Is your website pulling its weight? As the hub of your online marketing, your website is the most important component of your web presence. The primary goal of your inbound marketing activities should be lead generation – driving more traffic to your website and then converting the traffic into leads.
You are probably wondering “what’s in it for me” when it comes to inbound marketing. It seems like a lot of work. Does it really work for lead generation?
People spend most of their marketing efforts driving visitors to their websites. It’s absolutely an important task. But getting people to come to your website is just the first step. Once they arrive at your website, you need a strong website call to action to ensure your visitors don’t leave without establishing some type of connection with your company.
If you have created your content marketing strategy, you should know who you are targeting, with what content, on which channel and the timing of how often and when. Now you need to generate a regular stream of quality and relevant information across all of your content channels
We are an impatient society. We want immediate response to our requests. We get frustrated when we have to wait for anything, especially for websites to load. If your website speed does not meet the patience criteria of your visitors, they will hit the back button, sending a signal to Google that your website is not a quality user experience. That behavior over time could affect your search engine ranking.
When I ask the question “Will You Find Your Next Client — or Will They Find You?”, it is a direct challenge to business owners to define an inbound marketing strategy that will encourage those who are ready to buy to contact you.
Implementing an inbound marketing plan can have a major effect on the growth of your small business but it can also be a drain on an already overwhelmed small business owner. By following these five steps and outsourcing where it makes sense, you can create an inbound marketing system that gains visibility and drives traffic to your website.
Lead nurturing is what it sounds like: continually providing support and nourishment to leads (in this case acquired through your inbound marketing efforts) by anticipating their needs and sending them new, fantastic content that is interesting, educational and relevant.
You finally have a powerful website and blog that you are proud to show off, with messages that clearly explain how you help your clients and the value you provide. Now you need to increase website traffic in order to gain visibility, grow your email list, sell your product or offer your services to the right audience.
Email marketing and marketing automation are terms that are used somewhat interchangeably, causing confusion for small businesses who are trying to decide which solution they need. This confusion stems from the fact that both solutions are based on using email as a primary way to communicate with your leads in the hope that some leads will convert into customers.
Search engine optimization plays a critical part in the success of your inbound marketing efforts by increasing the effectiveness of the other three pillars – content marketing, social media marketing and public relations – to drive targeted traffic to your website.
The term “cornerstone content” has been talked and written about a lot recently although the concept is really not that new. Brian Clark, founder of Copyblogger, wrote a guide about how to create cornerstone content that Google loves 11 years ago this month.
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