“Summertime and the livin’ is easy …” – The lyrics from George Gershwin’s Summertime remind us that we should kick back and take some time off, enjoy our family and friends, golf, go to the beach and basically just have fun.
Small businesses have many opportunities to increase online visibility and be found by their ideal customers if they just know where to focus. Since most of us have minimal resources to call upon, we need to be smart when selecting online marketing activities that deliver the best results for our efforts.
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.
A conversion funnel, also known as a sales or marketing funnel, describes the process you create to attract potential buyers to your website and guide them to take some desired action. The actions can range from signing up for your email list to buying your products and services.
It’s no surprise that customers and visitors to your website have questions about your business, product or service that need to be answered. And we try to answer those questions through our blog posts and page content. But often the visitor needs a simpler way to find the answer they are looking for.
Inbound marketing is an effective strategy designed to draw your ideal client to you when they are already actively looking for a solution. If you are implementing inbound marketing and are curious as to why you are not seeing the results you expect, you may be guilty of making some (or all) of the following inbound marketing mistakes.
The most frequent question I get asked by small business owners is how to simplify inbound marketing when faced with limited resources. Inbound marketing seems so overwhelming with all the effort that needs to go into creating great content, sharing it on social media and optimizing that content for search engines.
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.
Having an inbound marketing strategy is the core to your online marketing efforts. Inbound marketing is the art of attracting our customers to us by providing valuable information, rather than pushing our products and services on them. Creating and sharing useful content helps the buyer move through the purchase process and makes your business more credible, trustworthy, and visible in the process.
By now you are probably wondering “what’s in it for me” when it comes to inbound marketing. It seems like a lot of work and is there any benefit to my small business?
Patience and consistency – virtues in many aspects of your life. These same qualities are important for marketing, and even more critical for your online efforts. Putting an inbound marketing plan in motion that attracts your ideal client is something that requires stamina and determination: Stamina to continue on course for the long term no matter who says you should change; Determination to make it work and see your business succeed.
Now that you have your inbound marketing plan and have established your WordPress website and social media outposts, it’s time to start generating and nurturing leads and turn these prospects into customers. But how do you incorporate inbound marketing into your daily schedule while still working in your business? Create an inbound marketing system that enables you to consistently execute your activities and see the results.
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