Turn Your Website Into A Money Making Machine
Just Say Yes To This 1 Question
Do You Want Loads More Customers, Leads And Revenue?
I think I hear a resounding yes! Yes? Great. Now you can read on to find out how simple modifications to your website can sky rocket your revenue.
Here are 2 more questions I hope you can answer yes to.
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Is Your Target Audience Finding You On Search Engines?
If they're not, you're missing out on revenue. If you want your website to be a cash cow, it must be findable on search engines. When people search for your products and services and you're not on the first results page, you're missing out big time.
SEO Ain't Rocket Science - A Few SEO Tips To Help You Get Started
Firstly SEO is not rocket science like most online marketing agencies will have you believe. It's simply a craft that can be developed and as you're skill level increases you will start to learn the finer nuances of SEO. This knowledge combined with your ability to make solid strategic decisions is a surefire way to increase your visibility on search engines.
Content Is King
I'd like to rephrase the heading above. Relevant Content is King. Let me explain. Your website content serves two purposes.
- Firstly to communicate to your audience
- Secondly to establish credibility (relevance) in the eyes of search engines.
Content For SEO
The very first thing to do is to figure out what people are typing in search engines when they search for your products and services. This is called keyword research. This is easy to do. Just use the Google Keyword Tool. You'll be amazed at what this tool can tell you.
Once you have your keywords and key phrases you need to develop the website copy. The website copy must contain the keywords you identified in your keyword research. Make sure the keywords appear in your headings, subheadings and body copy several times. Just watch out for keyword stuffing. You don't want search engines to penalize your website for over using key words.
Content For Your Audience
You simply won't have a successful website if your content isn't interesting, useful, easy to digest and entertaining for humans (people like you and me). Usually, it takes a professional web savvy copywriter and Internet strategist to create content that's really interesting and easy to absorb. But you can do it! All it takes is a lot of dedication, a little creativity, time and patience. The Internet has thousands of resources at hand. Start now! Go for it! Google has answers.
2. Conversion Optimization - Is Your Website Converting Visitors Into Leads And Customers?
I hope your answer is yes. If not then be sure to read on for more handy tips on conversion optimization.
Listen up! This next sentence is important. Conversion Optimization is your website's ability to turn browsers, visitors, people, humans, aliens or whatever you want to call them into buyers, customers and leads.
So now you're website is optimized for search engines and it's receiving so much traffic, it's eating up your bandwidth faster than you can say, Bill Gates! This is a good problem to have.
The next question you should ask is; "What to do with all this quality website traffic?" Well, you know that people are finding your website via search engines because they are looking for your specific service or product. You know this because you are using Google Analytics to monitor what keywords and key phrases people are using to find your website. You've set out the bait, now it's time to get them to bite the hook. Ready? Let's go!
Where To Start
Conversion rate optimization and any good website starts with having clearly defined goals. What is a goal you ask?
A typical goal on a website can include,
- Generating leads
- Filling in an inquiry form
- Making a purchase
- Downloading a PDF White Paper
- Signing up for a newsletter
- Requesting a quote
Once someone has completed a goal it is known as a goal conversion. So to get back to the question "What to do with all this quality website traffic?"
The answer: You need make compelling offers to get people to take action on your website that completes one of your cleverly crafted goals. This could be anything from signing up for newsletter to buying a product to something as simple as viewing a particular page. Once again you can use Google Analytics to monitor which pages are the most successful in achieving conversion goals.
Conversion Optimization Techniques
You don't want your competitors to read this. Now there are many techniques to optimize your goal conversation rate. I'm going mention the most obvious ones and then I'll tell about a technique that I hope your competitors don't know about.
- Headlines: Write brilliant headlines to attract attention
- Make the offer: Once you have attention tell them about your offer in plain simple language
- Call to Action: People won't respond if you don't ask them to. Have a powerful call to action.
- Design: Make sure the page looks visually stunning. Good looks generate better trust. Sad but true.
- Credibility: Show people how trustworthy you are by including testimonials or by giving a guarantee.
The last top-secret technique is testing. Imagine you have a web page asking people to sign up for a newsletter and you want to figure out which call to action (CTA) will work the best. The easiest way to test this is to create 2 pages. Page A with a call to action and page B with a different call to action. Google has the perfect solution to test this with software called Google Website Optimizer. Google Website Optimizer will tell you which version of each page element is the most successful.
If There Is One Thing You Must Remember
The purpose of SEO is to get eyeballs on your website. And the purpose of conversion optimization is to get those eyeballs to become customers, subscribers, loyal readers etc. I know you're getting the picture. Now all that's left is to do it, now. Go!
About the Author
Piet Alberts is an online marketer and creative director in Cape Town, South Africa. He started an Online Marketing & Web Design Agency, Clay Ant Creative, in 2006. Clay Ant Creative offers complete creative, design and online marketing support, including search engine optimization, e-mail marketing, and web design and development.
Feel free to reprint this article on your own web site, as long as you include the resource information above. Questions? E-mail Piet.
Published at http://ww.clayant.co.za/library/turn-your-website-into-a-money-making-machine.php by Clay Ant Creative, An Online Marketing & Web Design Agency.
