How to Draw Traffic to Your Website

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales ArticleAs crucial as it is to have a website in the twenty-first century, there’s little benefit to be reaped from owning a corner of the world wide web if you’re not enjoying any traffic. Whether your website is an online store, a promotional vehicle for your business, or simply a self-styled blog, this article will direct you to new ways in which you can increase traffic to your site. In turn, this traffic will increase your brand’s exposure, your number of sales, and your profits.

Design

One of the crucial elements in any website is the way it looks, the way visitors are able to navigate through the site’s pages, and the way in which you use standard coding features to ensure your website runs efficiently and features high up on Google search results. All this is controlled by the quality of web design you employ. Whether you use an independent freelancer or a web design company, the architecture of your site translates in important ways into both its visibility on the web and its navigability to funnel visitors to the point of sale.

In order to maximize your website’s design capability to attract new custom through additional visitors, you’ll want to hire web designers who’re aware of all the tricks of the trade when it comes to making a website more professional. Not only professional to Google’s complex algorithms, which examine the coding behind websites to decide the ranking of your site in search engine results, but the average web user also. It’s technical for the layman, but if you put the time in with research, you too may be able to make minor adjustments to your website to increase its visibility.

Content

The second tip for drawing traffic to your site (perhaps the most important) is creating content. Content can take the form of the written word, a video, pictures, infographics or any other media you see fit to publish under your site’s URL. Content publication has many benefits for your site, including the simple appearance that your site is active and regularly maintained and updated, which increases user trust and confidence in your brand. It’s also a great way to draw in further Google search results to your specific URL. By publishing different titles and themes and keywords, you can grab the attention of users searching for a wider variety of items related to your brand and product.

An excellent place to start if you’re thinking about upping your content output is to post an FAQ-style list of questions and answers. This way, you’re tapping into the mass of questions asked on Google every day. Readers will be happy you’ve provided relevant answers and may continue to navigate the material on your site searching for your product or service. There’s plenty of other methods, which you’ll be able to run on your own after conducting content marketing research or outsource to professionals in marketing companies to help get your content drawing in a higher hit rate on your site.

Social Media

Aligned with content creation but based elsewhere; on your social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, what you publish on your free social media pages should always link back to your website. With so many people using social media every day, it’s absolutely essential that you utilize this huge opportunity to market your site and your brand, though posts that target your current user base in the hopes that they’ll share your content with their list of friends or followers.

It’s in this way that brands expertly draw in a large following to their social media channels and their websites. There are some wonderfully successful examples of viral advertisement campaigns driven by meme-creation and other content that taps into contemporary trends, gossip, and current affairs in order to achieve the virality that constitutes the most successful kind of social media marketing. You should employ a social media savvy marketer to help you manage your social media platforms, creating innovative posts to gain attention for your brand, all of which will boost your website’s traffic.

Collaboration

In the non-digital world, businesses working together tend to boost one another’s customer base with mutual recommendations and guarantees. In the digital world of websites, social media and multimedia content posting, businesses can do so here too. Establishing partners on the world wide web offers one key benefit: the links between your sites help your website ascend those all-important Google search result rankings, with your company finishing higher up the more trusted and relevant links it possesses on its unique URL.

One of the easiest and most practical ways to partner up is by creating a mixture of posts to offer the websites that you wish to collaborate with you. Writing a guest post takes little time but, with the link to your website at the bottom of your post, it diverts interested readers straight to your site while also establishing a data link between your two sites which is mutually beneficial for your partnership. Research the best ways of achieving healthy and mutually productive partnerships before taking the guest post plunge.

Traditional

There’s nothing like a little bit of traditional advertising to get a little bit more traffic flowing into your site, especially traffic that is perhaps rarely on social media and rarely consuming other content on their smartphones or devices. This demographic is best-accessed through more traditional methods of advertising, such as the business card, the television advert, the newspaper listing or the radio shout-out.

With internet-based marketing becoming the norm, traditional, non-digital marketing techniques are becoming ever-cheaper. It means that your expenditure on this type of marketing may well be minimal when compared with the results it yields. Remember to keep whatever message you’re delivering brief, with your website’s URL displayed as simply as possible so that people can recall your site’s address when they require your product or service.

A barren webpage can feel like a failure to a business looking to establish some sales and interest in the digital world, and so the tips listed above should be of value to those looking to increase web traffic to their website, whether it be a blog or an online store.

8 Reasons Your Business Should Have a Podcast

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales ArticlePodcasts have become incredibly popular in recent years. Consumers can access files they want via the internet, whether downloading them (like downloading videos) or streaming them and listening to the podcasts on their chosen device. Podcasts are not just a way to entertain the public – they are an invaluable tool for small business. Here are eight reasons your business should be considering podcasting as a marketing solution.

