Ready to give your website a boost and bring in more sales? Start by checking off these 10 easy makeover tips. 1. Review brand positioning Don’t be put off by the all-encompassing phrase ‘brand positioning’. It generally describes what makes your business unique – what sets it apart from the competition. You need to know this inside-out so you can position yourself in the marketplace. Ask yourself a few questions to ensure you’re on the right track: Who are my direct competitors? How do those competitors position their brands? How does my brand position compare to theirs – and what makes mine unique? From there you can develop a value-based positioning statement, and adjust your website to convey exactly that. 2. Pop-up strategy No, we’re not talking about the ugly, seizure-inducing pop-up ads from the early days of the internet. Pop-ups these days are used by even the most reputable news agencies – especially as a means to capture ad revenue when print media is dying. When used intelligently, pop-ups can generate thousands of additional leads every month. But be care not to fall into common traps like displaying pop-ups too many times to the same visitor, or bombarding them the moment they click on your site. Take your time and define a pop-up strategy for the rest of 2019. 3. Freebies Who doesn’t love free stuff? It’s an easy way to get people ‘in the door’ and from there it’s up to you how you turn that freebie lover into a customer. But make sure even your freebies offer something of worth. That could be a free online seminar from...
You needn’t be a professional copywriter or experienced marketer to write business blogs. To improve your blog posts, you just need to know how to use them to your advantage. Whether you can knock out a quick article in under 30 minutes, or spend hours agonising over the right opening line to snag your audience, the most important thing to remember is that you know your business better than anyone else. Couple that with these four essential steps, and you can improve your blog posts and increase your chances of converting readers. 1. Choose the right topics Content marketing agency professionals spend years honing the craft of topic ideation and delivery – it’s why they’re so good at taking businesses large and small to the next level. But you don’t have to be a content marketing expert to recognise the importance of choosing the right topics. After all, without an interesting topic, no one is going to read your blogs. And if no one reads your blogs, your online presence will suffer greatly. So just how do you choose the right topics? Start by asking yourself the following: What are you passionate about? If you’re not interested in the topic, or it’s not relevant to your business, that will seep into your writing and turn off the reader. Who’s the audience? As a business owner, you likely cater to multiple demographics and have more than one target audience. Do your blogs appeal to everyone, or are they niche topics where you can drive readers towards a particular product or service? Is it evergreen? An ‘evergreen’ blog is one that has long-term appeal. It’s...
Business owners can no longer ignore the need to have a user-friendly, optimised website, and quality content – at least, not if they want to convert website visitors into customers and remain competitive. Yet every year we hear about startups failing to gain traction despite an innovative product and strong financial backing. And major corporations aren’t immune either. After failing to leverage the power of e-commerce in its early days, it was only last year that stuttering Toys ‘R’ Us announced a plan to revamp its website – part of a $100 million e-commerce strategy. But you might remember how that panned out. For many businesses, the website is often the first interaction a prospective client has with the brand. And it doesn’t matter what you sell – B2B or B2C, products or services – your ultimate goal is to convert the ‘potentials’ visiting your website into customers. If you aren’t converting visitors into customers, or views to sales, asking why should be a priority. Could it be something as simple as… You’re attracting (or targeting) the wrong audience This could be for any number of reasons. Does your website address issues more likely to interest small business, when your ideal clients are medium and large businesses? Are you building a young Instagram and Snapchat audience when your offering is more attractive to baby boomers? Setting up Google Analytics properly can provide valuable insights on your website visitors – their age, location, how they found your site, how long they stayed, the number of pages they visited. From there you can tweak your content or reconsider publishing platforms to...
If you’re a service based business, you need to generate leads. But if you have no means of lead capture on your website, or for other lead generating activities, you’re probably allowing many prospective clients to slip away. Perhaps you’ve come across the term ‘lead capture’ while reading up on content marketing, but aren’t quite sure what sort of difference it would make to your business, or how you would implement it. Let’s take a look at what lead capture is, what the benefits are, and what’s involved in doing it. What is lead capture? Lead capture is the practice of inviting website visitors to register their details in order to receive content and/or further communication from you. In the simplest form, lead capture is that ‘subscribe to our newsletter’ or ‘subscribe for updates’ option you see on many sites. However, unless your content writers are turning out highly unique material and you have droves of people signing up, this doesn’t go far enough. One reason this isn’t sufficient for most service businesses, is that not all their prospective clients have precisely the same interests, challenges, pain points and buying motivations. Unless you’re able to segment your database into buyer types, and deliver the most relevant content to each, results with a newsletter subscription alone are likely to be mediocre. Another issue is in the timing. When someone subscribes to your blog or newsletter, that action doesn’t indicate what they’re interested in right now, or how you might help them. However, if they download an eBook related to a specific challenge, it’s a different story. What you have then is often...
Professional looking visuals to illustrate content are a no-brainer when it comes to standing out from the crowd. But the problem with great design is that it’s traditionally come at a hefty price. Now, thanks to improving technology, there are plenty of online design tools. You can create professional visuals inexpensively or free, from infographics to cartoons and video – and often with only a few minutes work! DIY visual tools for businesses and individuals have really taken off in the last year or two, not only because they’re affordable, but because most are very easy to use. Graphic design skills not required – if you can point a mouse and click, you’re good to go! Here are five of our favourite (inexpensive) design tools. 1. Venngage Infographics are huge at the moment and they’re a fantastic way to present complicated information in an easy to understand, visually appealing format. An infographic can help you grow your social media shares, boost your website visitors and give you a content asset you can use time and time again. Venngage is a handy platform that lets you create infographics on just about any topic you like, for minimal or no cost. How it works Venngage is about as easy as it gets. Sign up for an account and choose your template from the hundreds on offer. Next, input the information you want to display to generate your infographic. Customise with images and icons, and add any extra charts and text needed. Adapt the fonts and colours to match your branding or personal preference, and you’re ready to publish. The Venngage...
There’s now a plethora of online tools out there that can make running your business and your content marketing and promotion efforts so much easier. Best of all, many of these offer free versions, or free trials on their paid options. They can be very handy for businesses without the budget to outsource to a content marketing agency. In pre-internet days, content marketing was often an expensive exercise, involving printed brochures and catalogues, direct selling, or TV, radio and print advertising. It was also largely hard to measure, which meant it could be very hit-and-miss. American department store pioneer John Wanamaker, who is credited with printing the first copyright store advertisement in 1874, is famously quoted as saying that half of his advertising spend was wasted, but he wasn’t sure which half! Some of the tools we’ve singled out not only make content marketing easier and cheaper, but infinitely more measurable, so you can avoid wasting time, money and effort on content strategies that aren’t working. Read on to find out more about 10 free tools you should consider using in your business. GoSpaces – free e-commerce website building Shopify’s GoSpaces app enables fledgling e-commerce businesses to build an online store for free. Once you join up, you are provided with a generic website template which you can alter to suit your business by adding your own content, images, and products. The platform also comes with multilingual (up to 20 languages) and multi-currency support, and a shopping cart support service. It is free to set up and use until you reach sales of $50 per month, after which there...
