What Does It Take For A Website To Be Successful Online

When it comes to building a new website, many people think “when I build it, they will come!”.  However, as I share in our free eBook, 5 Mistakes to Avoid In Online Marketing, There are 1,295,973,827 websites as of January 2020 according to Netcraft. That’s over 1 billion websites. And your website is just one of them.

There are 3 main pillars to build your success of online marketing.

1. Traffic to your website.
2. The words and design of your website working to create more leads.
3. Engaging with website visitors AFTER they visit your website.

Getting More Traffic

There are two primary ways to get traffic to your website.

1. Paid
2. Organic

The thing is, to be honest; you have to actually pay for them both.  There is no such thing as free quality traffic. We have partners that we can connect you with that will help with paid traffic.  Things like Google Ads and Facebook Ads.  We focus our efforts however on keeping up with the ever-changing landscape of Content Marketing.

Paid Traffic

Paying for traffic can be very helpful for a new website in its first few months.  Paying for traffic can be good to target the sale of a specific new product or service.  However, our biggest issue with paid traffic is; once you stop paying for the traffic you have….well….no traffic.

Organic Traffic

Here’s the deal.  You’ll still have to pay to get quality organic traffic through good Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  But the great thing is, once it starts to kick in; it keeps working well after you paid for it.

Now, the next BIGGEST question we get is, “how much does it cost?”  There are several things that impact the cost of organic traffic.  We are actually working on a new post that will help explain that, so I invite you to sign up to our email list and I’ll let you know when that post is up.

Content Marketing that Works

Here are the keys to successful content marketing:

1. Create or curate content related to what your website is about that the people you want to do business with through your website will find helpful.
2. Structure the content so search engines can see if it contains the answer to the question being asked in the search box.
3. Promote the content often and in the places, people will find it helpful.  (PRO TIP: An email list you build of your website visitors is one of the best places to promote your content.)

Getting More Leads

This pillar is probably the easiest but also the most overlooked.  First, here’s a fact you have to wrap your brain around.  Most of the research I’ve seen agrees that only 10% of website visitors exchange money through a website on their first visit to it.  90% of your website traffic is MOST LIKELY DOING RESEARCH.

So, we have to ask ourselves, if 90% of my website visitors are doing research; how do I get them to come back?

You need to, in fact, I’d say you HAVE TO be working to grow a list of prospects.  Not doing so is business malpractice in my opinion.

And it’s never too early.  We built a website for brewery six months before it opened.  By the time they opened, several weeks into the COVID pandemic, by the way, they had an email list of a couple hundred VERY interested people ready to buy when the doors opened.

And, email ISN’T your only option.  Email, text message list, snail mail, or phone numbers to call can all be great lists depending on your industry.

Engaging With Visitors AFTER They Visit Your Site

So, now you have a list, what do you send them?

Pretty much anything helpful to them related to your industry.

Where do you go from here?

Well, friend, we are here to help you find the answer to that question.  I cover more of this in detail and provide some helpful assessment tools in our eBook; 5 Mistakes to Avoid in Online Marketing.