What will your visitors think if they see a static website with an outdated design?
They may think you’re not that serious about your business, right?
Keep in mind that having a fresh and responsive website with a good visual design is the gateway to more leads. Web visitors who keep coming back to your site can later turn into paying customers.
There’s a good reason why Google is pushing for this update. It’s obvious that mobile devices are now prevalent. People all over the world used them to browse the web. Any type of business that has a website should adapt. Otherwise, you will be left out in the searches.
3. Your site is navigationally challenged
A website should provide a good user experience by having sleek and well-planned navigation. Your visitors must easily find the information they need on your site because this builds credibility on your part.
Having a site with bad navigation can be a huge deterrent to your visitors. They may even go to your competitors when they’re disappointed with your current website.
If your site is difficult to navigate, there are key parts of your website that you can improve.
According to an eye-tracking study from MST, there are website sections that drew the most interest from viewers. These are as follows:
The institution’s logo. Users spent about 6.48 seconds focused on this area before moving on.
The main navigation menu. Almost as popular as the logo, subjects spent an average of 6.44 seconds viewing the menu.
The search box, where users focused for just over 6 seconds.
Social networking links to sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Users spent about 5.95 seconds viewing these areas.
The site’s main image, where users’ eyes fixated for an average of 5.94 seconds.
The site’s written content, where users spent about 5.59 seconds.
The bottom of a website, where users spent about 5.25 seconds.
4. Your site isn’t interactive enough
In today’s marketing arena, it’s NOT just about what you have and what you think your prospects’ want and need. It’s more about engaging them. That is why your visitors must have the option to comment on your content, or to give a direct feedback.
If your site is all one way, then you’re NOT connecting with your audience. You must get a dialogue going by giving them the option to respond, express and ask questions.
5. Your site’s search engine ranking is dropping
Although this is a very technical subject to delve into, it’s essential that you are visible online. This means that you are on the first page of the SERPs.
Google, Yahoo and Bing implements standards every site admin should follow. When a site fails to adhere to the rules, then its rankings will surely plummet.
If you think your site is no longer listed on the top three pages of the SERPs, then it’s time to update or change your site entirely.
6. The content on your site (web copy and image) is no longer aimed at your target audience
There will come a time when your site is no longer relevant to your market. You have to adapt to the situation or risk getting left behind. In order to cope up with this situation, your site must have a new look and content that your prospects need.
Posting new content is a good starting point. If you don’t have a blog, it’s a good time to start.
Updating your current site is not only about changing the design. Your web copy and images also needs updating. The aim here is to persuade your site visitors to stay and look around. Your blog’s aim, on the other hand is to engage your customers and leads so they will continue to patronise your business.
Is it expensive to get a new website?
Not anymore. In fact, new site templates are more mobile-friendly, easy to update and more customisable than older versions. You can regularly update the information of your site or adjust it based on the needs and wants of your target market.
Always remember, your audience and search engines respond best to new and changing content.
If you’re planning to get a new website that converts, then speak to James first and book in a free 30 minute strategy session.
You can also download our FREE EBOOK to know how you can grow your business using The Growth Engine.
The time you prepare and act on any decision decides the growth and success of your business.
So it’s not surprising that many businesses take a few weeks or even months to launch ads and other digital marketing campaigns.
One major decision in a business is the timeliness of a marketing campaign. A classic example is Oreo’s tweet ‘You can still dunk in the dark” during a blackout in one of the Super Bowl Series. It’s brilliant in a sense that it’s timely.
Are there effective digital campaigns that you can prepare and launch in less than a day?
The answer is a sweet yes.
How do you start preparing for your digital marketing campaign?
The answer to the question is simple; you need to research and consistently create valuable content. This content will be distributed to multiple channels and platforms. The information needs to involve relevant industry information that can both entertain and provide valuable insights to your audience.
What are the different tools to use in a digital marketing campaign?
There are tons of tools that are used in various campaigns, but some tools are only applicable for a particular job. You don’t cut a tree with a toothpick, right? Of course, you will use a chainsaw for that job.
Here are some of the tools to consider based on their purpose:
Infographics – if you want to make your message more visual and pleasing to the eye, then you will need this tool. Infographics are great for citing competitive advantages or highlighting benefits of your products and services.
Articles – the most common but still a powerful tool to use in your business website, blogs, newsletters, etc. You can publish short or long articles. It all depends on how in-depth you want to be with your messages.
Streaming Services – if you want a substitute for traditional radio and TV ads, then this tool is for you. A good example is Pandora and Hulu. They can stream your ads in between TV shows on their site.
Google Pay-Per-Click – you can advertise using keywords that are most relevant to your business. Google PPC is a popular tool utilised by digital marketing companies to gather a considerable amount of traffic that clients need for their sites.
Social Media – what else can I say about social media that you don’t already know? Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Instagram are popular channels to take advantage of. They can bring you closer to your target market, and you can use them to promote your business.
Video Streaming – there are several video streaming sites on the web, but YouTube is the most used site for this purpose. You can upload any promotional content about your business for free on this site.
Apps – there are tons of mobile devices and gadgets on our planet today. Your prospects are definitely using one of these devices. The best way to leverage this is to create an app that can capture their attention. An app can also be a useful tool to educate your prospects about your products and services.
Using Effective Digital Marketing Strategies
Now that you know the type of tools you can use, it’s time to incorporate strategies that are proven in the industry. One such strategy is the integrated marketing campaign. There are steps to take to make this method a success.
Step 1: Identifying who your target audience is
It’s important to clearly identify your audience and know their attitudes, behaviours, and pain points. You can easily develop messages for your target audience if you know their wants and needs. That is why it’s essential to conduct proper research to get the information from them.
Step 2: Choosing the right channels
Choose the right media channel that is suitable to your business. Make sure that it is where your prospects are, because your main goal is to get your message to these individuals.
Step 3: Establish your visual identity
Branding is an essential aspect of your business and you need to establish your visual identity. You must understand though that visual identity is far more than your logo. You must be consistent with your company colours, fonts, and overall graphic presentation of your website and newsletters.
Step 4: Publishing content that is integrated and can be repurposed to different media channels
Your content must be set up to drive traffic to your business website or any of your main landing pages. Whether you’re submitting an article, blog post, video or infographic material to any site on the web, it must have a link that points back to your target site. Also, use valuable content that can be repurposed to other media channels on the web.
Step 5: Tracking campaigns through proper analytics
The most important aspect of a digital marketing campaign is to know the result of your efforts. You must have accurate data of your progress. There are several analytics tools on the Internet, but nothing compares to Google Analytics. It’s widely used by marketers and it can accurately render the numbers and data that you’re looking for.
4 Digital Marketing Campaigns that You Can Launch in 24 Hours
Facebook Ad Campaign – if you want to effectively tap into your target market, you can use the paid Ad campaign option on Facebook. This will enable you to allocate a budget for a particular content on your FB page. The system will prioritise that content and it will be more visible to your target audience. You can even set various adverts for different types of audience, so you can identify which content works better. All these marketing activities can be launch within 24 hours.
Email Marketing – this method will entail two important steps. The first one is to build an email list which you will use as the primary respondents of your message. This will require you to capture the email addresses of your prospects via your website. For this to happen, you must give your site visitors a reason to input their email ad on your capture forms.
Growth HQ has setup a great system for this particular purpose. Once a prospect has signed up to our email list; their emails will be sent to an online database and we can easily send them an email back with just one click.
