We often hear about the importance of website traffic. SEO and marketing companies often promise to multiply their clients’ traffic by huge amounts. But, in reality, traffic means nothing if your website users don’t turn into customers. In fact, if you are getting tons of traffic, but users are simply visiting your website and then leaving, it is something to be very alarmed about. It means that there is something wrong with your website, and this is why your conversion rate is low. Are you making one of the following mistakes?
You are attracting the wrong audience – Often, conversion rates suffer when you are attracting the wrong audience to your website. This occurs when you are targeting the wrong keywords, posting content on unrelated websites, and generating content that does not appeal to your target market.
Your content is uninspiring – The importance of interesting, original, engaging and informative content cannot be ignored. Getting users to your website is one thing, but you need to keep them there, and the only way to do that is with inspiring content that encourages them to engage. Take a look at this blog post for more information on creating content that converts.
Your website lacks consistency – Your internal CTAs and external campaigns set specific expectations, and your sign up pages and landing pages need to deliver on these expectations. Message inconsistency is a huge problem that will result in people looking for a business that is more reliable.
You aren’t tracking current website performance – This is one of the biggest mistakes business owners make today. How are you ever going to boost the performance of your website if you don’t know how it is performing at present? With expert analytics and reporting for your small business website, you will be able to determine where you are going wrong, enabling you to make the necessary improvements that will boost your conversion rate.
Your calls to action are vague – In simple terms, if you don’t tell your website users the steps they should take, they aren’t going to take them. You could design the best home page in the world, but if it doesn’t lead anywhere, the bounce rate is still going to be high. Your calls to action need to be clear and specific to what the user is looking for.
You don’t use persuasive language – The chances are you are going to need to be persuasive, unless you have an offer that is completely irresistible. You need to address the problems that your target audience experience, and paint a picture of what they can expect once they have purchased your product or taken advantage of your service.
Your product or service is ill-defined – Lastly, one of the main reasons why conversion rates are high is when a firm’s product or service is not defined effectively. You may have an incredible product or service to offer, but if you aren’t doing it justice in terms of the description, no one is going to be interested. Write the description from the customer’s perspective; think about what matters to them most.
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If you’ve always had a soft spot for the digital world, you may be interested in embracing the blogger life. Bloggers work primarily online – although they can do their research and meetings offline too if this is necessary for their articles – and have found a way to monetize their writing hobby. Here’s a little hint for you, it isn’t the actual content that generates revenues, but the advertising that can be published on the website, as display ads or as part of a link building exchange – all in the sake of white hat SEO. So here’s how to build your perfect blog site in 30 minutes only.
Before you start writing, you need to consider how you want your blog to be called. This will be the domain name of your blog, which is the URL of your home page. Domain names are renowned for being extremely difficult to find, so if you need a little inspiration, why not try a domain name generator like this one. It’s a brilliant way to find awesome combinations! Additionally, you will need to sort out a server solution for your website – here for ideas – , as most blogging platforms only offer limited storage space for free. If you want to become a professional blogger, you’ll need to produce a lot of content; ergo you need a lot of storage space!
Time 5-10 Min: Shape It
Now, it’s time to be looking out for design and layout options. First of all, think about your logo, as a logo will make your blog appear professional. You can find plenty of affordable tools online to design your logo, or you can simply get in touch with a designer on Fiverr.com if you want a unique touch. You will find some great blogging platforms, such as WordPress, that offers hundreds of customizable layouts to give your blog its identity. Some come even for free, so in a matter of clicks, you can have the template you want.
Time 10-25 Min: Build Your Brand Message
It’s now time to prepare all the main elements of your blog: Build your brand online, as seen on the blog. You need to know what your brand is, which means you need to know what makes you unique as a blogger. Are you a mother of three talking about parenting? Are you a survivor of a disease who wants to help people recover their health issues? Define who you are, and make sure to explain it in your About-me page. Also, add a contact page with your blog-related social media platforms – which you need to create – and a contact form for readers who want to contact you.
Time 25-30 Min: Go Life
Last, but not least, your first post on the blog needs to be as good as you can get it. How to write the perfect blog? It’s simple. Focus on who you are writing for – for instance, if you are the mother of three mentioned earlier, it’s likely that you are writing to all parents, future, and present – to identify what your audience is interested in. It will give you the boundaries of topics you can discuss. And then start writing your first post! It doesn’t have to be long – 300 to 500 words is a healthy average. Finally, check your grammar before publishing!
