Online marketing isn’t only a fickle beast, it simply is a beast. A minimal understanding of online marketing will include a two pronged approach; a strong website (internal) and a strong outbound marketing presence (external). However, a strong website doesn’t just mean something that’s aesthetically and functionally sound, and strong outbound marketing isn’t just a few blogs and social media posts here and there.
Sometimes businesses can acquire convincing traffic to their site, while not seeing a huge change in conversion rates. This issue can be solved by adopting a holistic and robust approach to your site and your marketing strategy.
First, let’s think about traffic. If I was to be directed to the best tractor website that has ever existed, I may be impressed, even enthralled, but there’s still simply no way I’ll ever buy a tractor. Not all traffic is created equal. Google Adwords is a tried and true way to drive relevant traffic to your site, but that costs money. Here are a few organic methods to parse high and low relevancy traffic to your site.
Better keyword analysis. Have you been targeting irrelevant keywords, keywords that are too competitive, or keywords that are too specific? You need to streamline your keywords, build content around your bread-and-butter keywords, decide which keywords are most powerful – even if they’re highly competitive, and decide which are less powerful – yet less competitive. A strong mix of highly competitive keywords and long tail keywords will build a strong foundation for your SEO strategy.
Better outreach. Do you want to sell stainless steel water bottles? Find out where the health conscious moms and the earthy crunchy crowd hang out.
Blogs and Forums. Conduct really great guest blogging on reputable and noteworthy blogs by taking the time to write excellent content that the blogger will appreciate you posting on their blog. This will garner likes, shares, interest, notability, and reputation. Get onto relevant forums if possible. Studies show that a positive review on a relevant forum can rocket conversion rates.
Social Media. A strong social presence is so incredibly great to have, but it isn’t everything. Endlessly posting things to social media doesn’t always do the trick. Devise strategies that target your social media following specifically, make give-a-ways campaigns, and contests that trade a share for entry in a raffle. Be creative and be clever.
Next, let’s think about your site. Once you’ve better targeted your outreach and acquired high quality traffic, you need to think about where the road leads. Even though your site may look good enough, sometimes it can be hindering conversions.
Functionality. Is your site easy to use? Is the information laid out clearly? Is everything placed in intuitive and easy to find places? You need to make sure you’ve thought the details through. Put yourself in the shoes of a new visitor. What might they want to see off the bat? Where might they want to navigate to next? Think about creating a site that is hyper-usable.
Aesthetic. Is your site beautiful? Is it visually stimulating and smarty laid out? These visual cues give viewers a subconscious reference point to the quality of your company, and just as they say, “you only have one chance to make a first impression”, so make sure it’s a good one.
Landing Pages. Landing pages can be extremely helpful. They are designed specifically for their searchability, and once a searcher has found and landed on one, you need to provide them with awesome and informative content right off the bat, or chances are they’ll bounce. You can also try to offer them some advice on related services your business provides, and offer additional help through a free consultation, a free downloadable e-book, or a free webinar. This will get them interested in finding substantial help for their problem, but for them to download they’ll need to enter their email address, adding another way to capture leads and nurture a relationship.
Each business is different, and you need to decide what will work best for you. If you’re not sure, try a few, see what provides results and what doesn’t. Take as much of a well-rounded approach to your online marketing as you can, and if you focus on all the steps (being found, being captivated, and converting) you will find that your hard work will pay off.