Small Business Website MISTAKES-Where are My New Customers?
You’re excited about your small business website! After weeks or maybe months of planning and waiting you finally have your local business website or blog online! You might have paid a small fortune (or built it on the cheap) and you are really looking forward to the increased business because of your new online presence.
Then reality HITS! After a few weeks…you have some new questions. Where are all my new leads, customers and prospects? Why isn’t my phone ringing off the hook? Wasn’t getting online with a website or blog supposed to be the miracle cure?
You were probably told you needed two things…Get a pretty website or blog…and get listed on Google…and the rest will take care of itself.
You are not alone! These days well over 50% of local small businesses have some sort of website, webpage or blog online. The big frustration is HOW do you get your website or blog to CONVERT into prospects and new customers for your local business? The answer is MARKETING…both ON your website and ON THE INTERNET pointing back to your website.
First let’s go over 3 Keys you need for successful marketing:
1) Traffic
2) Conversion
3) Profit
With #1 Traffic: You need lots of it! All kinds, online and offline to give your business a chance to succeed. If you had a pizza restaurant, but no foot traffic (lack of effective marketing)…I think you would agree, that would be pretty bad! Well if you have a website or blog for your pizza restaurant, and no Internet traffic (lack of effective INTERNET Marketing) that could be very disappointing as well. So you must have effective offline marketing as well as effective online marketing to fuel your business.
#2. Conversion: This is where most websites, blogs and offline and online marketing in general falls short. Here’s an example.
Let’s say you have a website or blog that looks great! Maybe you built it yourself, or had a friend or family member build it, or maybe you hired a web designer.
Does your website CONVERT website visitors to warm prospects or customers? If not, then your website or blog might be missing some important MARKETING PRINCIPLES! That sad part is, you could have a ton of visitors to your website, but if your website does not portray effective marketing principles, statistics have shown, they will just leave your website in 10 seconds or less!
Marketing Tip: Try to look at your website from the prospects point of view. Is your website appealing and does it look professional? Look at the websites of some of your competitors. If your website passes this test, that’s great!
Next, is your location, services and contact information easy to find on your website without a lot of navigation? This last one might surprise you! You see, many people who build websites may not understand marketing, and therefore can build a website that looks appealing, but lacks MARKETING PRINCIPLES to CONVERT visitors to customers and clients.
One of the reasons that OnTheWebVIDEO.com of Salem Oregon encourages businesses to use videos on their website is to increase the power of the marketing message and personality for the business. A professionally created video can dramatically improve the effectiveness of any website or blog, thus increasing the chance of a visitor becoming a seriously interested prospect for your business, or better yet, a paying customer.
So even if you are paying a TON of money to get more traffic with flyers, pay per click advertising, radio or TV to direct prospects to your website, without the proper marketing principles on your website or marketing campaigns…that could very well be traffic and money down the drain!
#3. Profit: The entire idea of going online with your website was to increase your profits of your business. That’s always the bottom line.
A simple website (even if it is not that pretty), that is designed with effective marketing principles will beat out some of the most expensive websites that are loaded with great information, but confuse the visitor with no real “call to action”. Your marketing is the same way. So should you use Yellow Pages, Print ads, Coupons, Radio or Television advertising? Or should you use Internet Marketing…or both?
Every business is different, and different strategies will apply to different markets, but one thing is clear. Online Marketing (Internet Marketing)provides great “bang for the buck” when done properly and can reap big rewards, for lower cost, and over a longer period of time. We notice this all the time with our clients, as long after their video creation and internet campaigns have been paid for…those videos, articles and content that we have distributed online, and put on their websites, are still working for them around the clock, 365 days a year. That’s why many of our clients keep coming back to OnTheWebVIDEO.com because we have many ways to create more customers and clients by tapping into the Internet, for a far lower cost than traditional media. Once they see that they we can increase their visibility on the search engines, and provide better conversion for less cost, they keep coming back for more!
In summary, just remember the 3 keys in simple formula above.
1) Lot’s of Traffic PLUS 2) Great Conversions Equals 3) More Profit!
Stephen Roth is a Local Business Marketing Consultant and Founder of On The Web VIDEO of Salem Oregon. Get FREE Local Business Internet Marketing Tips, FREE Reports and Videos at our websites: OnTheWebVIDEO.com and LocalBuyersNow.com . We’d like to help you get more business.
Give us a call at On The Web VIDEO at 971-240-6000 today.
Tags: internet marketing services, local business marketing, marketing mistakes, on the web video, salem oregon, small business websites, video marketing