Google Pay-Per-Click – using this method, you can easily target a keyword or key phrase that your target market uses on Google Search. Although this will cost a bit more than any other marketing campaign, you can easily set it up within 24 hours.
Ad Retargeting – technically, this method will require you to create a java script code, which creates a list of people who are visiting your site. This will enable you to display your ads to potential customers when they visit other websites. Imagine this, you can easily send your messages to your prospects wherever they go online. It’s truly a powerful stuff at your disposal and you can easily launch it within the day.
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I often have two questions for a business owner about their marketing.
How much do you spend to acquire a customer?
How much is that customer worth over their lifetime with you?
Some can give real numbers. Most can’t.
Knowing those two figures makes a huge difference to a business.
If you know your numbers you can outspend your competition and take customers from them.
If you know your numbers you can get a higher quality of customer who will spend more.
If you know your numbers you can turn low spending customers into high spending ones just by knowing that they are low spending…
The good news is it’s never been easier to know those numbers and how they relate to your website.
Why are metrics critical to your business website?
As a website owner, you need to gather relevant data that gives you an overview for your campaigns. This is why metrics play an important role in improving the performance of your website.
During the 90’s and mid-2000, website owners did not have the means to track their own campaigns. Web analytics were not yet available to the masses. Only large companies could afford to setup it up. And it was tedious work.
In 2006, Google launched its own web analytics tool. They made it a free tool that everyone could use.
Using the information that Google Analytics provides you can get a picture of where you should be focusing your attention online.
What are the Most Popular Metrics To Assess
At present, more and more online marketers are using metrics to assess strategies. There are different types but here are some of the most popular ones used today:
Visits Referred by Specific Search Engine Terms and Phrases
This metric shows keywords or key phrases that are responsible for sending traffic to your website. Some of these keywords can come from any content that you published on your website.
This is good to track on a regular basis as it will help you identify new and profitable keywords. This can also help you understand the performance of your current content strategy and take steps to boost your search ranking, if needed.
Pages Receiving Traffic from the Search Engines
Are your pages getting indexed? This metric shows the website pages that are getting indexed through the number of incoming traffic. You can also track certain issues with your site like: link acquisition, site architecture, XML Sitemap, metadata and uniqueness of your content.
Conversion Rate by Search Query
What keywords or key phrases continually send visitors to your site and convert this traffic to paying customers?
Tracking this metric will enable you to dig deeper and find out the most effective landing pages on your site. You can also pretty much ballpark how you can tweak your strategy to address the pages that are not performing well.
Using Analytics Tools to Optimise Your Content
There are many types of analytics tools in the market today. For this segment, our focus are metrics in Google Analytics. It is perfect to use since it is free but very powerful.
Some of the most important data you can get from the behaviour report are:
Pageviews – The number of pages viewed by your visitors. This will include repeated views on a single page.
Average Time on Page – Amount of time viewers spend on a particular page on your site.
Unique Pageviews – This is the number of unique visitors who have viewed a page at least once during their visit.
Bounce Rate – This is the percentage of single-page visits to your site. If a visitor goes to one of your pages and exits the site from the same page they entered in. This action will be factored in into the bounce rate.
One other tool that offers real-time analytics tracking is Woopra. This tool is a desktop application that can feed live visitor stats. One awesome feature exclusive to this tool is its capability to chat live with individual site visitors. This is a great feature for e-commerce sites, but it would also be an invaluable feature for any type of business.
Key Takeaway
Metrics help you measure your success when doing online campaigns. If you have identified your buyer persona and know their online behaviour, you can make changes accordingly and segment your market. You can better address their pain points if you have a deeper understanding of how they behave when making selections and finally doing a purchase.
If you can clearly identify who spends more time on your site and on what particular content, when and where they enter and exit, it can point you to the stage when your customer decides to purchase and give you an idea why they stopped at certain points.
Knowing these, you can already ask yourself the following questions and make adjustments based on your answers:
Do I need to change the format of my content?
What kind of format works best for my market?
What kind of information do I need to give out to my audience?
What information is lacking in my content that my audience needs?
What particular pages in my website needs adjustment?
How can I maintain the interest of my visitors to a particular page?
Enjoyed this article? Download a copy of our Google Analytics Metrics Guide and get to know what metrics matter most to grow and improve your business.
Optimisation has been a buzz word in ecommerce forever. We are all striving to get that little bit extra out of the traffic we have and the customers who already trust us.
Sometimes we just want to throw out the whole platform and start again. But this is expensive and often does not deliver the results to justify the investment. Sometimes it can deliver a worse experience that impacts revenue, as big ecommerce players like Marks and Spencer discovered.
Small changes can have a huge impact. At GrabOne we changed the design of a yellow box on the mobile site and improved conversion by $256,000 per year. Testing should be part of your culture but I want to hand you some quick wins that you can implement in the next 30 days.
Criteria I used to choose these:
Easy to implement
High upside, low downside – little risk
Platform agnostic – you can do all of these with what you have or simple tools
1. Chat
Online shopping inherently lacks the retail experience of having someone walk a customer through a purchase and deal with objections and questions as they come up. Chat is a way to improve engagement with the customer, discover frequent problems and hidden issues. I’ve seen chat linked transaction average double than those without. Anecdotally younger users use chat in higher numbers as its a more natural experience for them.
How: Olark only requires a single line of code and starts at $15 a month.
2. Payment options
Offering customers an alternative way to pay has been proven to boost conversions. Payments company SeeWhy analysed payment methods by platform and showed an increase in performance when offering customers more options.
Paypal has obviously gained market share but digital wallets haven’t really gained traction in NZ. The quick win I would recommend is you focus on payment solutions that increase your average transaction value. GrabOne’s implementation of QCard was successful in increasing transaction values.
How: Speak to QCard. It will seamlessly sit next to your existing payment gateway.
3. Social Proof and Urgency
Daily deal sites have some of the highest conversion rates online. They do this through a unique product but they have also been very successful in increasing urgency and layering social proof onto a purchasing decision. Displaying the number of purchases, how many have been sold, stock remaining or recent purchases can all be effective.
Booking.com have always been my favourite implementation and I know they have a extensive conversion testing regime so ‘taking inspiration’ from them would be wise. Look at the daily deal sites for design ideas as well.
Two important caveats don’t create false urgency and don’t overdo it.
How: Userstats offer a lightweight tool from $18 a month
4. Onboarding
Customers who have already bought from us are far easier to re-engage than new customers. Getting a new user to a purchase and experience your product as early in the relationship as possible ensures the lifetime value is maximised. Onboarding them to let them know what they can expect from you and potentially incentivising them to purchase is a fast and simple way to do this. The art is nurturing them rather than chasing them.
Onboarding should:
Set expectations about how you are going to communicate with them eg email frequency
Start to build a relationship with them eg your company’s values and usp
Let them know about any other actions that would be beneficial eg mobile, app, account preferences
Generally onboarding is done via email but a thank you page post sign up can be a good early introduction to your relationship.
The next time a customer sees and email from you or an ad out there they will be slightly more likely to engage.
How: Fire up your email program and write an email (preferably from a person) telling them exactly what to expect from you and suggest some next steps in the relationship.
5. Cart Abandon
Are people really still not doing this? If it’s not the most profitable email you send in your stack then I will personally send you $11.50 which happens to the value per email of the last onboarding email I wrote.
