IS YOUR WEBSITE PULLING IT’S WEIGHT? It’s a Salesman After all..

If you have a business, there is no point having a mediocre website that’s not bringing in business. Your website needs to be an asset for your business, therefore be one of the most productive marketing, and selling tools that you have.

A simple brochure style website that looks good, isn’t good enough. Your site needs to be a working asset that brings in leads, prospects and sales.

The good news is, in this day and age, you can easily create a new, or tweak your existing, website to optimize the process of taking a prospective client, through the buying process right up to the point they take out their credit card.

Further to that, you will be growing your E-mail Marketing List.

This is the MOST important aspect of ANY business. Your Marketing Email (or client) List is yours. Unlike Facebook Fans, Instagram Followers or Twitter…Twits?!?!.

Take the time to work through the list below, and with a few simple tweaks of your site, you can be collecting the leads you need to grow your business online, make more sales, build your marketing list and earn yourself a well-deserved vacation!

The #1 most important thing, the thing that gives you leverage, and control of your destiny is:

A Unique Selling Point, or USP is a clear, definitive answer to the below questions:

1. Why should I buy from you instead of anywhere else?
2. Why would I trust you over everyone else?
3. And why should I purchase now?

Believe it or not, Most companies have a VERY POOR web design, not utilizing modern, online selling techniques. This is where you are going to leave the BIG DOGS behind.

They have left the door wide open for you to capture their spill off. Spend some time crafting the right message, and then the rest of your business marketing will fall into place.

Let’s get into this. Ask yourself these questions about how to optimize your website. Make plenty of notes, and don’t be afraid to make changes.

 

Your Website URL

Does your URL alone say enough about your business? Telling prospective clients enough about your products and/or services?

You should already own the .com URL, and NOT be hosing under another platform, but in addition, do you the .com.au, .net, .net.au derivations of your website name (if available).  Easily linkable through to your existing site, if you have the option to do business internationally, this is an easy and affordable fix.

Any common misspellings of your website name can be purchased too, thus re-directing that traffic to the correct URL. Again, for the price of a simple domain name.. this can send the traffic to where it needs to be. In many instances, competitor companies have purchased incorrect spelling of sites in an attempt to steal traffic.

Customize Your Website Functionality

It is important to optimize your website for MOBILE VIEWING. With over 52% of all websites viewed on a mobile device, and growing at a MASSIVE rate, your website MUST be optimized for mobile. This means the aspect ratio’s are correct, and images can’t be too big.

People need to be able to contact you if they desire. Somewhere on your page you need to make it very quick and easy to get into contact with you in a hurry. Both E-mail, and Phone are a minimum.

Social media accounts should be listed, so contact can be made via those platforms also.

Capturing Customer Leads

Whilst some of the most influential people on the planet have become so big by having a commanding social media profile, imagine what will happen to their blood pressure if Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram were to disappear? If Facebook, Twitter or Instagram were to drop off the earth tomorrow what would happen to their business?

Any traffic or influence you have via these social media sites is purely RENTED. You DO NOT own this traffic. You have no control on what these social networks do, what happens with their product roadmaps or how your audience and ideal customer react to their upcoming changes in the future. Simply follow Facebook and Twitter and you’ll see how quickly and often they change. You need to build in some insurance for your business.

This is why it’s MOST important to build your OWN Customer Marketing List. Create your own list of prospects and existing clients that you cant lose. Your number 1 business focus should be growing this list.

Landing Pages

You MUST Develop a database of email addresses of your prospects, leads and followers. In doing this you will be moving the leads from your influence on rented digital space to a piece of digital real estate that YOU own and are in control of.

Optimize your website and use a landing page to start growing your email list in just minutes – even if you don’t yet have a permanent website to drive traffic to. You will only need a single web page with a powerful headline and call- to-action button that gives away a high value piece of content or “lead magnet” in exchange for your subscriber’s email address.

Let’s say you sell boating accessories. A good example for a “Lead Magnet” would be a FREE Boat Safety Checklist. For the cost of someone’s E-Mail address, they in return receive a comprehensive Boat Safety Checklist to make sure they are Safe and Compliant out on the water.

This qualifies the leads as your ideal clients. These are they type of people you want on your E-Mail list.  Ideal to market your products to, and are a relevant audience to your industry news. i.e. They will enjoy reading your content, thus giving you authority in the market.

Once you have developed your opt-in page, share it in as many places as possible. Share your page on social media, offering them the FREE Checklist, post the link in your Twitter description, share it on Facebook, add it to your LinkedIn page, add it to your blog or online bio, add it to your email signature.. everywhere.

Be straight up in offering people to join your list. Remember, its going to benefit them. They are going to receive a Safety list for starts to make sure they are compliant.. on top of that, they will receive discount and special “member only” offers from you, industry know-how, latest information etc. etc.

Make sure you ad a “Subscribe Now” option on your home page, or better yet, have an Exit Popup appear as they are trying to leave.

Everything you do online… remember – you want to Build Your E-Mail List!

**Important Note – On the Lead Magnet you sent them, in this case the Safe Boating Checklist.. its most important to have a few things.

Customize Your Website Branding

The content needs to be branded to you and your brand. There needs to be no question that the useful information has come from you. This will optimize your website tailored to your business brand.

Call to Action

If the information states something like “You Must Own an Safety Flare” then the logical choice for someone who doesn’t own a Safety Flare, is to get one.. therefore, a simple link from that page through to your site is a MUST.. such as

“If you need to purchase or replace, be sure to Purchase Your Safety Flare via our site “ with a link directly to your buy page.

