10 Killer Techniques to Multiply Your Internet Marketing Success
Are you tired of getting little or no results at all from your Internet Marketing strategy? Hopefully by now, you have realized that in order to be successful with online lead generation, you need to have more than just a pretty website.
First, I will assume that what you are really after is not more traffic to your website, but more leads for your business. So the quality of traffic that you reach and what they do when they arrive on your website is more important than just getting droves of visitors.
Be sure to check out our Free Guide to Capturing Better Sales Leads Online.
10 Killer Techniques for Your Internet Marketing Success
1. Responsive Website Design
You need a website that rocks! Your website design is the most important first step to your online success. All too often business owners are focused on getting more traffic without considering the fact that what your visitors see in the first tenth of a second upon landing on your site will create a first impression.
Not only do you need a professional-looking design that stands out from your competition, but you need to keep in mind the growth of mobile web surfing. Statistics prove that when a visitor lands on a web-optimized site from their mobile device, they will spend much less time on the site and the bounce rate (a bounce occurs when a visitor exits your site immediately on the landing page without clicking further) is much higher.
Responsive website design is a new way of building your website so that it automatically adjusts to different screen sizes. This means that your website will have the same look and feel on all types of devices and browsers but certain elements will adjust and re-size automatically to fit the screen size without jeopardizing the size of important elements like your company logo or the text.
2. Conversion Architecture
What do you want your visitors to do when they arrive on your site? I'm sure you have lots of great knowledge to share and fantastic photos of your product or service, but your website is not a brochure.
When you are working with your web designer, you need to think about how you can encourage your visitors to take action. In other words, how can they convert from a visitor into a lead?
We all know that the best form of lead is when someone grabs the phone and calls you, purchases directly through your website or submits your request form, but the chances are that not everyone who lands on your website is at that stage in their buying process yet. So what small actions can they take to, perhaps unknowingly, enter into your lead nurturing process?
Conversion architecture is a process of engineering your website to get the most value from each visitor who lands there. This is the most important piece of your Internet Marketing Success. If you send traffic to a poorly converting site, you are wasting visits.
Example:
Let's use this illustration. Let's assume you have a website generating 10,000 visitors per month with a 2% conversion rate. So 200 website visitors are contacting you each month.
Now let's assume you could improve your conversion architecture and increase your conversion rate by just 1%. That would double the number of monthly leads you are now getting!
You might think you already have a great website and all you need is more traffic but I would challenge you to consider the actual percentage of visitors who convert into leads and the potential of improving your conversion architecture before investing to increase your traffic.
3. Write Killer Content
There is only one thing that is going to attract the right visitors to your website, keep them there and engage them into taking action or converting. You have to have lots of well-written, compelling content!
If you search on Google for almost any topic, one of the top entries will be Wikipedia. Do you know why?
You have probably heard before that "content is king". Your business involves selling some products or services that people need or want. Your job is to add content that will help them choose what to buy and from whom. And if you do it right, they might just choose you!
Just having great content is the first and most important aspect of generating traffic to your website. This is what Google is looking for and how they will decide if you are special enough to rank in their index.
4. On-Page SEO
You don't need to be a Search Engine Optimization Expert to know the basics of on-page SEO. Just follow these simple steps and you are well on your way:
a. Keyword Research - you have to identify keywords relevant to your niche that people in your geographic target are searching for and that have a low level of competition. There are lots of tools available online to help you with this. Some are free and others are paid. The easiest is to simply use Google's own keyword tool.
b. Title Tag - Including your keyword in your <Title> tag on your web page is the most important aspect of on-page SEO. Note that your page should only target one keyword phrase. Don't try and stuff extra keywords in there as this will confuse Google and water down your results.
c. Headings - Include your keyword in your <H1> primary page heading and you can use variations of your keyword in your subheadings, <H2>, <H3> and so on. Using headings also helps you break up your content so it is visually pleasing and easy to skim through.
d. Keyword Density - Google's algorithms are very smart and will sense if your content is stuffed with your keyword and is not written for a human reader. The best rule of thumb is to read your content over before publishing and ensure that it sounds like a normal person talking.
You DO want to use your keyword in your text at least a few times. And usually, the longer your article is the more you can use your phrase. Also, including it in your first paragraph can help.
e. Page Description - Your <description> meta tag should also include the keyword phrase used in it. Try to keep your description shorter than 152 characters to avoid the ... from showing up in the search query.
f. In-Site Links - Linking your content from other content pages, articles and blogs will help Google find the content. Using the keyword as the anchor text that links to the content will help apply relevance to your page for the target keyword.
On-page SEO is really quite simple. It is also very time consuming and there are lots of intricacies that make it more complicated to do really well but these are the basics. If you are worried about messing it up or don't have tons of spare time to do it yourself, maybe consider hiring a professional SEO service.
5. Off-Page SEO
If content is King, the inbound links are Queen. Above I said that links within your website tell Google what your content is about, or how it is relevant. Well, if Google sees what you say about yourself and weighs that against what others are saying about you, what do you think they will find more valuable?
The way you build up your relevance is by getting other websites to link to you. The anchor text that links to your content is important.
One note. The authority of the linking source is another very important factor. Try to get highly authoritative sites to link to you. Better still, leave this to the professionals.
6. Pay Per Click
I know... you never click on those ads on Google and probably never even look at them (that's what I hear all the time), but somehow Google manages to earn $100 Million per day from advertising!
Let me say something about Pay Per Click Advertising. It works! All the time!
In fact, if it doesn't work, it costs you nothing! You only pay when someone searches for your keywords and clicks on your ad. Rewind back to the top of this article, the part about conversion architecture, to determine if your website will work as well as your pay-per-click advertising.
Not all pay-per-click is search based. There are plenty of opportunities to advertise online. In fact, Google's display ad network gets billions of ad impressions every day, and those convert into millions of leads or sales, daily!
There are also opportunities for paid advertising on Facebook, Twitter and other social media marketing vehicles
7. Social Media Marketing
You need to engage! By sharing your awesome content within your social networks, you will be spreading that content around, encouraging engagement, sharing, and probably getting some good inbound links!
8. Email Marketing
Don't spam your subscribers. Give them value. Educate them.
Provide information to help them decide what to buy and where
to buy it.
9. Inbound Marketing
Nurture, nurture, nurture. Take a look at our article,
What is Inbound Marketing?
10. Calls to Action
If you want them to buy something or download something
or sign up for something or request something or whatever
action you want them to take, ask them to take that action!
You might be surprised to see how many actually do
what you ask them to!
Growing Your Internet Marketing: Final Thoughts
If you have found this intriguing, you should check out our Free Guide to Capturing Better Sales Leads Online.
So to wrap this article up, you can't expect every person who converts on your site to be an instant sale. But if you have done a good job at getting them engaged enough to give you their email address, you have an opportunity to turn them into an eventual sale and perhaps even repeat sales and lighting a fire of spreading word of mouth.