Seriously just do it. The customer has got all the way through to the cart and left for some reason. Give them a nudge.
Test messaging sequences, frequency and content later but please start. FYI A two email abandon reminder seems to work best for most ecommerce types. But start with a single email and find out later what is optimal.
How: It is likely built into your ecommerce platform of choice but if you need a third party solution Salescycle offer this along with remarketing functionality.
Priorities are always challenging but if there are gaps in your strategy please fill them with one of the above ideas as soon as you can. I guarantee it will make you more sales.
Want someone to make these small but important changes for you? Check out Growth Advise. There’s a waiting list right now but register and I will let you know when an opening becomes available.
Advertising legend David Ogilvy once said that “On average, five times as many people read the headline compared to the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”
Headlines create clarity.
They create curiosity.
When done right they compel clicks.
This simply means that you have to pay very close attention to your headline. Most of the dollars you pay for getting customers and receiving an ROI starts here.
People click on attention grabbing headlines.
Even crappy blogs get the click as long as there’s a headline that’s worth clicking. Of course, it’s way better to have a powerful duo of a great headline and awesome content. But it starts with the headline.
If you’re doing any form of marketing, whether it be content, paid, email or any other channel, then a good headline is your first chance to get it right (or wrong).
Articles, copy, email subject lines, social sharing posts; they are used all the time.
These words describe time, emotion/feeling and need.
You see many headlines that are still using these words because it triggers something in your psyche.
How? Here’s a good take backed by science.
The Science Behind a Click-Worthy Headline
Words have power. But they cannot make your customers act unless they touch a nerve, in a good way. There are words that we consider power words, but even words that are not powerful enough can get your message across using a subtle nudge.
What I’m saying is that, science and psychology has something to do with how your customers react when they see your headline – whether it’s using powerful or not-so-powerful words.
While your customers’ psyche is complicated, you can make it work to your advantage. Courtney Seiter highlighted these eight winning formulas and the science behind them, so you can craft your words in such a way that it will trigger your customers to click.
A quick overview, the following include:
1. Surprise
Based on a study, unexpected surprises are more stimulating to the brain. It grabs attention compared to things that we already know.
2. Questions
Questions stimulate the brain to look for answers. So when you use a question in headlines, readers can’t help but jump in to find out the answer.
3. Curiosity
Upworthy created a buzz when they started creating brilliantly made headlines. Why brilliant? Well people click on them. People are curious about what they were talking about. They tell something about the content but not enough to fully disclose what has happened. They call this curiosity gap.
4. Negatives
Outbrain conducted a study and found out that negative superlatives have stronger impact than positive ones. Theories including negative are more intriguing because they are unexpected and activate an element of surprise. Another is that, they tap into our insecurities in a powerful way.
5. How To
“How to” simplifies things. You can do a lot of variations, but when you use this, you can’t go wrong with your headline.
6. Numbers
This is all about predictability and expectations. It’s all about managing expectations so your customers know what they are getting into.
7. Audience Referencing
People like to involve themselves. Using the word “you” is a good way to do that. Your audience feels a certain connection when you use it.
8. Specificity
Specific facts stick in the mind. It’s interesting to many people because they lead to greater clarity.
Writing Your Headline: How Do You Even Begin?
Many have created secret formulas and weird concoctions to come up with different types of headlines that’s worthy of clicking and sharing. Clayton Makepeace simplified the process by asking these six questions when you want to write a power-packed headline:
1. Does your headline offer the reader a reward for reading?
2. What specifics could you add to make your headline more intriguing and believable?
3. Does your headline trigger a strong, actionable emotion the reader already has about the subject at hand?
4. Does your headline present a proposition that will instantly get your prospect nodding his or her head?
5. Could your headline benefit from the inclusion of a proposed transaction?
6. Could you add an element of intrigue to drive the prospect into your opening copy?
These questions can guide you to include all the necessary elements to make your headline clickable.
25 Headline Formulas that you can Try Today
At Growth HQ, we have gathered some of the best headline formulas and shared them to get you started. Here are some of them.
Negative/Threatening Headline
Negatives get into the subconscious. They create a reflex action to find how the threat or negativity can be neutralised. That’s why people click on these kinds of headlines.
1. Lies that [Trusted Company/People] Tell You
Example: Lies that Your Doctor Tells You
2. [Threat]: [Negative Superlative] + [Action]
Example: Lie: Worst Thing to Do When Selling
3. [People/Organisation] + [Action] + [Threat]
Example: If You are Spending on Marketing, You Will Go Out of Business
4. Warning Signs that [Subject/Product/Event] is a Scam.
Example: Warning Signs that ETrade Expo is a Scam
Headlines that Ask Questions
5. According to Ian Betteridge, any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by no. So you have to be very crafty and creative when using this formula. To make this work though, why not try adding another headline.
Example: Are you going to get rich by selling this product? Yes, if You Do this Steps.
Guide Type Headline
6. The classic “How to” headline is the best default you can use. No matter how creative you think other headline formulas are, you are probably better off using the “how to” headline. First of all, it is easy to come up with a strong and attention grabbing headline using this technique.
Example: How to Get Thousands of Traffic in 60 Days
7. The ultimate list is something that we also love. It immediately tells us that we can find good stuff in there.
“The Ultimate Guide to [—–]”
E.g. The Ultimate List of Growth Hacker Blogs
8. This kind of headline attracts many first timers.
“The Beginner’s Guide to [——]”
9. Starting an epic list post? Then you need an epic headline.
The Big List of [——] or The Complete List of [—–]
Example: The Complete List of Gory Scenes in Game of Thrones
10. People love instant solutions. That’s why headlines with quick solutions are easy clickbait items.
Example: Here’s a Quick and Easy Way to Solve Writer’s Block
11. Need a good list of rules? Do’s and Don’ts can do the job.
[Action] Do’s and Don’t
Example: Sleeping Do’s and Don’ts
Number/List Headline Formula
12. If you want an eye catching headline with a compelling promise, you can try Kozaii Marketing’s Lenka Istvanova’s formula.
Example: 25 Greatest Life hacks that will Cut your Work in Half.
13. List articles are the most powerful blog posts you can do if you want page views. Using a list type headline and followed by lessons you learned is very seductive to your reader’s senses.
Example: 10 Lessons I Learned from Reading Twilight
14. Use powerful adjectives and paint a picture with nouns. Jeff Goins believes in using the right words for your headline.
[Number or Trigger word] + [Adjective] + [Keyword] + [Promise]
Example: 10 Terribly Useful Copywriting Techniques to Supercharge your Blog Post
Headline with Social Proof, Recommendation or Backed by Science
15. Recommendations convey trust. That is why headlines using this technique get high open rates.
Example: 10,000 Customers of Starbucks said this ….
16. Social proofing is one thing, scientific proof is another. The “backed by science” headline is compelling for people who are logical. Some people are interested about facts and data more than stories.
Example: How to be Happy: The 5 Greatest Happiness Hacks You’ll Ever Need, Backed By Science
17. For a headline that prominently features social proofing – here is a good formula ad used by John Caples, author of testing advertising methods.
Who else [Action] + [Promise]?
Example: Who else wants to earn six figures using a proven system?
Mini or Zen Headline
18. Our brain immediately pushes that button in us when something intriguing gets our attention. It tells us to click that headline and get into the bottom of that secret. So we click away.
