You think you need a website... and maybe a Facebook page, business phone number and personalized email address.
But what you really need is LEADS and CUSTOMERS!
Bottom line.. a website and a personalized email address will not pay your bills unless they are turning visitors into leads and leads into customers!
So in this post I want to give you some tips on how to use your website and get those LEADS and CUSTOMERS.
Have a Marketing Plan!
Your website is like an online tool. So the goal is for people to find your site online and hopefully become a lead or customer.
So you need an Online Marketing plan of some kind.
How are you going to get Traffic to your website? (traffic is the online term for visitors)
Let's cover a few different ways of getting traffic to your website first. This is what a lot of people need help with.
SEO or No?
SEO - Search Engine Optimization is the practice of doing things to make so your website shows up on the first page of the "Googles". Most times this takes time and a lot of work to get that to happen but can really boost your bottom line once you get it there.
Once your website is on the first page though it can turn into some awesome results. Especially for some industries.
If you decide to go this route though you'll want to shoot for the first 5 search results on "Google".
According to Zero Limit Web, On the first page alone, the first five organic results account for 67.60% of all the clicks and the results from 6 to 10 account for only 3.73%
According to them, “71.33% of searches resulted in a page 1 Google organic click. Page two and three only get 5.59% of clicks.
So what’s left? A mere 15% of all traffic – Going to the Google Paid Ads (PPC), or trying a different search. Or giving up.
What About PPC?
PPC (Pay Per Click) is usually referring to Paid Google advertising so that when someone searches for your product or service your ad would hopefully be at the top.
But remember.. who likes to click on an ad?
Do you?
Here is an example of an ad on Google when I searched "website design". Of course it appears that Google knows my location as it says "Orrville" in the ad. (That's my local town)
So is PPC going to be worth the money?
That's for you to decide. I would do some research once or have someone do it for you using the Google Keyword Planner and see how much competition there is for your "keywords".
What might be better bang for your buck though is social media advertising.
Social Media Ads..
With the popularity and explosion of a few of the social media platforms out there, it has become a hot market to find and connect with your ideal target market.
Facebook and Instagram have exploded with growth both in users as well as advertisers in the last few years.
We personally love Facebook and Instagram (YouTube is great too) for finding my potential clients and getting customers and I think it is probably the best traffic methods currently for most businesses.
But not just any kinds of Facebook Ads. There's a method and a strategy that we use that makes all the sense in the world once you understand how it works!
I'll explain more on that in a later post.
Let's look at the one piece that ties this all together!
Content Marketing (Blogging)
This is by far going to be your best long term strategy to find and connect with your potential clients and customers.
The goal here is to write articles or blog posts around your product, service, or industry that educate people on how to use your product, or how to get the max results out of it.
For example; Let's say you were selling a product that helps clean up oil spills. If you were to write a blog post titled "How to clean up an oil spill in your garage" and then in your post you mention your product and have a link to purchase it. (or become a lead depending on what your goal is)
But first you educate the reader on how to use it before you try to sell it.
Don't you think they are way more likely to buy it?
Of course!!
But now guess what... You just created an awesome piece of content now that the search engines are way more likely to show in the search results! (Think Organic SEO)
Also a well written blog post is great to use in your Social Media ads. If you can couple it with a video you got a killer combination!
The Ultimate Marketing Plan
So what all should you be doing?
Some of each if you want max results! I'm sure you understand that it's going to cost money for advertising in one way or the other.
What we do is;
Click here to watch a video on how we use retargeting and get amazing results with Facebook and Instagram!
Just keep in mind that when it's time to hire a web designer you might want to hire one that can also help you with your marketing! 🙂
Jonas Troyer
About the Author
Jonas is the owner and CEO of Troyer Websites, a full service web design and marketing firm in Orrville, OH.
Looking for somebody to help with web/app and integration,API,SEO,marketing research for a percentage of the company.
If interested please contact also I am out of Canton Ohio and filed my LLC 5 weeks ago!
Let’s chat Michael! Send me a PM on Facebook.