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Find your niche in the market. What are the special requirements or problems that your customers have and how can you help them to solve that. In order to do this effectively, you need to find out about brand competitive analysis and why you need it. This will establish what makes you unique.
2. Personify your brand
Think of your brand as a person who has their own distinct personality, opinions, beliefs and look. This helps you to build a picture.
3. Emotive brand positioning
Who does your brand hero-worship? This will shape your identity in all of your brand materials and communications.
4. Play the long game
Establishing a brand is a sprint and not a marathon. Dedicate some time to the planning stage. Make sure that you can deliver what you promise. This helps you to build long-term trust.
5. Be consistent
Experimenting with styles may be fun but it is confusing for the client. If you are consistent it will reinforce your brand character and people will know exactly what to expect.
6. Do not be boring
Whilst consistency is a good thing, being boring is not! Don’t just say the same thing over and over again. Instead, you should stick to the same message but find innovative new ways of stating it.
7. Coping other brands is not acceptable
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but this is not the case in the business world. You can get into serious legal trouble by copying people. It also does not make good business sense. Consumers are on the hunt for brands that are original and authentic. They are looking for something that matches their beliefs and lifestyle. Many of the large brands have picked up on this and are trying to look like small independents.
8. Be bold and seize the day
The beauty of running a small business is that you do not have layers of bureaucracy to wade through when you want to make a change. This makes you supremely flexible and adaptable and enables you to react to changes in the market quickly. This gives you the edge over big business.
9. Don’t look cheap and desperate
It is always a good to offer discounts to attract customers but it is possible to overdo this. You risk diluting your brand positioning. As an alternative to cutting prices, you could offer more for the same price. This adds value without looking cheap. Promotions should be targeted and short-lived.
10. Try not to be too obvious
The days of printing your logo on everything and hoping for the best are over. Generate some intrigue and be a little more subtle and mysterious.
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What’s the one way to guarantee repeat custom from a new client? Trust. All successful relationships, whether personal or business, have to be built on it. If a customer doesn’t trust that you’re genuine or that you have their best interests at heart, they won’t be back for a second round, and they certainly won’t recommend you to colleagues and friends. Building that relationship of trust between seller and buyer is essential for keeping a contract strong, and here are just a few ways you can guarantee it.
1. Listen, don’t talk
It’s impossible to offer the appropriate products to a customer if you think you know better than they do about their needs. Listening to them talk about their wants and their concerns can better help you to understand exactly what it is they require, so when you come to talk, you’re offering the perfect solution. A client wants to know they’re being heard, so practice your listening skills and prove to them that they’re important.
2. Be realistic
Promising the Earth might make you look good at the point of sale, but when you can’t actually pull it off, you’re going to look like a fool whose mouth is too big. If you promise a specific product within a specific timeframe, just to secure a deal when they are stalling, knowing deep down that it’s impossible, you’ve got yourself a recipe for disaster. They are being honest with you about their expectations, and unfortunately, it is your place to explain to them if their expectations are unreasonable. Sooner that than having to let them down in the future.
3. Be identifiable
Customers like knowing who they are dealing with, whether over the phone or face to face. On telephone calls, always introduce yourself at the start and end of the call – you put a name and a responsibility to the transaction so they feel they can call back and speak directly to a recognisable person. In face to face communications, always wear identification like a name badge or ID on a lanyard such as those in this catalogue. This allows customers to take note of your name, but it also reassures them that you’re a professional, and you are officially associated with the company.
4. Don’t make excuses
Sometimes things go wrong, through no fault of your own, and your customer has to to find out. In these situations, don’t make excuses. Simply explain what has happened, offer your apologies, and move on to explaining your proposed solutions. Excuses sound like you’re trying to wriggle your way out of responsibility, and your customer just won’t appreciate that.
5. Don’t bad-mouth the competition
If you ever have to talk about your direct competition, keep it civil and cordial. Even if you think they’re dreadful as an organisation, your customer doesn’t need to know that – it just comes across as petty and insincere.
6. Keep your promises
Finally, never ever renege on a promise unless you absolutely have to. If you’re building trust with a client, you want them to know that you’ll always keep your word. Once you break that, it’s almost irreparable, but if you put your neck on the line and make promises, only to keep them, you’ll be placing yourself far beyond the competition.
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Starting up a business, especially if it is something you feel passionate about, is one of the best things any budding entrepreneur can do. Having that drive and ambition to make something a success is potentially what fuels and motivates you to get up in the morning. Whether you are just starting out, have a fully fledged business, or even class your company a huge success, I think we can all agree that the marketing strategies you put in place are vital to your business growth. It is certainly one of the ways you can steer your business in the direction you want it to go.
