First and foremost, stop trying to SELL your product or service and try servicing your website visitors by offering them what they are looking for. You can have the most awesome looking store front ever, and still have no customers … unless you learn what it is THEY want.
Then you need to …
- Optimize Your Website Properly – A dedicated, exact match domain name still works wonders. If you’re wondering what I mean by this, then I will use an example. If you own a plumbing business and you are located in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada, then you might seriously consider using, say, cobourgplumber.com … or … if you’re a dentist in Cannington, Ontario, Canada, you might consider using canningtondentist.com.
Be sure to setup your website so that it is easily scanned by internet search engine’s software. If your coding is not clean (all unnecessary code removed) the search engine software (better known as spider) will not know how to index your site. Consider installing a Content Management System like WordPress, and using a theme that is properly optimized.
Followed by that
… make sure you have done basic SEO, and then you’re ready to launch your site.
Once you gain customers, be sure to ask for testimonials. Having a variety of testimonials posted in your social media accounts as well as those posted on your website will work wonders for helping you gain leads for your business.
If you have some free time before you start your new business, you might want to consider taking a FREE online course to boost your digital knowledge. Here’s one such free online course offered by Google: https://digitalgarage.withgoogle.com
- Learn Content Marketing Tactics – Always be informative with your content, and of course making sure your content is related to your business. Unique, quality content is the number one best means of gaining quality leads to your business organically. Do NOT constantly try selling your product of service in your posts or you will lose visitors.
Be sure to share your great posts on your social media accounts … though do NOT share the exact same post in all your social media accounts at the very same time. And, be sure to ask your followers to SHARE your posts. Quality content is most apt to be shared … could even go viral if it’s unique enough.
- Find Leads Through Social Media – Don’t leave free advertising unused. Be sure to create social media accounts for your business, using Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Create informative
videos regarding your business for your YouTube account and gain leads.
When was the last time you searched for anything online and “VOILA!” you were offered at least one video in your search results.
Make your video content so great that your followers quickly spread the word by sharing your videos … and then the video(s) that gets offered in search results will be YOUR video(s).
No need to buy expensive video software either, if that’s not in your budget. You can try one of the many online resources for creating videos. WeVideo is one such resource.
Create great inspirational or informative images and share them on Twitter, Instagram and your business Facebook fan page. You can easily create them for online resources, such as: Pixlr, Vneegage, TypeSlab, PicMonkey … which are only a sample of the many online resources now available.
- Consider Email Marketing – Offer your website visitors a means of signing up for, say, great specials you might offer in the future.
Create compelling sign-up forms on your website and be sure to offer a link to your post that states something like “7 Great Reasons You Should Subscribe NOW!“
Most of all, be sure to make your emails is sooo intriguing that your subscribers will want to forward them to their friends.
Make sure to ALWAYS offer your email subscribers a means of Unsubscribing from your list so you will never be listed as a spammer.
The BEST advice I can offer you is this: If your emails are a constant stream of sales pitches you will have your list unsubscribing by the dozen … so don’t do that! - If you operate a business you KNOW your customers have questions. So now you can offer Frequently Asked Questions from your website.
Once your customers start asking questions, make note of them … post their questions and then offer your answer below that. Continue to add your customer’s questions along with your answers as they are asked so you can have a quality list of answers to questions that other potential customers will be asking.
You might want to consider using an online tool to find questions your website visitors might be already asking so you can create a FAQ web page now. Here’s one such online tool: http://www.webpagefx.com/seo-tools/faqfox/
Once you have completed all 5 ways to generate leads for your business, you might want to take a good look at planning your local leads.
If you have found this post helpful, I sure hope you’ll share it with your friends.
Should you have ANY question(s) or even suggestions, please, leave them in a comment below. Thank you for dropping by.
Credit for Header: image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images welcome front store business open on Pixabay
Hello again Trish,
Content Marketing is really exciting and I’m really interested in learning more ways on how to improve my skills.
I’m a bit blur on the social media sharing part though, what do you mean by do not share the same post on all social media accounts though? When I post on Google+, I often post the same thing on Facebook too, does that affect my conversions?
Hi Riaz, I understand your confusion as I have seen many marketers doing the same as you described. In those cases their posts are more likely to be ignored.
What you can do is, say, post on your Facebook fan page and then share your Facebook post on your Twitter account making a slightly different comment above the link. In this way, you not only look like the average person on Twitter, you will also drive traffic to your Facebook fan page.
Hi, Trish! I surely enjoyed reading your post; it’s very informative! You explained in a plain way some great methods of attracting customers.
You said on the 2nd item that content is vital, and I agree. I just wonder the best way of creating viral and outstanding content. Do you have any tips on that?
Thank you! 🙂
Hey Davi, I would simple recommend that you write about topics you know well, and don’t hold back secrets. You could even flat out offer secrets about your topic, and that would help drive traffic to your post(s).