Example: The Secret of [——-]
19. The mini headline is about 4 words or less. This headline formula was popularized by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits. Why is it powerful? Because it creates a sense of mystery that makes the reader curious to read more about the headline.
Example: In Praise of Limit
SEO Charged Headline
20. Of course we don’t discount seo when creating headlines. It’s still necessary for search but you can use this formula to give your title some personality.
[Adjective] + [SEO Keyword] + [Promise]
Example: Great Content Marketing Strategies to Boost Your Sales up to 500%
Combo Headline
21. This makes a rather long headline but it does the job. Just check out this headline from Kevan Lee.
Example: The Burrito Principle and Beyond: 12 New Marketing Ideas That Are Memorable, Actionable and Useful
Other Headlines that are Worth Trying
22. If you want to use a headline where you intend to inspire your reader to achieve something greater than what they think they are capable of, then you can use this formula:
How to [do whatever] like [example of world class personality] without [something negative]
Example: How to Write Copy Like a Rockstar without any Formal Training
23. Another great headline technique is to use a colon in your headline to create a little bit of spice and avoid monotony in your writing.
Example: Buyer Persona: How to Make Your Customers Tick
24. The SHINE headline is something developed by the Braintrust of KISSmetrics. I’d like to borrow and share this formula with you because of its usefulness.
S – Specificity
H – Helpfulness
I – Immediacy
N – Newsworthiness
E – Entertainment value
Example: How to Write a Blogpost in 5 Minutes or Less Using Twitter as a Research Tool
25. Niche or Industry Specific
Industry specific headlines are great when you have a highly-targeted audience.
What [your industry or niche people] + [Adjective/Adverb] + [Action]
Example: What First Time Marketers Stupidly Sell Online
What next?
Headline formulas are good way to start. Remember though that there’s always some room to break the rules. It’s best to think of your target market and use words that trigger an emotional response from them.
Need help triggering response from your target market and becoming No. 1 in your marketplace? Download our FREE BOOK and find out our strategies for getting to number one online.
If you want help formulating a killer headline then leave a comment and we will hand you one on a plate.
How can you capture emails for your business? Is there a top secret tactic to grow an email list?
It is a core requirement of any email marketing campaign to build an email list. An email list is considered a key asset to your business; more so if you have a big list. The more recipients you have, the better your chances of making money.
As a business owner, you want to gather as many emails as you can. Are there easy ways to do it? Yes, there are!
First requirement though is you must have a well-designed capture form. This must be strategically placed on your web site. This means you need a good tool to help you design opt in forms and landing pages.
Different Email Capture Tools That You Need to Check Out
There are so many available tools in the market to capture emails. You may already be using some of them. But for business owners who want to bring their marketing to the next level, these softwares/programs should be part of your marketing tools.
KickoffLabs
One of the best landing page creators on the market. It offers several benefits to its clients. It provides email templates, integrated capture forms, newsletter builders, and some tools to create affiliate programs. These marketing tools and features can help you capture a decent amount of traffic to your site. It also integrates well with AWeber and MailChimp, which is an essential feature for online marketers.
You can try out the service for free. It allows you to create 1 landing page per site. But if you want to take advantage of all its features and create 5 landing pages on your site, you can upgrade your account to premium for 10 dollars per month.
Unbounce
Unbounce is a substantial landing page creator that offers several user-friendly tools for any type of marketing campaign. You can try out the 30-day trial and use the various marketing tools provided by this service. Most importantly, you don’t need any coding skills to create the pages; you can easily drag-and-drop the elements until you have created your preferred landing page.
Optimizely
Optimizely is an optimisation platform solution that provides A/B testing for websites and mobile apps. It has been used by various companies on the web to test the effectiveness of their landing pages. If you want to improve the performance of your website, especially its email capturing capabilities, then this is the tool you need.
You can also easily track your pages by just copy and pasting a one line javascript code that is rendered through the system. Also, you can change any icon, re-colour or resize, and even remove any web element on an existing page in your site.
Active Campaign
This is a popular email marketing automation platform used by freelancers, small to mid-size businesses, non-profit organisations, and public administration. You can send various types of newsletters or setup automated email campaign sequences. It’s even possible to create sales processes including managing your contacts.
If you want to test out this platform, you can create a free account that allows you of up to 2,500 contacts. But you can upgrade your subscription starting at $9/month. That will lift several limitations. It also integrates well with various email marketing tools and softwares like MailChimp, AWeber, LeadPages, etc.
MailerLite
MailerLite is a simple email marketing tool for small businesses. It is affordable and mobile-friendly. You can easily design attractive email newsletters using its drag and drop editor. It can also track email statistics, so you will know the open and click-through rates of a particular email.
You can test its features by creating a free account that is limited to 1,000 subscribers. However, you can upgrade your account to a paying one and you can send unlimited emails from 5,000 up to 50,000 subscribers per month.
Constant Contact
It is a popular email marketing tool that is commonly used by small businesses. You can create several email marketing campaigns through its integrated dashboard. You can also run a Facebook promotion, send email newsletters, and sync data-gathering tools like Google Analytics and Salesforce in your campaign.
You can test drive this tool for 60 days, but you can upgrade your account anytime starting at $15 a month.
Once you have the tools, it would be a lot easier to capture emails of casual visitors and convert them into returning one.
Once you have any of these tools, it’s time to capture your target audience.
Strategies to Capture Emails the Easy Way
We have listed 20 strategies that will help you capture emails of your site visitors. Some combine these strategies to become more effective.
Tempt Your Visitors with a Freebie
A freebie can be an ebook, white paper or anything that you are willing to give away to your prospects. Make sure that your freebie has the capability to encourage prospects to give away their emails.
Offer a Discount Coupon
Another good tactic is to offer a discount coupon that your visitors can take advantage of. Require them to sign-up to your opt-in form before they get the code. Lazada is a good example. It is an online shopping portal that offers huge discounts in exchange for their consumers’ emails.
Ask Visitors to Subscribe to your Blog Post
If you have written an epic blog post about a certain topic that you think is valuable, you can ask visitors to subscribe to that particular post. Offer them the opportunity to download the post in PDF form, or automatically send the file to their emails once they subscribe to your opt-in form.
Offer a Free Membership to your Site
You can sweeten the deal by offering a free membership to your site. Your site should have an exclusive page, additional benefits or functionality that can only be accessed by members. The only requirement to access the members’ page is for them to give away their emails.
Hold a Raffle or Sweepstakes in your Site
Another enticing way of encouraging visitors to give their contact information is through a raffle or contest. You can give away a special item or one of your premium products. Set a timeframe for the contest, and make sure that it is within a five-week period. This method is commonly used by ecommerce sites.
Offer a Free Consultation
If you want to engage your prospects as well as gather their emails, then you can offer a free consultation. All they need to do is to fill out a web form in your website, you can then answer their questions via email.
Let your Visitors Fill Out a Short Survey
If you want this method to be successful, you need a short survey that your visitors can answer within 2 minutes. Reward them with a free gift after they complete the form. Of course, one of the requirements for the gift is their email addresses.
Let your Site Visitors Submit a Free Classified Ad
Allow your visitors to submit a free classified ad, but require them their valid emails. This is a great strategy for acquiring targeted leads. If you are aiming for business owners, then this is the strategy that you need.
Conduct an Interactive Poll on your site
Holding a poll about a certain topic, or asking your visitors for their feedback on your product or service can also be a valid tactic for gathering emails. However, it is essential that you ask your visitors to email their opinion or vote.
