DRIVE RELEVANT WEBSITE TRAFFIC
In Tampa (and all over the globe!) there are several ways to drive traffic (SEO, paid search, social media) to your website and they all work; however, I challenge you to think about where you go when you don’t know the answer to something. This is about marketing smarter, not harder. If you’re like 68% of the population, you turn to Google (the rest use Bing or Yahoo) and you fling some words — hoping for some useful information in return — out into the internet. As a local business owner, this is when it counts to appear in the search results! They’re out there searching for you and if you aren’t there you are missing potential leads.
The best way to drive QUALITY traffic is through search engine marketing. Both paid search and SEO tactics will drive relevant traffic to your website. If the budget allows, you’ll get more quality traffic by using a strategy that employs both.
USE APPROPRIATE LANDING PAGES
Repeat after me, “my home page is not the place for campaign traffic, my home page is not the place for campaign traffic!” Got it? Okay, now let me explain why.
When people go online to research a product or service, they are generally trying to get a fairly specific question answered. One of the worst experiences an online user can have is clicking on a link and being directed to a page that doesn’t deliver the content they were expecting. So often, small businesses don’t have the resources to create dedicated landing pages for their online campaigns. As a result, they send all of their online traffic to their home page and guess what, THIS TRAFFIC NEVER CONVERTS into leads. That’s because they were looking for very specific information and you just dumped them into a page that gives them a list of absolutely everything you do. Implement a campaign and dedicated landing page strategy and your conversions will go up.
The best thing you can do is write clear ad copy and then use the landing page (that includes a form) to capture information on the person who is viewing your content.
OFFER HELPFUL CONTENT
The aforementioned relevant content must also be helpful to your audience. Early in the “research” phase, your potential customers have not yet determined that they can’t, in fact, do it themselves. They are merely researching and still trying to do things themselves for the cheapest price possible. To draw them in, you need to be helpful enough to make them trust you but not so helpful that they no longer need you.This is a very fine line to walk but those who do it well, thrive. A great example is the broken down, “how to” list which you see all the time—pay attention! *Pro tip: the more in depth you make the how to list, the more inherent need you build for your product or service.
