Do you know what your most valuable marketing asset is? If you said yourself, you are 100% correct. However, after you; the business owner, marketing manager, or entrepreneur, your website should be next on your list of marketing must haves. The unfortunate thing is that there are too many businesses that do not believe their website is important to their holistic marketing plan.
Okay, you might be like most businesses out there thinking that your website is a $4,000 paperweight collecting dust on the inter-web. If you are like most businesses you are probably right. Like most businesses you have never seen a lead come from that overpriced paperweight. “Build it and they will come,” the developer said.
Well, today you are in luck. We are going to look at 4 ways to improve your website and turn that old paperweight into a lead capturing, 24/7 working, never taking a break, digital ninja.
Here are the 4 things every marketing website needs in order to succeed.
RESPONSIVE DESIGN
Odds are that you are probably reading this blog post on a cell phone or tablet. If your are on a desktop you are probably the minority. Reports are showing that up to 60% of web traffic is coming from mobile devices.
It is safe to say that if your website is not mobile friendly, it is time for a refresh. A responsive website is pretty much the standard these days. Let me put it this way, your potential customers are using their smartphones and tablet, you better give them what they want, a mobile experience. You do care about your customers, right?
Before we move on I want to stress the importance of a mobile-friendly website. Google is giving higher rankings to websites that are mobile friendly and starting to penalize websites that are not mobile ready.
Click here to check if your website is mobile friendly.
BLOGGING
Blogging for business is a pretty big deal these days. More and more companies are establishing themselves as industry experts, building communities, and reaching their customers through their blog.
Okay, if you do not care about being the leading expert in your field, you should care about web traffic. Blogging is essential to driving more traffic to your website. The more web traffic you receive to your website, the more opportunities you have to land a lead. It is a numbers game.
Blogging is the first step in transforming your website from an online brochure to a lead generating ninja your company is looking for. Blogging is also the very first step in the inbound marketing process and a solid search engine optimization strategy.
SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATION
Okay, you are ready to start blogging and are looking for ways to distribute your content to the world. We want to go viral, baby. Social media is the only way your company has a chance to go viral.
Your social media marketing strategy should include your blog, but your website should include ways for visitors to share your content. There are tons of social media plugins for WordPress, like SumoMe, that will give you an easy way for others to share your content.
Social media integration is vital to your website. Let your visitors share your hard work and generate leads for you. It can’t get any easier than that.
LEAD CAPTURE
All this hard work goes for not if you do not have a sales funnel in place. The sales funnel starts with a lead capture mechanism on your website. Your basic lead capture mechanism is a form on your website that gathers email address and name. Typically this will be a contact form or something. Very simple.
A form on your website will do its purpose, but we want to generate as many leads as possible. Best practice is to give away a valuable offer in exchange of the visitors email address and name. Typically this is going to be an eBook, whitepaper, or coupon. Once the form is filled out the offer is delivered and the lead has been captured.
If your website does not have a lead capture mechanism, you are leaving leads on the table.
MARKETING WEBSITE NEEDS
Your website is now complete. You are able to turn that old dusty collection of web pages into something that actually is going to generate revenue for your business. A clean responsive website, with a blog, social media integration, and lead capture will give your website a purpose.
Mammoth believes that you should start off with a clean slate, contact us to get a free online marketing assessment. We will show you how to get the most out of your digital marketing in about 45 minutes to an hour.
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