Make sure any call to actions are Clearly Labelled. “BUY NOW” “OPT-IN HERE” or similar should be very clear!

Like a new staff member, who needs a little training on how to direct customers to a sale, your website will need a little tweaking in the same way. Your customers will need to flow through your site, much the same way a customer walks through an IKEA store.

This is also done OFFLINE after your customer has left. Now that they are on your list, you will follow up with them. Ask them how they found the information you sent them.. engage with them by asking them if their boat is currently compliant.. and ask them to get back in touch with you if they require anything or have any questions.

Luckily, these actions can all be set automatically with a good Autoresponder such as Getresponse.

Looking Professional

Make sure all your pages look professional. Well Designed, Quality Images, Good Logo etc. If you need help with a professional looking site, including Landing and Opt-In pages, Sales Pages and even order forms, be sure to check out a program like Clickfunnels, who can help create an entire Site and Sales Funnel. They even have a FREE 14 Day Trial where you can cut your teeth.

Video

Video Embedding is an ideal way to keep people on your website, and get your point across to potential clients. Linking your Youtube Videos to your website will boost your Google Rankings.

Customize Your Website Graphics and Layout

A webpage is hard to read with only text. Make sure your site has plenty of images, including ALT TEXT descriptions, links included and lots of space between paragraphs. The page should be easy to read and flow neatly.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization is so important for any website. Make sure your Titles are optimized with your relevant keywords, as too are your headings. Make sure your keywords are sprinkled throughout your content in a way that makes good readable sense.

Gathering an email address onto your database via a lead magnet from your website traffic is simply the first step of your sales conversion process. Every business is different, and each business needs to take the time to develop a process that your customers are likely to follow.

This turns your site from a Static Website into a Sales Funnel.

For a business selling physical goods or digital goods, where your website should go all the way and make the sale, it is likely that you will deploy opt-in, sales, order and thank you pages as well as a checkout service.

Here are some basic To-Do’s when it comes to your Opt-In and Sales Pages

Use bold with highlighted words in different colours to focus attention.

Use quotation marks around some headlines for impact.

Capitalized the first letter of ALL words in the headline.

Try and keep JUST ONE call-to-action per page. This keeps the client on track, and travelling in the direction YOU want them to go.

Use both sales video sales copy pages.

Keep paragraphs less than five lines deep.

Stay consistent with font throughout your pages.

Ask prospects to “buy” several times throughout your sales letter.

Use customer testimonials. They hold a lot of weight.

Use credit card and Paypal symbols on my sales page to add credibility and security.

Don’t use any links taking visitors away from the sales page.

Make sure all your links work.

Test your site in Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox.

Policies

Have Legal Rights Policy and a Terms Of Service page that opens in a new browser window. This will optimize your website for Social Media.

Order Page

Use consistent logo’s or headers on my opt-in page, sales letter and order pages.

Use audio or video on your order page to optimize your website.

Offer an upsell. Ideally this is a one click checkbox… like an Add-On sale. Would you like fries with that?

Thank You Page

After a customer has purchased, offer them more. Additional products should be on offer, add an additional call to action. “Why not book in for our online seminar on Boat Safety Procedures”

BLOG

Your website should have a BLOG. This is where you are constantly and consistently adding new and relevant information to your website. This keeps Google informed that you are active in updating your site, thus keeping your rankings higher.

When posting new content on your BLOG it’s important to:

Stay relevant to your industry.

Post Consistently. Don’t post once in a month and then 10 times in a day to catch up. If you have to, write and post ahead of time, and schedule every 2 – 3 days.

Post original content. Stay ahead of the industry.. Don’t just regurgitate what your opposition says.

Make sure you have a Call To Action on every Blog you post.

When you do post a new blog, make sure you share it on your social media pages, and send an E-mail to all your followers telling them you “Have just posted a new post about…”  Don’t send them the information, just send a “Read More” link.. you want them to LINK BACK TO YOUR SITE. This gives your site more weight with Google.

Use relevant industry #hashtags on social media posts.

Optimize every blog post for SEO. If you need to, get yourself a good SEO Agency to help you out.

E-mails

Email is a part of our everyday lives, making it one of the easiest ways to reach clients. It thrives because of its familiar. Your database is an asset you control and own and should be used as a marketing tool.

Personalise your E-mails with names. Your customers are real people.

Send emails between 6pm and 10pm. The best Email marketing campaigns are sent at night. This is gives them the best chance of being opened.

Keep your emails simple. The cleaner your email looks, the more likely it will leave an impression on your readers.

Every E-mail should have a call-to-action that is easy to perform.

Make sure your emails contain links to your site and social media, and always invite them to contact you.

 

Website Statistics

For any website, you want to track specific numbers or metrics. Sites that sell a product will have different numbers to sites that just focus on gathering prospects. These are the common metrics:

Sales Volume – Dollar amount of sales for a specified period.

Units Sold – The number of products sold in the specified period. This is NOT a dollar amount.

Unique Visitors – Your statistic program will show you total visitors (this includes duplicate visits by one person) and unique visitors (no duplicate visits). Use unique visitors in order to show the number of individuals who visited your site.

Opt-in Rate – Total number of new subscribers for the period divided by the number of unique visitors.

Sales Conversion % – Total units sold divided by the number of unique visitors. This should be converted to a % (divide by 100 to get the percentage).

Customer Value – Total sales volume divided by number of unique visitors.