It Is the Best Alternative to Video Marketing

Video marketing has a high return on investment because it is so engaging. However, not everyone wants to shoot a video.

They may not have the right equipment. They may think the output won’t meet customer standards. They may not be comfortable in front of a camera, or they know they aren’t experienced dealing with lighting, sound, and backgrounds and know that mistakes here could ruin the shoot. The solution then is to go with a podcast, essentially the audio portion of a presentation.

Podcasts don’t have to be a lot of work. You could work with a company like AudioFile Solutions; they offer transcription services but specialize in podcast production. You could give your narration over the phone or in their studio, and they’ll do all the work from recording to editing, sound effects, and music.

It Gives You the Ability to Reach New Audiences

Podcasts are readily shared among those with similar interests or demographics. If you create an engaging podcast on a topic, it will get shared widely. People who haven’t seen your advertisements may hear your podcast as it plays on someone else’s speakers or see others mentioning it on social media. This can lead to increased traffic to your website.

You Generate Qualified Lead

A podcast is one of the most effective ways to get high-quality and organic leads. Podcasts that demonstrate your professional expertise or knowledge about a given area will generate far more qualified prospects. You’re essentially having a one on one consultation with a thousand potential customers, and a modest share of them could come to you for a paid consultation. The prospects that do arrive need less time to onboard. Those who are already customers remain loyal to you because of the podcast and are less likely to leave, so you don’t have to work to replace them.

It Is Affordable

Starting a podcast doesn’t take a lot of work. You’ll need a good quality microphone, though the one in your phone could be enough if you’re working with a third-party service. Editing software is cheap and generally easy to use, but you can also work with services that will edit, polish and package the final podcast into something you can upload to your website. If you don’t want to host the podcast files on your website, there are plenty of services that will allow you to host your podcast and promote it to your subscribers. And there’s always the possibility of your podcast getting sponsorships, making it not only affordable but turning it into another revenue source for your business as well.

You’re Adding Depth to the Relationship

Listeners often subscribe to a podcast series. They’ll regularly listen to new content, and they may peruse older podcasts. As long as you keep offering good content, your audience will probably keep listening.

Every session builds familiarity with the speaker and the brand. Because they’re listening, they feel like they’re part of the conversation. This helps build trust with your audience and increases the odds they’ll convert to a paying customer. They’re more likely to buy something from a friend, and after listening to your content for hours, they feel like you’re more a friend than a stranger. This explains why nearly two-thirds of respondents on a survey of podcast listeners said they’d bought something the host promoted.

You’ll Improve Your Public Speaking Skills

One of the benefits of doing a podcast is that you’re practicing your public speaking skills. You’ll develop a natural, easy going flow while speaking. You don’t need to be afraid of mistakes since they can be edited out, though you can also re-record the session. This practice will allow you to do much better in public speaking opportunities such as sharing a sales presentation.

No can Go Much more in Depth then Text

The average length for a blog post is around 700 words. That doesn’t seem a lot to go in-depth on any subject, but shorter blogs reflect the short attention span of most people when reading online posts.

On the other hand, the average podcast will have over 4,550 words of content. And if you asked a lot of people, most would probably answer that they would rather listen to a podcast then sift through 4,550 words of text. And that’s one of the reasons podcasts can be so powerful. They allow you to dig a lot deeper and cover every aspect of your topic while delivering it in an easily digestible way. This also allows you to showcase your knowledge better by speaking about various aspects related to the main topic as well.

Awesome Tool for B2B Businesses

According to a recent survey by Bredin, over one-third of small business owners listened to podcasts. And among that percentage, over half said that they listen to at least one podcast per week.
But this isn’t limited to small business owners. As a matter of fact, the percentage was even higher for bigger companies. The study found that over 70% of all business owners with 100 to 500 employees also listened to podcasts.

If you’re in a sector with high consumer value, podcasts are a sure bet. Podcasts seem to be especially effective in the legal, business, and financial field. It can also work in sectors like real estate as well, especially when showcasing a particular area or promoting high-end services, for instance.

Conclusion

Podcasts are an excellent marketing tool accessible to businesses of any size. Anybody can afford to start a podcast, but no one can afford to ignore their potential.

6 Ways to Boost Your Text Message Marketing Results

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales ArticleWhile tweets, snaps, and social media sharing remain in the limelight, instant messages remain the most popular form of instant messaging. An estimated 12 text messages are sent for every message sent on the world’s biggest social media site. Other benefits of text messages include the fact they reach people who have cell phones that aren’t smartphones and tend to be opened quickly. Here are six ways to boost your text message marketing results.