Offer a Free Trial Period for your Services
If your business is service-oriented like an online marketing company or you own a car repair shop, it is possible to offer a free trial for any of the services you provide. To avail of these services, your visitors are required to input their emails in your opt-in form.
Refer a Friend Program
This method is commonly used by online marketers because it is an effective tactic. The main goal is to acquire as many emails as possible in just a short period of time. Although you need to give an exceptional reward or incentive for each email generated by your visitors or existing customer.
Invite your Visitors to Take a Test
Think of your prospects and the most popular questions they may have in their mind. Help them find the answer to their question through a test or quiz. If you want to target business owners who want to grow their email list, then you can create a quiz with a title like this: “How do I grow my email list the easy way?” They will need to enter their email address before they can take the test.
Offer your Visitors a Chance to get a Website Award
Many site owners are looking for a way to promote their site, and getting a web site award can be a big boost to their popularity. Fuel their need to be known on the web and acquire their emails in the process.
Put a Guest Book on your Site and Ask Your Visitors to Sign It
Ask your visitors to sign your guest book and offer a unique freebie as a reward for their time. Keep in mind that you need to offer a reward or else it won’t be that effective.
Utilise Pop-Up Boxes to Various Pages on your Site
Pop-up boxes are annoying to visitors, but they work and they can be an effective tool to capture emails. You should also set how often they appear on your site. Make sure the messages rotate within a certain timeframe.
Offer an Affiliate Program for your Visitors
Affiliate programs are suitable for ecommerce sites, since they usually sell various types of products. We all know the drill when it comes to affiliate programs, visitors are required to sign-up to get the commissions and marketing materials that they need for their site.
Ask for Emails During the Shopping Cart Process
For most business owners, asking emails from guests during the checkout process can be too aggressive, but you can sweeten deal by offering an additional discount. Always keep in mind that you need to give your customers the option to sign up to your opt-in form, wherever they are on your site.
Host a Forum or Message Board on your Site
Building a strong relationship with your prospects as well as your existing customers is a must. If you want to hit two birds with one stone, then you can host an online forum on your site. Your visitors will be required to register an account to access the message board. This is also a good opportunity to acquire their emails. Online forums can be a platform for engaging people to your brand.
Hold a Webcast on your Site
Holding a webcast about an exciting topic can entice visitors to participate in the program. It is also a good way of promoting your brand. You must require your visitors though to give their emails before they can attend your webcast.
Leverage Social Media to Build your Email List
You can use various social media sites in building your email list. The most effective tactic is to promote links that redirects to your email sign-up forms. Post several call to action to your Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn account. Try offering a discount or reward to encourage people to sign up to your opt-in form.
Sky’s the Limit
There are many ways of capturing emails and building your business’ email database. The one I have included in this article are the most popular methods used by email marketers on the web. The key to a successful list-building campaign is to use as many methods as possible. You should not limit yourself from the examples I have mentioned above. Try researching for more ways of gathering emails from your prospects. You will eventually gather the leads that will convert into paying customers.
Want to know how we are helping businesses and delivering ROI at Growth HQ. Download our FREE Book and you will see the whole process.
You have to own your online platform if you want to call the shots and control the growth of your business.
At Growth HQ, we decided do stop using the word ‘website’ when we describe what we built for our clients. For our clients, a website is not enough. Many of our clients have been burnt before. They have had websites built for them and spent up in a big way only to find that their sexy new site does nothing other than look pretty. There’s no ROI and there’s no traction.
Now we don’t want to discriminate against pretty, but it really is what’s on the inside that counts. It’s about laying down the foundations and building a skyscraper one level at a time. Building the tallest skyscraper in town takes time, but when it’s built, you have the best view across the land. You then just need to maintain your property to keep it top notch.
How can your business stand out from the rest online?
How can you dominate the competition via online marketing?
The definition of an engine is:
“a machine with moving parts that converts power into motion”
A Growth Engine is an adaptable and scalable platform that allows you to feed it with fuel over and over again.
As a business owner, you want a platform that is high performing, consistent and gives you a ROI.
This all starts with your prospects. Who are they and what makes them tick? What are their needs and what problems are they trying to solve? How can you help them?
Once you know what your prospects value most, you can focus on building a platform that will feed you leads and nurture them into paying customers.
7 Steps to Building Your Very Own Growth Engine
Product– How do you create a product that stands above the rest? By making sure it serves the needs of the marketplace. Your product is nothing if your target customers don’t need it (or think they don’t need it) and don’t understand it.
Persona – The new way of marketing online is to pick one group of customers and focus on their needs and wants. Kiwi business owners try to do too much. As a nation, when it comes to business we say yes too much. Because we are a small country, we think we have to do it all and please everyone. This is an outdated approach. New Zealand has grown up and we haven’t noticed. It’s time to think micro rather than macro and niche down. Focus on one type and others will be attracted organically. This approach means that you can provide clear and direct messages. You get inside the heads of your prospects and you give them what they want.
In order for this to work, you must be clear on who your target market is. Then you focus on them and only them and provide solutions to their problems.
When you focus on a buyer persona, you tailor and direct everything in the business – from product development to marketing and delivery.
Platform – The third step is to create a platform that you own and control. You will communicate with your audience via your Growth Engine. It must provide valuable content that your prospects and customers are looking for. In short, it’s your platform that will build strong relationships and convert leads into paying customers.
Attract – After identifying your buyer persona – you now attract that group of people. You do this simply, by producing content that solves their problems. In addition, you choose the right channels to distribute and promote the content through (this is where social media comes in).
Capture – Now you have traffic and loads of it. You are giving away valuable content but you want something back in return, their email address. The best way to get this is through direct response marketing. You offer a freebie like a guide, book or software in return for their email address. You now have permission to start a beautiful relationship.
Nurture – The next essential step is to nurture your relationships, so no kissing on the first date. Keep adding value to their lives. Keep communicating until they are ready to take the next step. Always be there for them.
Conversion – This step focuses on converting prospects into paying customers. You must determine which offer will most likely make the sale. Keep in mind though that you need to craft an offer that matches the different stages of the buying cycle. Timing is crucial to conversion since you need to build a strong foundation. You can only focus on conversion when you have done everything else. Build your foundations first and your skyscraper will follow.
If you’re not building an email list you’re making a BIG mistake.
There’s one fundamental truth about email in business: if you have someone’s email address you can send what you like, when you like.
If you’re building your business on social media you’re building it on rented land. You don’t own the audience and are at the mercy of Facebook or Twitter allowing you to talk to your customers.
Email is the most scalable way to make sales with new customers and build deeper relationships with better customers.
If you give your subscribers value they will give value back.
That said, how can you capture leads and populate your email list? What strategies can nudge your audience to sign up? It is easier than you think but it requires good execution and the discipline to follow through.
It is not about the technology or the apps you use. Gaining subscribers is all about your quick and easy solution to a nagging problem.
Internet based marketers and software companies are a great source of inspiration and tactics to build your email list. Let’s look at some examples:
Example Number 1 – Smart Passive Income
When it comes to capturing leads, Pat Flynn is one of the experts. In 2008, he bought an Aweber account and grew his list from 0 to 10,000 emails in 13.5 months.
Pat created a free ebook on his site. It’s called “Ebooks the smart way” where he teaches newbies how to self-publish an awesome ebook.
