You’ve launched your business website. You like how it looks, your home page messaging seems on target and then crickets……
“Build it and they will come” is a nice idea but I’m afraid it’s going to take a bit more work than that.
Seems silly to say, but I’m going to say it anyway, to grow your business online, you’re going to need to do some marketing. The good thing is that these days, it takes time rather than money. You will need to figure out what actions you need to take that are right for your business, then do those things – consistently. When you begin to take the right kinds of actions you will start to see the magic.
So what exactly will you need to do?
First, you will need a content marketing plan which will guide you in creating relevant, relational blog posts and other pertinent content on a regular schedule. Writing about company news or creating sales and discounts to rival Groupon, will not create raving fans. You have to find a way to connect and matter to your target audience.
Next, you need to create a simple social media plan that identifies the best social media sites for sharing your amazing content. Include when and how often you post updates. Be sure to make time to interact with others online and share the love by reposting their content too.
The final leg of this stool is creating an email-marketing plan with strategies to grow your mailing list and deciding what kind of content people want to receive from you. You will need to develop calls to action for your website that will invite people to sign up to your list. If someone likes your content they will sign up to get more of your wisdom sent to their inbox on a regular basis.
Before you begin to work on these plans, you have to get clear about your goals for your website. You also must define your target audience and understand what they need and want from you and why.
Your primary goal might be to generate income with sales of your services or products. But what strategy will you take to get there?
You might want to create a loyal community, which will spread the word about you, and your services. You might want to position yourself as an expert in your niche. This can help to build clout, generate referrals and help convert referrals into new clients. If you are an author, you may want to develop a following for your writing to get on the radar of a publisher.
If you don’t know where you are going or who you want to take with you, it’s easy to flounder around and get discouraged. This is the point where people avoid thinking about it and never touch their websites again.
When you know your goals and are eager to create a connection with your ideal clients, everything changes. You will find it easier to create, post and share content that will be helpful, relevant and eagerly anticipated. This is what will bring the right kind of traffic to your site and keep your people engaged with you.
I know it is tempting to try and find an easier way. There are those of you that are saying, “But I don’t wanna”. Sure, you can pay for ads and spend your money on search engine optimization (SEO) to get more traffic. But if those visitors come to your site and don’t find what they expect to find or something that speaks to them, they will bounce right off.
What they are looking for is specific content to solve a problem, answer a question or provide information about a service. It helps if they get this information in a voice they can understand and trust. That’s what it takes.
It’s not as hard as it sounds. But it does take commitment. You can use your content in more than one way. For example, you can write a weekly blog post to put on your website. Then create social media updates with a teaser about that post including links back to your site.
Make sure you also send the post out to your newsletter subscribers with links back to your site. Each Wednesday, when I follow this simple routine with my weekly blog post, my website traffic soars. Wash, rinse, and repeat.
You won’t get it perfect right away. Do it anyway. Be consistent. Consistency is rare and people will take notice.
You will get better as you get feedback and tweak your various activities. Over time, you will start to feel the momentum and see the results you want. And that is when the magic happens.
