, they can snap the barcode to complete the same task in a fraction of the time.
• Window displays: placing a QR code in your shop window allows passers-by to copy your place of business directly into their map application for future use.
• Billboards: for out-of-home advertising, such as the sides of buses or train stops, the QR can be snapped immediately with the details of your campaign stored in the phone.
• Applications: if you provide smartphone applications, the barcode acts as a shortcut to bring users straight to the download page.
• Coffee shops and airports: rather than giving customers confusing SSID and password information, a customer can connect directly to your network by using the barcode.

There are hundreds of uses, but essentially the power of the QR code is the speed with which your business information can be copied. Not only that, but the QR indicates which application is needed to process the data.

From an SEO point of view, 2D barcodes provides another channel to draw visitors to your URL – which is also presented in a fun and easy way to use. As 2D codes start to appear everywhere, the novelty will eventually wear off, but right now many avid smartphone users find this a simple way to storing information about businesses they want to connect with.

In my next posting, I’ll discuss how you can track where visitors are coming from to discover your URLs.

UPDATE: DC bus-stops are now implementing QR codes – see http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/qr_codes_coming_to_bus_stops_in_dc_photo.php.

Tags: mobile, out-of-home, qr codes, social media