He published the book as a special give-away and focused on quality even though it’s free. It’s a book full of truly useful information.
From the beginning, Pat did not create the list to hard sell his products. He created the list primarily to strengthen communication and relationships with his subscribers/readers.
I was one of his subscribers and I never felt he was selling anything to me. Why?
Because Pat Flynn is a master of copywriting.
He knows why you subscribed. You are curious about ebook creation and passive income. He over-serves you with useful information. Then, boom, you are clicking on his links whether it is an affiliate link or not.
His website has a couple of subscribe buttons on the front page. That is it. He uses landing pages via Leadpages. He also uses Viperchills’s OptinSkin to easily embed opt-in forms in his web pages.
Now, he has over 100,000 people in his community.
Example Number 2 – Zen Habits
This next example is a success story for every minimalist living in this digital era. Leo Babauta’s Zen Habits is an awesome website about living with less.
Leo is very strict about affiliate marketing. In short, he doesn’t like it much. His only subscribe link can be found on his navigation menu. In fact, it is just a simple Feedburner link. Its primary function is to push new blog posts to his subscribers.
He will not sell anything to his subscribers. Nevertheless, his email list is still valuable because he can share valuable information to people.
The people in his list will always get his blog posts via email. The newsletter drives traffic to his website. This traffic is important because this is where subscribers will get re-acquainted to Leo’s Sea Change course about minimalism.
This is how he makes his money, by selling his course. Without his list, people will probably forget to bookmark his site and he will be left shouting into a void of nothingness.
See, he is not pushing anyone to subscribe. Nor is he pitching his product in the newsletter. However, Leo has about a million subscribers.
He wants you to change bad habits. He wants you to be healthier. He wants you to be more productive. He wants you to be happy about your life.
This is the power of value and genuinely caring about your audience.
The Sleazy Side of Lead Capture?
Let me preface with a caveat. What is sleazy for some may not be sleazy for others. It really depends on your own personal ethics and principles. Part of marketing is understanding and playing into the psyche of your readers.
Now that you have read two shining examples, allow me to get into the other side of lead capture. This will sound, oh so, familiar to you.
Have you been to a landing page and suddenly or before you leave a pop-up comes filling up your whole monitor? You apparently have two choices:
Yes – Subscribe now to get billions of targeted traffic to your site.
Not now – I don’t want traffic and increased conversion.
This kind of tactic is the new normal. In my opinion, it is invasive and disrespects the reader. It is a promise that plays on our psychological weaknesses. Of course, who does not want billions (or even just thousands) of targeted traffic and increased profits?
This tactic converts so well that more and more honest marketers are using this with reckless abandon.
How to Capture Leads the Practical Way
You will find lots of information about capturing email addresses on the internet, telling you to do this and that. Is there a hard and fast rule to getting more emails and leads? There are none. However, you might get some ideas from these tactics that are time-tested and practical to implement.
Placement of Forms
Your form’s immediate visibility is important. One practice that you will notice on most websites is placing the form “above the fold”. This is the part of the web page where a reader does not have to scroll down.
Based on a study by Jakob Nielsen, “web users spend 80% of their time looking at information above the page fold. Although users do scroll, they allocate only 20% of their attention below the fold.”
Fewer Fields
Work turns people off. If you want to get more subscribers then you need to make subscribing easy and less like work.
Fewer fields leads to more subscribers. In this contact form study, an 11-field form was replaced by a four field form. The result? 160% increase in form submissions and 120% conversion.
For your form just ask the subscriber for their email address. Remove everything optional if you can get away with it.
The screenshot above is from Fizzle.co co-founder, Corbett Barr’s personal blog. Look at this example and see how the copy (call-to-action) and the single field gently nudges you to type in your email address.
Call to Action
Similar to the example screenshot above, you need a call-to-action in order to persuade people to subscribe. Your copy should be short but compelling. This is the reason why the best copywriters are paid so much.
However, you do not need to hire the ultimate copywriter. You just need to keep your sentences short and straight to the point.
Know your audience and distill their pain points into a few words, then present the perfect solution in fewer words. This creates motivation and that is the goal of your copy. Here’s a great article on how to create micro-copy.
Button Colours
There is psychology in colours. It is essentially a branch of psychology that studies the behaviour of humans in relation to colour.
According to this Kissmetrics article, the best converting colours to use for your Call to action are: red, green, orange, yellow. Just avoid too much yellow because a lot of it can cause screen nausea!
You can also use orange for your buttons because this colour creates a sense of urgency, impulse and confidence.
In the example above, the copy is clear and short. In addition, they are practically giving away the course (more on that below). Plus, they are using orange as a background and a calming green colour for the button. The button stands out because of the background.
Giveaway as Lead Magnets
Now that you have written compelling copy and you have your colours right, why not make your sign up form irresistible by giving away stuff. This step is optional but according to rewardlevel.com, conversion rate will increase.
Check out this Form from Quicksprout:
There is not much to say about giveaways aside from the fact that people love free stuff. Whether it’s a $5 voucher or a free discount code, you cannot go wrong with it.
Why do you need Lead Magnets?
Unless you are a well-known personality, people will not follow you or subscribe to your blog just because you said so. Your opt-in forms are useless without something to entice them.
Your opt-ins are only effective if you have lead magnets!
Lead magnets are ethical “bribes” so that visitors to your site will give you their names, numbers or email addresses. It sounds cool, right? More than that, a lead magnet can double or even triple your opt-in rate.
What kind of lead magnets can fire up your subscription?
We all know the term “different strokes for different folks,” this applies to everyone who goes to your site. It is good to make different variations so you can segment, at the same time, answer the different needs of your market.
I have gathered a list of different lead magnets that you can choose from. You can play with variations and add them to your opt-in forms. You can also place them on your landing pages or blog and seamlessly interweave them with your articles.
How To ebooks in PDF
This is the most common, yet one of the most effective lead magnets around.
Time is of the essence for many people. For anyone who is trying to catch-up with the fast-paced web environment, “How-to” ebooks can save you a lot of time. A person can simply follow a step-by-step guide and learn from the experience of another.
Of course, your audience might try a different method eventually, but everyone has to start somewhere. A how to guide is a good one to start with.
If you are new to blogging or using a blog to increase your traffic, you would definitely sign up. Aside from its kick ass copy, with just 8-key steps to master blogging, it only requires your name and email.
Cheat Sheets
Now there are different types like checklists, mindmaps, Q&As/fill-in-the blanks. The content, most of the time, is an actual process or practices by companies giving them out.
I love cheat sheets for the sheer simplicity of the process. They cut to the chase. They are very specific.
Your prospects would love them too. They give you a simplified process to follow and save you a lot of time.
Just check out this content mapping template from CMI.
Of course the rise of video marketing is not surprising. YouTube alone receives millions of searches everyday.
Different forecasts including that of Cisco claim that there will be a rapid rise of video viewership until 2018. We have all seen videos go viral. More astounding is that there are videos that get millions not just thousands of shares.
Webinars/Webcasts
According to a study by Content Marketing Institute, webinars or webcasts are one of the top marketing tactics that are very effective. This is across the board from lead generation to closing some sales.
Check out how B2C is leveraging webcasts to get more leads. It is a rather long form but it gets the job done.
Free Consultations
Who doesn’t want free advice from the expert?
Experts are sought after especially online. Everyday many emerging entrepreneurs are looking for someone to guide them. If you are an expert on your industry, then this is a good lead magnet to get a targeted audience.
