Is your website beautiful and functional for your visitors? I hope so! Is your website bringing in a lot of traffic, leads, and sales? I really hope so! If it’s not, it’s time for a change. You need more than just a pretty website if you want to run a successful business. What’s the point of your good looking website if no one sees it? Your number one goal for your website should be to gain leads and sales that you can directly link back to the work your website is doing. I run into a lot of business owners who are unhappy with their website because they see it as a burden with little to no payoff. I’m here to tell you that there is a website strategy that will bring in the results you want.
This is the exact formula I use for my SEO clients and it has worked for many businesses in a wide range of industries. That’s the beauty of this strategy, no matter what type of business you are in, or what level you are at currently it will help you climb SEO rankings, generate leads, and ultimately increase SALES.
Website Success Formula
Define Your Target Audience
First things first; you need to know who your client is. In the Digital Marketing world, we call this a User Persona. Think about your perfect client…what do they do, what are their interests, what are they struggling with, how are they using the Internet, how are they purchasing products/services like yours? Try to learn as much as you can about your perfect client and get as detailed as possible. This step will help you set the stage for how to market to the clients you really want to work with!
Select Keyword Wisely
Keyword research is an ongoing task that is constantly evolving. I use the Google Keyword Planning Tool within Google AdWords to help me conduct keyword research for my clients. You can start out by entering your services, what you think people are using to search for your products/services, as well as your website URL. Google Keyword planner gives you more keyword ideas that fit within your scope, average search volumes, competition ratings, and Google AdWords pricing. I recommend exporting your finished list into an excel spreadsheet so you can continue to revisit the list and add to it. Once you have an ample amount of keywords, pick the Top 10-15 keywords you want to focus on your website. The others can be used as blog post topics and additional pages that you create in the future.
WRITE!!
If there is one thing you take away from this post, it’s that you need to be writing content for your business. If that’s all you do, you’re already ahead of the game. Use your keyword spreadsheet as a starting point for your written content and integrate these key terms into articles, blog posts, photo posts, infographics, and other documents you are creating for your clients and prospects. I always build a content calendar for my clients to determine what will be published and when. I make a list of topics, categories, and focused keywords and begin to fill in the dates. Each piece should be well defined based on your business goals!
Implement target keywords
This is where things start to get technical. You have your most important keyword list and you are starting to write content for your website- That’s great! Now, it’s time to begin integrating your top keywords into the core of your web pages. There are a few places that your keywords must be:
- Page headings: H1-H5 tags
- Page titles: words at at the top of your browser
- Body copy of your pages
- Meta tags- this is the info search engines use to learn about your web page. It’s not displayed on your page, but search engines can see this!
- Image alt tags- these are descriptions of the images on your site. Search engines cannot see images, so they need a text description.
Social Media
Sharing your content on social media is a great way to get the word out about your business and what you offer. Set up Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Maybe even more depending on what type of business you are running. When you are posting your website content to social media, you are linking back to your business website and generating traffic. This is just one way to start sharing the information your clients are going to love!
Link Distribution
Along with social media, you should seek out other ways to share your content. There are two great ways to do this: #1. Start an email list- By sending your content via email, you will be reaching all of your clients as well as other people you’ve qualified as leads. #2- Share your content with your business partners. Your business partners trust you and have an entire client base of their own. Working with them can help you both reach more of the right people.
Website management doesn’t have to be a burden! When you do proper upfront research and map out your game plan, your website will generate results! It will take time. There is nothing fast or quick about Search Engine Optimization, but it’s not something worth missing out on. So, is your website just sitting pretty? Or are you ready to start turning your website into paying clients?
LR Design & Marketing offers a variety of digital marketing packages for all business sizes. I have over 8 years of experience with SEO, email marketing, website management, content creation, social media management, and website reporting. Get in touch today to talk about your project.
