How to market your website so that people buy from you!
It doesn’t matter what kind of business you have and how benevolent you are, you can give things away for free, you can raise money for great causes, you can hold people’s hands but everyone at sometime needs to make a living.
The baker puts bread on your table, not to feed your family but to feed his own!
I am sure, if you own a bakery or a grocers then online marketing is not so important but if you have a product or service that has a website at it’s heart then you need to know how to drive traffic, create a contact list and to make sales.
Ok, so you have a great website that showcases your products or services or you have signed up for an online, work at home business that has provided you with their propriatory website to promote – what next?
It doesn’t matter what kind of online or offline business you have, if you sell from a website then you need to get it out there to the right target audience.
Not many of us are really clever enough to know, for sure, who will buy from us, I promise you, I have had many surprises! But somehow we need to work out how to get our business in front of buying customers. So a scatter gun approach is not really the way to do it, you need to target the right people.
So how do you recruit people to an online business. How do you get people to come to your website?
Online? Offline? Cold calling? Friends and family?
Let’s look at Friends and Family first.
If you want to lose friends then pitch to them, the same with family members. I don’t know about you but I would hate it if my loved ones avoided me because they felt guilty for not buying into my business! So that is a definite “no no”.
Cold calling? Hey! I’m into this online gig because I want to enjoy it, I want a better quality of life and cold calling just does not do it for me! So, for me, that’s out too.
Offline – now here’s a thing – yes it can work, even for an online business. You could:
1. Get out there to your local business networking events.
2. Build relationships with local business owners to encourage referrals.
3. Take stands at exhibitions.
4. Advertise in the newspapers.
5. Give out flyer’s in shopping malls and markets.
6. Carry business cards for those chance encounters!
Then there’s ONLINE.
Now this is where your marketing can really rock!
Here are my 5 very best online marketing tips.
1. Any good at writing?
You don’t have to be Jeffrey Archer but a good clear blog with all the right keywords can be a fantastic marketing tool.
The article should not be about your business but about something helpful for the reader. Of-course it should be linked to your business, for instance if you are a garden landscaper then an article or blog about growing roses would be good but a blog about baking a chocolate cake may not be.
You need to engage with the reader, they need to see you as a leader and expert.
Once you have constructed your blog or article you then need to add a clear succinct signature at the bottom, this is very important for obvious reasons.
I know what you’re asking….what do I do with my blog once it is finished?
Well if you have a blog section on your website then that is ideal as readers can click to your website to read the blog.
You would open your blog on your website, copy the URL or address and add that link along with a catchy intro like:
An easy way to bake a chocolate cake – if you love chocolate you’ll love this – http://www……
You would add it to places like Facebook, Twitter, Ecademy, LinkedIn etc that’s assuming that you are a member of all these social sites, if not why not???
If you have written your blog on someone else’s website, like Blogger, Ezines or another blogging platform like my site for business women, TheBusinessWoman then you need to make sure that all your website details are in your signature.
2. Twitter!
I know a lot of people think that Twitter is a waste of time well, I promise you that it is not, if you do it right.
A daily tweet containing great advice to followers who are your target audience can really boost your profile. If you have a good profile then people will see you in a good light and are more likely to buy from you. If you read my blog, How to market on Twitter, you will see how you can make Twitter really work for your business.
3. Facebook Fan Pages.
Create a fan page with the same name as your business then set to work making friends and then inviting them to become fans of your page. Once you have a reasonable amount of members you can create a badge to upload onto your website. This creates a sense of community and will give confidence to your website visitors. Of-course you also have your fans to market to as well.
4. Relationships.
Join groups and forums to get to know people, (not to pitch to them), once they get to know you they will eventually ask you what you do and then you can get away with a subtle pitch.
5. LinkedIn groups.
Join the groups on LinkedIn, you are allowed upto 50 group memberships. Of-course you need to find groups of people who would be interested in your sector and will be beneficial to you as well. Then once in a group you can upload your articles or blogs to their discussion pages. These are then sent out by the system to the group members in update e-mails. Some of the groups have memberships of thousands of people each so your one article alone can get you enormous exposure.
Pat Sutton – Internet Marketing Specialist – Official Blog Site http://www.PatSutton.com
Business Mentor with LifePath Unlimited – http://www.ThisBusinessRocks.com
Comments
One Comment on How to market your website so that people buy from you!
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Stretch Marks on
Thu, 4th Feb 2010 6:22 am
very useful information about website marketing
thanks for sharing this information
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