Segment Your Audience

You need to tailor your message to each audience segment. One of the great things about SMS marketing is that the results can be easily monitored and analyzed. Try to know as much as you can about your customers by using a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool. This will allow you to analyze things like location-based demographics and purchase history. You’ll then be able to craft a message relevant to the audience and increase your conversion rates and retention rates as well.

Once you’ve created your personalized messages, send them to each different segment. But remember to consider other factors as well when doing so since different demographics may have different spending habits. Conversely, blasting the same message to your entire database risks alienating customers. Nor will you see the same return on investment as you would if you sent a tailored message to smaller groups. For example, a young adult is rarely going to buy products aimed at retirees and may block you if you continue to prove you don’t understand them.

Write Clear Messages

You don’t have a lot of characters to express yourself, so it’s better to do less with more if you can. Messages must be clear and concise, containing all the relevant information and, ideally, nothing else. To ensure that the message is understood, avoid abbreviations and emoticons.

Quit the Open-Ended Campaigns

Open-ended campaigns are less effective than text message marketing with an expiration date. If they know the sale or coupon expires, they’re actually more likely to act upon it assuming they have all the necessary information. Then there’s the fact that when customers know a deal has an end, they won’t be angry when they try to buy and find out the sale is over.

Send Triggered Message

Triggered message are automatic messages that are sent in the case of an action or inaction. For instance, if someone visited your online shop and abandoned their cart just before completing their transaction, then that would be a good time to send them a triggered text either as a reminder or to encourage them to complete their order. Or you could send triggered texts to clients after they stopped making purchases after a set period of time. You could also add a personalized coupon offer to sweeten the deal.

Get the Timing Right

Timing is critical when it comes to SMS marketing. SMS tends to be most effective in the moment since the average person opens them within three minutes of receiving them. Send the text messages that offer a discount on dinner shortly before they leave for work, not early in the morning. If you’re opening a new store, send the announcement out as your customers start their daily shopping.
Text messages from businesses are considered acceptable between 8 AM and 9 PM. You can use data analysis to narrow down the ideal timing for your messages even further.

Do not Irritate your Clients

Make sure that you follow proper etiquette and follow privacy rules when texting your prospective clients. You have to make sure that you have consent to send them messages and you also have to make sure that your sender information is visible.

Also, if you want to keep unsubscribe rates at a minimum, try to be consistent with your messaging. Don’t leave your clients hanging for months then send them a text out of the blue. You should always try to provide something of value with your text, but you also have to text them often enough so that they can actually remember you.

Use Call-to-Action Buttons

Call to action buttons increase the engagement with text messages. They can also help you share information when you can’t get it all down in as few characters as possible.

For example, a call to action button that says “click here” lets you share a link with a map or your website that has more information. You can use text messages to share coupon codes with the CTA “show this text”. Text to Win is a way to keep customers engaged and verify that they’re still receiving your texts. Text to Vote is a good way to poll your customers on any issue, whether it is prices or product quality. Then there’s the classic “buy now” call to action button; it is an excellent way to get someone who read your promotional text to follow through and buy because you made it easier for them to do so. In every case, make it clear what the call to action does.

Encourage Opt-In Across All Media

One of the best ways to secure phone numbers and permission to send text messages to them is to promote the opt-in for both across all channels. When they sign up with your business, ask for their mobile number and give them an opt-in button to select then and there. Have an SMS opt-in prominently placed on your website? When customers are being checked out by staff, have employees ask if customers want to opt-in to text messages regarding sales and promotions. You can send them text messages to opt-in, as well, though you’ll see a better sign-up rate if there is a clear benefit such as receiving discounts only available to those who receive marketing texts.

Conclusion

Text message marketing is an excellent way to reach any and all of your customers in a timely fashion with a high ROI. Done wrong, and you’ll be blocked as spam by your former customers.

7 Essential Tweaks to Make to Your Website in 2018

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales ArticleA good business website must be fast, visually-appealing, helpful, professional, and visible in the search engines. It must also comply with various legal regulations. However, with shifting consumer behaviors and new requirements introduced by the likes of Google and governments, it can often feel hard to keep up.

To ensure your website ranks highly in the search engine results pages and continues to make a profit, here are seven essential tweaks to make to your website in 2018.

1. Make Your Site Mobile Responsive

As 60% of web searches are made on a mobile device, you must create a responsive site if you have yet to do so. This is a big Google ranking factor, and your site is more than likely being penalized in the search engines if you have yet to comply with their requirement.

A responsive site simply adapts the content and page layout to the device it is being viewed on. As a result, your website will appear differently on a desktop in comparison to a smartphone or tablet. It doesn’t mean you have to create a separate mobile site. It simply means introducing an intelligent template that can detect screen size.