Infographics
Infographics are good lead magnets, a powerful one is something that your readers want to download and paste on their walls.
More than that it is a good marketing material to remind your audience how valuable your service is.
Embed Code to Infographic:
<b>++ Click Image to Enlarge ++</b><br /><a href=”http://blog.kissmetrics.com/art-of-color-coordination/”><img src=”http://blog.kissmetrics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/color-coordination-sm.jpg” alt=”The Art of Color Coordination”></a><br />Source: <a href=”http://blog.kissmetrics.com/art-of-color-coordination/”>The Art of Color Coordination</a>
Gear List
I have seen a lot of opt-in forms giving away tools or resources that a prospect can use. One of them is the one below.
This is a great lead magnet especially for online retail shops. People love discounts, coupons and freebies.
Free trials
Trust is something that you will not easily get online. The tendency of prospects is to check reviews or try things first for free before paying for services or products.
That is why many businesses are now offering free trials especially when it comes to services or tools.
Exclusive Invites to Join a Community or Forum
This is a site that offers a free SEO course. It has its own community where students can interact with other students and share their ideas.
In this scenario, there is high probability that anyone who signs will continue as paid members.
The Final Step
Whatever tactics and strategies you want to implement, it is always best to look at examples and A/B test your opt-in forms and landing pages. This includes the lead magnets that you plan to use so you know what converts the most for your of audience. The biggest websites do split testing, why not you?
Remember Pearson’s Law: “That which is measured, improves.”
The only way you can create relevant metrics is to test changes and make improvements as you go.
As always, you also need to provide value, as this alone can really push your business beyond the limits.
Need Help?
If you want some ideas on how to grow your email list post your site in the comments and I will give you specific recommendations for your business.
Bonus Guide
Now you are growing your email list you can get prospects to open more of your emails. Get the bonus guide:
10 Powerful Email Subject Lines: Your Guide to a Higher Email Open-Rate
“Just Google It” is a phrase that has entered our everyday conversation.
We search Google 3.5 billion times per day.
Over 2/3 of buyers user search when making a purchase decision. Often at the beginning of the process.
If you’re not there you WILL be losing out on business.
Having a website is the first step. Next is increasing your online visibility. Doing this requires SEO.
In fact, you need to understand the principles of SEO even if you are hiring an online marketing company to do this task for you.
The good news?
In little ole’ NZ it’s relatively easy to get your site ranking well on Google. Unless your in a highly competition category then following some basic steps can improve your rankings dramatically.
Higher rankings = better visibility = more enquiries
How does it work? How can SEO raise your online presence and give you an edge over your competitors?
These are common questions that come to mind when you hear the word SEO. There are tons of resources about it on the Internet. It is literally an endless rabbit hole you can fall into.
The web is full of clutter and you need to distinguish fact from fiction. In addition, you want a simplified guide about SEO so you can easily learn some tactics to use on your website.
What is the significance of SEO to your business?
Search Engine Optimisation is a tactic you can use to increasing your business website’s ranking. You can have the opportunity to rank on Google search’ first page if you know how to use this well.
Remember that you are up against a sea of websites. Your awesome content will remain invisible (no matter how valuable they are) if you do not employ the basics of SEO. You are practically non-existent if you are not on top of serps (search engine page results).
Though you need to understand, conducting an SEO campaign is not that simple. The web being in constant flux, Google has evolved since then. Its algorithm favours quality content over the spammy noise.
The name of the game today is earning Google’s “trust”. Proving yourself over time is the key. Though some can break the code, gone are the days when you can rank for a particular search term in just a matter of weeks. It is nearly next to impossible to manipulate the serps.
The Rise of the Three Algorithms
The Google Panda, Penguin and Pigeon are algorithms or formulas used by the search results for ranking sites. These algorithms will impose sanctions and penalise sites that fail to follow their guidelines.
The most common requirement these days is to have high quality and unique content on your site. We don’t discount the fact that having a website with exceptional user experience is always a factor in Google search rankings.
If you do not want to fall into Google’s bad graces, stay up-to-date with the latest guidelines. Usually, the updates are reported by the entire SEO community and discussed in several online forums.
Creating high quality content starts with good keyword research. This task will help you pinpoint the most ideal keyword/s for your content writing and optimisation efforts.
Note that the shorter the keyword/s, the harder it will be for you to rank it on serps. More so if your site is still new. It is advisable to target long-tail keywords as they are less competitive and far easier to rank.
How to find the right Long-Tail Keywords
You can find an ideal long-tail keyword through Google’s autosuggest feature. To use this, do the following:
Navigate to a search page for your country and type a keyword.
As you type the keyword, you will notice a drop-down box with some suggestions. Once you see the keyword suggestions, jot down all the keywords that you think is relevant to your content.
Choose at least 3 to 5 of the most suitable keywords you find in the autosuggest and head over to Google keyword planner. You can easily find this keyword tool by going to this link: https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner. It is advisable to create a Gmail account, so you can readily access the keyword planner without having to enter the Captcha code every time you use this tool. The keyword planner will provide you the following data:
Level of advertiser competition on your selected keywords
Amount of searches each keyword gets per month
Additional long-term keywords
An attractive primary keyword must have considerable average monthly searches. This is the average number of times people search for an exact match keyword based on their current location.
In Adwords tool, there is a column called competition. Each keyword is categorised as low, medium or high competition. Ignore that column because that is for advertisers and not search competition .
If you find Google’s Keyword Planner vexing, there are free keyword research tools out there. Try out Ubersuggest, SpyFu, SemRush, or all of them.
When you have completed your analysis, choose a primary keyword that you will use on your content. However, make sure that you have spent some time in analysing the keyword. It should be a keyword that you can compete for on the SERPs.
Creating and optimising your content
When you are creating content for your website, you must ensure that you meet the baseline specifications for a good optimised content. These specifications are as follows:
It must have one primary keyword and one or two secondary keywords
If it is an article or blog post, it should contain 500 words but a 1000-word article is recommended
It must be unique, well-researched and provide value to your readers
Another thing to consider is the on-page optimisation of the post within your site. Make sure that the primary keyword is in:
The page at least once
The title of the content
The URL of the page
The meta description
The alt title of image that you will use in the content
Now, what about the keyword density (KD)? Is it still relevant in 2015?
A 100-word article with a 6% keyword density will look spammy. For a 1000-word article, it is the ideal density for good rankings. The most important thing is that, it should be used in the most natural way as possible.
If you are using the WordPress platform, you can install an SEO plugin to make your job easier. You can use Yoast WordPress SEO plugin. It is free and contains several features that can aid your on-page optimisation efforts.
Quality Link Building
Moving your rankings up on search results require quality links. A word of caution, it is harder to rank highly for a particular keyword if you are competing against sites that have more quality links than yours.
Why is this? Links are the currency of the web. Every time your content gets linked to, it means that you provide massive value to Internet users. It is why links are such a strong factor in Google’s algorithm.
How to acquire quality links?
The general rule when it comes to link building is to avoid “spam tactics.”
Here are a few dos and don’ts to follow.
Do try to acquire links naturally, even if it takes time.
Do build your links consistently and organically, which means you should schedule your link building efforts and follow it by heart.
Do not use link farms or link directories in your campaign.
Do not use any automated tools that lets you build thousands of links in just a short period of time.
Do not be tempted to buy links or you will be flagged by Google. All your efforts will be for nothing if you get too impatient.
