You need to put an honest effort into driving traffic to your website-learn how!
Alright, youve got your brand-new Web site, and it looks great. So why arent you getting any visitors? Because its not a magic wand. You need to dedicate a portion of your marketing to driving traffic to your site. You can look at your marketing campaign as a fishing boat. Each marketing element – newsletters, news releases, PPC campaign, pop-ups – can be considered a line in the water. And with every additional line in the water, you increase your chances of catching a big one. The best solution is found in a mix of marketing, online and offline, but well keep it simple and just discuss online options for now.
How to Get Prospects to Click Through and Purchase
Lets start with Google Adwords (sponsored search), these are the ads found in the highlighted box at the top of the page and listed along the right side of the search results page. Google obviously knows what theyre doing, and their solutions tend to be very user-friendly, so they are a great place for even the greenest online marketers to start. With your analytics and sponsored search in place, youre ready to start receiving traffic to your site.
Now, when a consumer clicks on your online ad, your analytics should track their path through your site. So if you want them to purchase a product, its a good idea to test going directly to the landing page that deals with that product or the specific offer youre promoting. Its crucial to realize that it shouldnt be a free-for-all once people land on your site. Too many people get so excited about the prospect of driving traffic to their site that they forget that visitors need their hands held throughout your site. So youve got to track their behavior from page to page.
Analyze, Optimize and Convert
As with any marketing, youve got to constantly look at your activity and find areas of improvement – analyze, optimize and convert. With the proper Web metrics in place, you should be able to track your online activity. With this in mind, your site should be set up with a linear path of actions in mind. Sites created on HubSpot have an advantage over their competitors, as advanced analytic tools are built into the software.
Imagine the following path: Your visitor first clicks on to your home page, they then click through on a call-to-action that asks them to read more about a specific product, after reading a convincing sales pitch they then click through to your order form… Then poof! Theyre gone!
Now, if you werent tracking them in the first place, youd have no idea at which point, which page, you lost them. But you were, so we know you lost them at the order-form page. Now youve got a fine-tuned microscope with which to dissect your order-form page.
This would be a good time to perform split tests with your order forms, creating different versions of the page to test which ones convert at a higher ratio. For example, the forms directions could be too difficult, the required information could be too intrusive, or your pricing may be too high. Test, test, test until you find what works best. And then test some more.
What do you want your customers to do?
Before you even begin marketing online and testing your results, make sure you know exactly who youre targeting. With a detailed profile of your ideal client or target audience, youll be able to precisely fashion the calls-to-action on your Web site – understand what is that you want your visitors to do, and who those visitors are.
Part of that approach is accurately marketing to the geographic region within which you operate. Some businesses are wasting their money by advertising on Google on a nationwide basis when in fact they only serve small local regions. If youre limited to a physical area of commerce, look into local search options that allow you to target your marketing. In addition, targeting a specific geographic market serves to create a niche for your business; differentiate.
Believe it or not, there are a lot of different markets that you can create yourself. For example, imagine a silkscreen business: Instead of just advertising to the general populous, you could put a laser beam on class or family reunions; specific groups or scenarios that could use your product. Using this approach, you can pinpoint specific keywords that will work best for your campaign.
If you dont have your ideal client established or any testing in place, you can easily burn through your budget in a few days. So once youve taken care of your foundation, then you can move on to traffic solutions.