Inbound Marketing 101: 5 “Must-Haves” For Your Website

to Start Generating Leads

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Search Engine Optimization

The most effective inbound marketing technique that you can use to climb the ranks in the search engines, gain visibility, and attract organic traffic to your website.

Key Considerations on SEO:

•  An estimated 88,000,000,000 searches are performed every month on Google.  1    Entering just a few keyword phrases can return millions or billions of results, but studies indicate that 75% of search users will only scroll through the first page of results.  2    

•  75% of user clicks are from organically ranked sites, not paid sites. 3    

•  Nearly 50% of daily searches are for information on products or services. 4    

If your site is currently not optimized for specific keywords, your target market might not even know that you exist until you increase your ranking.

57% of Internet users search the web every day.

SOURCE: MARKETSHARE.HITSLINK.COM, OCTOBER 2010

Key Considerations on Social Media Marketing: •  Sharing with social media will allow you to discover new opportunities by

connecting with your target audience on a more personal level.  

•  Social media is essential for getting the word out about your business, and is also an excellent tool for learning how to market more effectively by analyzing the needs of your clients.  

•  Did you know that 93% of adult Internet users have a Facebook account?

5 These days, people spend a significant amount of time on social media and marketers who devote 6+ hours a week managing their social media sites see 52% more leads than businesses that don’t.  6    

•  People that use Twitter generate double the leads than other similar businesses that do not.

Marketing with social media will allow you to engage your prospects through several different outlets, and it will also give you the opportunity to create stronger connections and generate more leads.

 

Social Media Creating connections with your customers is something that you absolutely must do. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn give you the ideal opportunity to connect, share, and grow.

Nearly 2/3 of US internet users regularly use a social network.

SOURCE: EMARKETER, FEBRUARY 2011

Content Creation Does your website contain content that genuinely helps your prospects and customers? Providing content that solves a problem for your target audience will drive them to your site and increase opportunities to nurture leads.

•  Start attracting visitors by posting relevant, useful, and easy-to-find content when they need it. Talk about the industry or the problem your prospect is trying to solve – not yourself or your business.  

•  Build content through multiple avenues, such as blogging, helpful articles, photos, videos, podcasts, eBooks, presentations, and/or news releases.

•  Use the keywords your audience uses, and incorporate SEO into your content.

•  Content makes you interesting; great content gets shared more. Help your users to share your content by incorporating social media tools into your website.

The content on your website should educate and inform your prospects, and give them a better understanding of how your products or services can help them solve a problem. While providing these solutions to your prospects, make sure that you link to different areas of your conversion path so that you can continue to generate new leads and nurture them accordingly.

Website Lead Generation Does your website have call-to-action buttons that link to great offers and shows your customers how to respond to your sales pitch? This is the single most effective way to generate leads for your business.

•  Create opportunities for your customers to respond to your service offerings or product line. This will help to generate leads and convert prospects into paying customers.  

•  Give your customers all the information they need to make a decision, but also give them the opportunity to respond and become your customer by providing call-to action buttons on each page of your website.  

•  If your customers make it to the final third of your sales page, they are more willing to engage with a representative to discuss your service offerings; so incorporating links to offers in your text gives you the chance to show your customers how to take the next step.  

Inbound marketing gives you the opportunity to generate targeted leads while still conserving your marketing budget.

The content on your website should educate and inform your prospects, and give them a better understanding of how your products or services will help them solve a problem. While providing these solutions to your prospects, make sure to link to different areas of your conversion path so that you can continue to generate new leads and nurture them accordingly.

Sample Call to Action Button

Lead Nurturing Lead nurturing is absolutely critical to ongoing business development. By incorporating it into your marketing strategy, you can effectively establish strong relationships with your clients and increase conversions.

Key Considerations about Lead Nurturing: •  Nurturing your leads means developing an

ongoing relationship with your customers, whereby you communicate information and use critical feedback to better develop your marketing strategies.  

•  According to a recent MIT study on lead nurturing, 78% of sales generated from a web inquiry are given to the first company that responds to the inquiry. To maintain a successful online business, it is important to have a system in place that enables you to respond to inquiries quickly and efficiently.  

•  Based on a study conducted by LeadGen, nurtured leads generate on average 20% more sales than businesses that do not nurture their leads. Forrester Research found that nurtured leads generate 50% higher conversion rates and a much lower cost associated with each lead.  

Creating a scalable and flexible lead nurturing strategy can help you to educate your prospects and provide answers to common questions, which will enable you to build stronger customer relationships and, ultimately, increase your sales. These sales-ready leads are invaluable to your business, and incorporating an effective lead nurturing strategy will give you the opportunity to increase your conversion rates and offer valuable information and insight to your customers.

Sources, Unless Cited:

1 Search Engine Land, February 2010 2 marketshare.hitslink.com, October 2010 3 Marketingsherpa, February 2007 4 SRI, October 2010 5 Blogher, April 2011 6 Social Media Examiner, 2011

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