2. Add an SSL Certificate to Increase Security

While an SSL (Secure Socket Layers) certificate is not a legal requirement, it is believed to now be a Google ranking factor. The certificate simply encrypts information delivered between a site visitor and the secure website so that it can provide a more secure connection between a browser and web server.

It is commonly used on business sites that handle credit card and personal information, which is the reason why it is now a positive search signal for Google. Adding one to your website can ultimately increase your trust in Google, which can help you to shoot up the search engines.

3. Comply to GDPR

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect on May 25th, 2018 and was designed to protect the personal data for all EU residents. Even if you are outside of the EU, you must comply to the new regulations if you collect, process, or store personal information from anyone within the EU. If you fail to comply with GDPR, it could be a costly mistake for your business.
While most large organizations that regularly collect data from the EU will have responded to the new regulations, many smaller businesses might not be aware of their legal requirements. It is critical to understand your responsibilities to protect your business and your EU visitors’ data. That’s why you need to do your research on GDPR compliance.

4. Find Out What Doesn’t Work with A/B Testing

If your website is failing to convert visitors into customers, you might want need to tweak your web pages to increase your sales. A/B testing is an effective way to find out what is or isn’t working on your site. It will simply show some users a different image, color, text, or minor layout change, which might make a big difference to the user experience. As a result, you will be able to identify what is or isn’t working on your site to make the permanent changes.

5. Improve Your Website Accessibility

Did you know there are more than 57 million Americans living with a disability, who have a combined disposable income of $544 billion? If your site doesn’t offer the accessibility stated in the WCAG 2.0 guidelines, you will more than likely be unable to secure their custom. This will not just lead to a considerable loss of revenue, but it may also leave your business vulnerable to a potential lawsuit.

6. Prevent a Hacking with a Web Application Firewall

A web application firewall (WAF) will increase your site’s protections against a hacking or brute force attack. As a result, it can stop unauthorized access to your website, which can keep your site safe while protecting your customer data.

You might not think your website will be hacked, but 37,000 websites are hacked every single day, so it is a very real threat to your business. Install a web application firewall to ensure your business doesn’t become the next victim.

7. Introduce a Helpful Click-to-Call Format

As stated, more people are visiting websites on their smartphones, which is why you should consider introducing a click-to-call format onto your website. If you want to encourage visitors to become customers, a one-touch solution could make it easier for people to get in touch with your business on their smartphone. Work with a talented web developer today to increase your sales and the user experience.

4 Ways To Have A Successful Marketing Campaign

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A business without a marketing campaign is never going to be as successful as it could be. Your marketing campaign is essential when it comes to gaining more customers and growing your business, and if you don’t spend some time coming up with a campaign that is really going to work for you, you will be wasting the opportunity. You might also be wasting money by advertising to the wrong people in the wrong way. You can see just how important a marketing campaign is, and here are some ways to create a successful one.

Have A Plan

In order to have a successful marketing campaign, you are going to need to plan ahead for it. Thinking of your business in the long term in a way that can incorporate your marketing campaign will give you a roadmap for success in general, not just in terms of marketing. This plan will contain all of your strategies and objectives and will allow you to see what it is you need to get started, and to maintain your marketing ideas. You will know what items you need to order in advance, for example, and you can organize any promotional materials such as label printing so that you can be completely ready to begin campaigning when the time is right.

Measure How Well You Are Doing

If you don’t measure how successful your marketing campaign is, you won’t ever know whether you chose the right strategy or if you’re spending your money in the right way. Knowing whether or not your current idea is working properly is essential; it means you can call a halt to whatever it is you are doing if it’s not working, or continue it (perhaps even roll it out further) if it is.

Measuring success doesn’t need to be a complicated matter. You can just ask people where they heard of you, for example, and that way you’ll know what kind of advertising works best (it could be social media, flyers, word of mouth, or many other options that you could be using). When you know what works the best, you can really focus on it.

Stick To Your Budget

Marketing can become hugely expensive, so knowing what you can spend in advance is essential. It could be all too easy to overspend on a campaign that just isn’t right for you. When you have worked out how much you can spend on your budget, you can look at the different options open to you. Planning carefully and choosing well means that even a small amount of money can make a big difference, and when the money does start to come in, you can invest it into a bigger marketing campaign. Taking things slow and steady will help you in most cases.

Start Now

If you’re feeling daunted by the idea of marketing your business and creating a specific marketing campaign for it, don’t be. Once you have all the information and ideas in place, you should start marketing right away because otherwise, you are wasting valuable time and money without gaining any kind of return.