You have to love the internet these days!
There are so many tools at our finger tips that it’s almost harder to imagine what we can’t do as oppose to what we can.
The beauty of technology! We are at an amazing point in time where we can actually grow our business AND get leads, right from our website!
I mean, who doesn’t like more leads right!?
The key here is to leverage your current audience. Here’s are three ways to do it…
Get Some Email Addresses!
Pretty straight forward right. I’m sure you may have heard it a thousand times, but collecting email addresses from your website is key. You can do this in the form of a newsletter, coupon, some kind of lead magnet. Anything really to get the user to say, “Yes, I want that! Here’s my email address.”
Be wary though, because just slapping a box that says “Sign Up For My Newsletter” doesn’t work very well at all. I see it all the time on websites, and I always think to myself “Why should I?”
When preparing your email collector, make sure you ask yourself the same question. Why should someone give you their email address?
Be creative, be unique, make them WANT to sign up.
It’s a whole lot of trial and error, but eventually, you find something that works and works well. Then you just wash rinse and repeat.
I started testing out testimonials near my opt-in forms, and that worked incredibly well. Also, offering something like a free guide, or e-book works great too. The goal here is to collect email addresses so when you have a special offer or something awesome to say, you’re collected built-in audience is ready to hear it.
So what can I add to my website?
At SureFire, we have a couple of different tools available to our members. I love using a tool called Thrive Leads. It’s not very expensive and you can set up email opt-ins via pop ups, exit intent (a pop up when someone leaves), slide-in from the bottom of the site, a banner on the top or bottom of your site, and so much more. You also have full control of how it looks and what to sync it with.
We also have a few more tools available including Elementor with its native pop up technology, ConvertBox which creates a full lead funnel, and AutoPilot which creates a complete buyer journey.
All of these tools can be used to create an amazing experience for users visiting your website.
Blog, and Blog Some More
I’m so serious. You need to start writing. If you don’t write, hire someone who does, and get crazy with it! Here’s a simple analogy as to why you need to write more.
“Google is a hungry animal. Google loves to eat words. The more words you have on your site, the more Google likes to visit your site and eat it all up!
– Wayne Gretzkey
– Michael Scott”– Jonathan Perez
So if you think that writing articles isn’t important, then you must LOVE paying for traffic.
There have been a few differentiating thoughts on this topic and I’ll lay them out here so you can decide what you think is best.
The first is “Blog every day and create lots of pages.” This is what I did in the past and it worked very well. I would rank in Google for a lot of different keywords, and it also added substance to my website when there was none. It’s also what I’m currently doing as I relaunch and rebrand SureFire Web Services.
I personally like this method, but there’s another side to this.
A lot of SEO experts (search engine optimization) are saying that this method is getting dated. The new way to do things is to take some time to write a very lengthy and detailed article. About 2000 to 2500 words at least. They say that Google is overlooking the tons of pages SEO hack and isn’t really ranking short articles with no substance. If you want to rank high in Google, then you need to give it longer articles. These longer articles are then ranked for some primary keywords, as well as a long list of keywords that were unintentional (this is called long tail).
Sorry if I’m getting a bit technical here. The short of it is, a lot of little articles are like bags of chips to Google (remember the food analogy) and a long post is like Filet Mignon.
I’m aiming for somewhere in the middle. I’m writing shorter posts for the user, and I’m writing a lot of them. Then once in a while, I throw in a much longer post both for the user, and with the thought of ranking in Google.
You have to remember, you’re first priority is to appeal to your audience. If you write a super long article and no one reads it, then did it really serve its purpose?
Bottom line, whether you write short articles, long articles or both, you need to write. These get you ranked in search engines, people find you organically, and then you can get more leads.
So what can I add to my website?
Content. I write everything myself but some people don’t want to, for whatever reason. There are a few services that can help you, but nothing is better than coming from your own voice and speaking directly to your audience. You can check out GrowthGeeks. They have a ton of services that help with marketing if you have the budget, including writing articles. Last thing to keep in mind, if you don’t do it yourself, be prepared to spend a pretty penny. Good content writing isn’t cheap.
BONUS TIP: Add a Call to Action or Optin form at the end of each post. Maybe an add-on to the post content or something similar. A nice addition to collect more emails.
Create Contests for your Small Business
Another item that I had a lot of success with was throwing a contest for your users. This is a great way to get people to interact with your site, generate interest in your product, and spread the word about your services EVERYWHERE!!
The sweeter the prize, the more contestants, the more shares, it’s a win-win!
Here’s how it works: Pick something that you can give away. It can be a service you offer, something you bought on Amazon, doesn’t matter. Make it really awesome though and relatable to your audience. So ask a few friends and family if they’d be interested in what you’re giving away.
Set up a page on your site dedicated for this giveaway, and start telling people about it. Hop on your FaceBook profile and tell your friends to share it. Go on twitter, do the same. Join some facebook groups, spread the word!
Here’s where things get fun! In order for someone to enter your contest, they need to do something. Most of the time, this means sharing your site (free exposure). There are a few different tools out there that can do this. You can set up 3 entries for giving an email address, 2 entries for sharing on Facebook, 1 entry for twitter, and so on.
Your audience will spread the word about your company everywhere they can to try and win! So make that prize a juicy one!
So what can I add on my website?
It’s hard to find a free one these days, most plugins run off the ‘freemium’ model (basic version is free, then you pay to upgrade). I did find one that’s free though called Contests by Reward Fuel. I never used this but it seems like it’ll do the trick. I’m gearing up to do a contest of my own so when I find the perfect one (for free) I’ll absolutely share it!
Are you familiar with any other ways to get leads without spending money on traffic? Share in the comments!
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Have any questions or need help implementing any of these strategies. Our goal at SureFire is to take away all the difficult tech stuff and help you focus back on your business. Let us handle everything web. Click here to discover more ways on how we can help small businesses.
