CNECT – Business Marketing Solutions
Online Marketing, these days, isn’t just about having a website. You need to get you head above the “Noise” and get yourself noticed.
The Good news is . . . . it’s not difficult to do . . . . once you know how.
Here at CNECT we meet with businesses all the time that already have a website build and are now at a stage where they want to get more traffic to their website.
So the common question is . . . . “how do we get more traffic? our website is on page 7 of Google and nobody ever searches that far!”
So the inevitable question is “How do we get onto page 1?”
Well, the simple answer is run a PPC (pay per click) Campaign such as Google adwords. This will get you onto Page 1 straight away, which means you can start to get traffic to your website straight away as well. For many small businesses this can be daunting. Simply because they have to pay every time someone clicks on their ad and consequently they often fear this might not be very profitable.
In many instances small businesses have tried this type of adverting before and have found it just hasn’t been successful. When we get to see inside their accounts we all to often see a recurring theme. Firstly, their Adwords accounts aren’t set up correctly and secondly their websites aren’t set up to be compatible with a PPC advertising. These are the reasons why they fail!
Therefore the major problem with most business websites is this . . . . business owners get their website created, then they go and try to figure out how to get traffic to it. It really is like putting the cart before the horse.
Just like horses aren’t meant to push the cart, your traffic sources won’t make concessions for your website. You need to firstly understand how the internet works and then secondly, take this into account when you design your website.
So here’s what needs to be the No1 consideration . . . . you need to first decide what the best traffic source is your business website and then design your website around attracting that traffic or simply making it compatible.
Facebook is another source or both free and paid traffic as well. Understanding how Facebook works is the secret to getting free traffic from it. Many businesses nowadays have a Business Facebook Page but many don’t know how to use it to their advantage. The common misnomer is that all you need to do is get “likes” and your page will be effective. This may have been the case once, but not anymore.
Getting “likes” is important but it’s merely just the first step. There is a lot of “noise” on Facebook these days, everyone is trying get noticed. In a nutshell, if you want to get your message out on Facebook you need to get interaction happening on your Facebook page. This means getting fans to comment and share, which is some instances might seem like it’s easier said than done. One tactic is to add content to your website from time to time and syndicate it straight onto your Facebook page. This can be used to “get the conversation happening” which is important to get effective results from Facebook.
Therefore it’s essential that if you want to take advantage of this free traffic source, that you take this into account right from the very start when designing your website.
Offline marketing is also a tried and tested method or getting traffic to your website. Local Newspaper advertising in particular can be very effective. But just like Facebook the competition for attention can be fierce. Therefore adding a QR Code to your ad can make your ad stand out. Plus it makes it so much easier for readers to go directly to your website by simply scanning the code with their smartphone. So think of a QR Code as a simple and quick method of getting your ad off the page and into the smartphones of your potential new customers.
To take advantage of this type of traffic your website does need to have one very important feature. It needs to be mobile friendly. Unfortunately for most of the websites we see, they aren’t mobile friendly and as such are most likely missing out on up to 30% of the traffic searching for them.
So if you already have a website and are wondering how to get more traffic to it, then the news is not all bad. The competition is fierce but the good news is, in many cases it’s not strong. Most websites are already in the same boat as you. So what you need to do is get you head above all the “noise” and simply out compete.
Therefore, if you’re thinking about getting a website created, then don’t get it made and then try and figure out how to get traffic to it, because you’ll simply be doing things back the front.
So your first step is to contact us today for a free consultation to come up with a strategy that is right for your business. It might be a combination of all of the above or just some of the methods mentioned. What is important though, is it needs to be tailored toward your business and it needs to be designed to get you results.