However, we can all become a little blinded by it all. Focusing on the here and now, your targets, your sales potential, product, and service. We can forget to invest the time to look at how we make the journey, instead of what it is all about. It takes a while to get your business to where you want it to be, but do you consider how long this will take? Do you contemplate what tools and actions you will need to undertake? A decent marketing strategy can be the difference, the reason someone steps into your store or clicks on to your website. With that in mind, I thought I would share some of the best marketing strategies and ideas you could easily implement into your business model.
When was the last time you took a look at your branding?
Branding may not sit high on your list of things to be thinking about right now, but this is where you are making a big mistake. Your branding, your logo and your website are all the first impressions your business gets to make. A first impression can be decided upon in a matter of seconds. If someone doesn’t like the look of your website, perhaps can’t even find it on a google search ranking, or finds your colour choices bright and offensive, they will click off and look elsewhere. It may sound materialistic, but it’s true to society today.
Take some time to look at how your branding looks and your website. It’s important to ensure that you stick with an easy to use dynamic, as well as considering lighter and a more cleaned up approach to your brand. Keep things simple, often those simple designs and websites do the most talking. While on the subject of your website it’s all well and good it looking the part, but if no one can find it, what is the point? How you rank in a search engine is vital to your business success online. So many people will start out a web search on websites like Google. Placing in a few keywords or a sentence into the search engine and often look at the first few suggestions. If you happen to be ranked on page two, you may not get a look in. However, putting some focus on search engine optimisation could be a great investment. This is creating backlinks to your site, making those search engines think your website is of importance. It’s also about placing keywords in text, giving you again more opportunity to show up in searches your company will be relevant in. If all of this sounds a little alien to you, then get in touch with an seo company who will do all the hard work for you.
Your social media profile, be that on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to name a few, is your direct line to your existing and potential customers. It’s important to ensure you have an engaged audience. What they can do is extend your reach without you needing to do much else. Commenting on updates in Facebook, for example, will show in their followers feed. They may then take a look at what that person has been looking at, as we can all be a bit nosey, and then the chain reaction continues. You get to put eyes on your business by simply keeping your social media profiles updated, engaging, and full of content people want to see and read.
You can even consider investing some money into advertising through social media. Facebook and Twitter, for example, can then place your ad in front of people within a demographic you have requested. For very little, normally a daily charge, you can increase your presence and reach for your business.
Giving your business a voice actually can humanise your company and make it much more appealing to deal with. This can be done through status updates and call to action comments, but it could also be done through a blog. Allowing you space to discuss offers or share knowledge in a non-offensive un-sales like manner. A blog is another page of your websites, helping you with that all-important SEO we mentioned earlier.
Call to action comments could be a little different for you. Perhaps you ask for feedback on your social media pages, maybe run a completion which could get your page shared and increase your audience. There are many things you can consider. The trick would be to take a look at what other businesses are doing. You may not want to copy the style, but you can take note of what some businesses do well, or improve where they fail.
Consider your local community
A great tip is to ensure that you consider your locality. Perhaps you have a shop front in your local town, or just want to capitalise on being the only supplier in the area. Maybe you have competition and want to do things a little differently. Your local community could be a little gold mine for marketing and advertising.
There is a popular trend that more people want to shop locally. Be that for local produce or simply supporting the smaller or local businesses. So it’s a good strategy to be the local expert in your field and industry. This in effect could create great word of mouth advertising for you. You may also want to consider sponsoring local events or even getting involved in local charities. A charity needs all the help that they can get but it also opens up a new potential audience of customers for you. It can be a lucrative relationship on both parts. Advertising at events could mean supplying prizes for raffles or simply helping out. It can all depend on what your expertise are but getting your business heard locally will never be a bad thing.
Relationships with other businesses and your employees
When it comes to people you have working for you, they are your biggest advocate. Many people in social surroundings or at events will talk with other people, and one common subject is what you do for work. It’s word of mouth advertising without you even realising. Having a happy employee will mean that they will sing the praises of your business. Which could then lead onto a conversation about a potential new client then or in the future. If you don’t have happy people working for you, it could work against you. Meaning people will remember the negative vibes and not consider giving you their business.
You could also strike deals with other businesses in the area. Perhaps offering a discount for their employees and vice versa. This works for different industries as there is no competition, but you are securing potential future business.
There is so much that you can do to try it all could be a huge task, but stick with certain areas and do them well. The rest will follow.
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