Using your website to generate quality leads is a big part of what successful online marketing is all about. It isn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to be overly complicated, either. In fact, we’d like to suggest that there are three main components that are critical to successful online marketing. Are there a lot of details? Sure, and they’re important, but if you don’t have these three “pillars” in place, it’s virtually impossible to build your online marketing presence.
1. Traffic: When companies first started doing business on the web it was enough just to be there. The novelty of the Internet was a strong enough pull that businesses looked cool and progressive if they had any kind of site. It’s a crowded universe now, however. People have plenty of things to look at. How can you drive them to your site? How can you increase traffic to your site? Search engines rank sites with more pages, more fresh content, and more internal links higher. And if the keywords you use within your site match what people are looking for your potential customers are more likely to find you.
2. Conversion: It’s not enough to just generate traffic, however. Nobody (except some SEO companies) makes money just by increasing traffic. You need to be able to turn that traffic into leads. You need to know who is visiting your site and what they’re really looking for. You need these visitors to raise their digital hands and identify themselves so that you can help them get what they want. This generally isn’t a one-shot deal. You need to nurture these leads—stay in touch with them and eventually convert as many as possible into customers.
3. Analysis: After getting traffic and converting visitors into leads (and hopefully customers) is great, but you need to be able to repeat this success. You need to know what worked—and what didn’t. And you need to know how you’re doing compared to your competition. Again, the web is a crowded place and your competitors are only a click away.
How are you doing with establishing those three pillars? If you don’t really know, you’re not alone. We find that many of the companies we talk to don’t know how much traffic they’re currently getting on their website (much less how to get more). They don’t know how many real business leads (if any) are actually coming from their website. They don’t know how well their online marketing efforts are working. And they have no idea how they stack up against their competitors.
If you’re uncomfortable with not knowing the answers to these questions, we’d like to offer you a free marketing analysis in which we’ll look at your current marketing efforts, analyze your website and examine your sales process. Then we’ll give you some specific steps you can take to improve.
It’s a great way to start building a foundation for future success!