Where to get the link naturally?
To get quality links for your site, you can follow these link building strategies:
Guest Posting
What about Google Penguin 3.0 which is geared to penalised manipulative link building or link schemes? Guest posting is considered by Google as a link scheme. Matt Cutts openly declared it as dead.
Can you still consider it in your campaign?
Yes you can, if you use no follow links.
It is still the best way to acquire referral traffic from popular and relevant websites. Try to focus on creating quality content since you are reaching out to other website owners. Having quality content increases your chances of getting into high-authority and credible site.
Link Baiting
This is another effective method of building powerful links on a large scale. Is it as simple as producing valuable content? No, but you hit the right spot if you understand what people want.
To start off though, it must be free and shareable. It must be so valuable that people would be willing to share it.
There are different types of link bait and this can include the following:
Infographics
Beginner guides
Breaking News
Industry reports
How to guides
Top lists
Article Directories
Article submission is one of the most popular ways of building back links then. This is still useful as most article directories are authority sites. You can focus on creating multiple quality and unique articles and spread them out to different directories for best result.
Broken Link Building
This is a new but powerful effective link building strategy. With this strategy, you can reach out to quality sites and use it as an opportunity to ask the site administrator to fix those broken links with a link to your site.
Video Link Building
YouTube is surpassing Google search in terms of monthly searches. If you want to capture visitors from YouTube, create a compelling video with a link on the description that points back to your site. Make sure that the video and your description are related. Also, it does not need to be a long; a 3 to 10-minute video will do with useful information about your topic.
Tools to Assess Your SEO Campaigns
To get the result of your current campaign, you can utilise free online tools like Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. Once you created a Gmail account, you can use it to access these tools.
We have made a step-by-step guide for you. Showing you how to setup Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. These are essential in tracking your goals and showing progress in your SEO efforts.
Get the Checklist
Download the Setup Guide for Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools:
You’ve got a website and it looks great so you’re ahead of 50% of NZ businesses who don’t have one.
But….
….the incoming traffic isn’t what you expected and there’s bugger all conversions and sales. i.e. it ain’t making you $$.
There are well over a billion people using Google Search and yet you are invisible to just about everyone.
This makes you want to bang your head against the wall, right?
Well don’t.
What you forget is that a website is just the tip of the iceberg. As the saying goes “it’s what’s on the inside that counts”.
Your website cannot do what you expect of it if you don’t have a plan and the right tools to get found. You can’t break the ice with just a website. You have to communicate with your prospects, give them something of value and build trust with them.
These things take time but they’re worth it. One day you will have a site that generates leads and sales automatically.
Creating Content for Search Rankings
Search engines are tools that you can use so that prospects find your website. You have to befriend Google and feed it with valuable content. By doing this you are feeding your prospects too.
When creating content for search rankings, keep in mind that your content should:
Be accurate and provide valuable information to your readers
Be relevant to your products or services
Include optimised keywords that you readers are using
Be in line with Google’s search algorithm
You need high quality content to build authority for your website and eventually sell your products or services. There is no point in producing content that doesn’t have a purpose.
That is why you need to establish your buyer persona. Get to know your audience and take the necessary steps to determine your target market. This is your key to success.
Conduct Market Research
Doing market research can be daunting. You can simplify the process by creating and using a buyer persona profile.
What exactly is a buyer persona? It is a profile of your ideal customer; the one that you need to influence with your content.
Market research will provide you with the necessary data about your buyer persona. It will decode your audience’s most urgent needs. It will enable you to focus your content on the people who are interested in your business.
The core of your research must answer the following questions:
What are their problems that need solving?
What factors are they focusing on when they make a buying decision?
What are the remedies they are looking for to fix their problems?
Planning your Content
Time to get into the meat of this. You want to know my secrets don’t you?
Before you start writing do these four steps:
Know the purpose of your content
First you need to understand why you are creating the content in the first place. What do you want to achieve? What particular group of people are you trying to reach? What are the topics that you need to highlight in your content? These are the questions you need to answer before you begin creating anything.
Determine your target audience
You must get to know the people you are targeting. Once you understand your target audience you can move onto the next step. Before you move on read my article on creating buyer personas. If you don’t have a buyer persona already take the time to create one.
Now it’s time to organise all your personal opinions, ideas, thoughts and the information you have gathered.
Get information from credible resources
When you post content on your website, it needs to be accurate and reliable. You don’t want to create the wrong impression since one of your goals is to build authority within your market. When collecting information make sure your sources are kosher and keep track of the websites you use.
Highlight your brand
Your brand should stand out in all your content, so you need to be consistent. You do not want to confuse your audience by shifting to various topics that are not relevant to your business. Make sure you only tackle topics that are closely related to what you offer in your business.
Types of Content for your Website
There are different types of content for your website. It all depends on the goal you want to achieve. You may want to write content that can:
Entertain
Educate
Persuade
Convert
You may think that the most important thing is to persuade your prospects and convert them into paying customers – think again! You should produce content that entertains or educates or both.
Entertaining content helps you reach your target market more effectively. This sort of content is emotional and very shareable.
But you need to give your readers some substance – you want content that educates your readers and opens their mind on how they can benefit from your brand.
Are you familiar with brand storytelling? Big names like Apple, Coca-cola and Lego are using this. Did you take your kids to see the Lego movie? It really is awesome because it is a great big piece of brand storytelling.
Brand storytelling ties emotional content that has the capability to draw in your prospects closer to your brand. Great storytelling has the power to convert the usual site visitor into an avid and supportive customer. All you need to do is to tap into their emotions and give them a reason to follow and share the content on your website.
A good example of brand storytelling is Coca-Cola and its popular 20-20 project. This emotionally connected content can be found on YouTube. Coca-Cola boldly used content marketing as a major driver of growth for their company. Consumer-generated stories are featured in their 20-20 project. Its impact is huge if we count their ads that have gone viral.
The Importance of Headlines
Do you click on articles with boring headlines? Or do you click on headlines that interest you and offer you something? Headlines are crucial and they will make or break your content.
Create clickable headlines by:
Putting special emphasis on the first three words
Make sure it’s within the 65-character mark or less for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) purposes
Making it concise and direct to the point – your audience must immediately understand what your content is
The anatomy of a good headline starts with a good, short and catchy phrase. It must be easy to read and generate enough curiosity that the reader will be compelled to click on the article. Here are some good examples of strong headlines:
Home Saving Hacks for Busy Mothers
The Shocking Truth About Information Overload
13 Surprising Reasons Why Your Business Fails
How to Generate Leads without Burning Your Pocket
Make the Necessary Revisions
Get in the habit of revising your content until you find it worthy of your website. Keep in mind that you must post high quality and valuable content. You have to refine your content before you hit the publish button.
When revising any content, you need to check the following:
Check your grammar – you can use Grammarly or any other free online tool to check for grammar or spelling errors in your content.
Examine the structure of your content – always remember coherent content will lead the reader through a clear line of thinking.
Review all the parts – starting with your headline, then the introduction, body and ending. Each part must have a purpose and relevancy to your topic.
Assess the overall value of your content – before you publish the content put yourself in the shoes of your target audience and ask yourself this: “What value will I get from reading this?”
If you have now created an epic piece of content it’s time to publish it on your website.
Download my Content Creation Checklist and follow my easy but extremely effective guide.
Get the Checklist
Download this checklist to use when creating your content:
