Is Your Website Working for You?

Your website is your first impression to visitors, just like your handshake at a networking event. Is your website looking guests in the eye while shaking their hand firmly? Or is it sweaty and weak, unsure and there only because it has to be?

Your website should be your sales rep that never takes a break, always acquiring new visitors and generating more leads. This is where your company will develop trust with visitors. All potential customers, whether referrals, cold calls, or organic searchers will visit your website to judge how you present yourself to the world.

If you provide current, relevant content, you will gain the trust of visitors. Then, they are more likely to explore the services you provide. That’s when you can leverage premium content, CTAs, and landing pages to generate leads. If your website isn’t generating leads, then you are missing a prime opportunity to grow your business.

How to Make Your Website Work for You:

Provide Information:

Your customers, no matter your industry, are performing more research before making a buying decision. If you aren’t providing the information they are seeking, they will continue their search. Targeting specific keywords tailored to specific points in the buying process is a great way to drive targeted traffic to your blog articles.

Referral Traffic:

How are you acquiring new visitors? Is your social media campaign working? Which platform generates the most visitors? Are people finding your site through Google? SpyFu and SEMRush are great tools to see how your site is ranking for specific keywords and organic clicks. Referral traffic is how you see which strategies are working and which need improvement. 

Increasing Visitors:

Your site cannot be stagnant. There is a famous quote that says, “Even if you are on the right path, if you’re not moving forward, you’ll get run over.” Do not run the risk of getting run over by competitors. By creating a content schedule and sticking to it your site will provide the answers to the questions your customers are asking, which will increase the number of visitors.

Bounce Rate:

There are many metrics you should analyze every month, but this is one of the most important. Bounce rate allows you to see where visitors arrived at your site, how long they stayed on certain pages, which pages they viewed, and from which page they left your site. This allows you to see which pages are working and which need improvement.

Generating Leads:

This is obviously the most important, but the other four all lead up to this. If your website isn’t generating leads for your company than it is not doing its job. By providing premium content behind landing pages, your site can constantly be working for you. This means funneling visitors through the buying process with targeted content, and having Call to Actions strategically placed throughout your site.

How to Develop Trust:

• Regularly scheduled content
• Content based around information and not selling
• Don’t ask for contact information for blog access
• Answer the questions your customers are asking
• Be there (respond to comments, engage in social media, follow up)

By providing content targeted to specific keywords and tailored to specific points in the buying process, promoting that content on social media, and analyzing the data to restructure your strategy as needed, your website can generate leads for you.

Michael O'Brien combines his creativity and storytelling skills with business acumen to tell your company's unique story and position your business as an authority in your industry. To get updates on inbound marketing strategies, follow him on Twitter @mikedobrien or visit his site mikedobrien.com.