Still Waiting for Those Online Orders to Start Pouring In?
So you’ve built your website (or paid someone to do it).
It looks beautiful•Effective Layout•Easy Navigation•All the “Buy Now” buttons in the right place
But still no sales. Or maybe you’ve got a few trickling in. That’s not how it was supposed to be.
Build It and They Will Come, Right?
That hasn’t been true since Field of Dreams. At least 50% of commerce is still based of marketing.
You Need to Get the Word Out!
Even in a physical scenario, you could have the most amazing store in town, but if no one knows about it, you won’t be selling much. You might have a few people notice it and stop in, but that’s not enough.
Now think about how many websites are online (and how many more are added each day). How in the world are people ever going to notice your beautiful site?
Got a Huge Marketing Budget? Awesome!
Now, if you had a ton of money to throw into marketing, Pay-Per-Click campaigns, SEO and SEM then you’d be ahead of the game and if your money’s well spent you may see the results you’re hoping for.
But What If You Don’t Have That Kind of Budget?
There is a lot of work you can do on your own that won’t cost you any money. Two of the most important things you can do are:
Content Marketing / Blogging
Having a site that is primarily driven by it’s blog might not be the best way to go in every situation, but I think for most businesses and people, it is an incredibly effective way to better develop your online identity. Here are 5 reasons why I think so…
1. Sheer Volume of Content.
Each time you add a new blog post you’re creating a new page for your site with information that can help your customers.
2. More Stuff for Google.
Each time you add a new blog post you’re creating a new page of searchable, relevant content for Google to see. Google likes to see activity on a site. This is the most effective thing you can do to keep the site active.
3. Direct Connection and Dialogue with Your Audience.
Having a blog based site, or at least an active blog on your site, this gives you a direct pipeline with your customers/clients. That really helps build trust.
4. Keeping Your Information Current
Blogs allow you to continually provide the most current information about yourself or your products and services. If people know there is always new information on your site they are more likely to come back from time to time. This doesn’t hurt.
5. Demonstrate Your Authority
Continually putting out helpful and insightful information about what you do can help you to develop a role of authority. The more useful information you’re putting out there, the more people can look at you as an authority in your field; the place to go when people need information about your industry. Again, this helps build trust. Kind of significant.
Social Media Sites
Go to where the people are! Today this would be Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, etc…
These sites allow you to, for free, establish a presence where your customers/followers can easily keep up with what you’re doing without having to visit your site everyday. (because no matter how cool your site is, it’s really not likely that ANYONE is going to visit your site everyday – except you and your mom, of course).
The Work Has To Be Done!
I know I repeat this a lot, but it’s really important.
Let’s say you spend $2000 – $5000 on your new website. It’s got everything – impressive design, a shopping cart, a blog, all the information about how cool you are, etc…
If you just leave it alone and don’t do the work (blogging, social media, etc…) you’ll have wasted the money you spent having the site created for you and you’ll be wondering why the business isn’t doing well.
The cool thing is YOU CAN TAKE CONTROL! (sorry, didn’t mean to yell, just got excited!) Blogging/Content Marketing and Social Media doesn’t cost you anything but your time. Sure, of course your time is valuable, but it’s better than having to spend $50,000 a year on traditional marketing and advertising (that doesn’t work anymore anyway!).
So go be successful! It’s up to you and you can do it!
