Last week, we spent some time talking about websites and why you need one. We really do hope you went ahead and got one, that is, if you don't have one already, because this week, we'll talk about some really cool stuff you can do on your website. In this episode of the Social Media Marketing Happy Hour, Dawn and Traci talk about how you, as an entrepreneur or business owner, can be a tour guide or a leader that can direct people through a process or get them to where you want them to go on your website.
Don't lead people to a dead end!
For marketers, having a dead end in your process is like the “kiss of death”! So often, we see blog posts or content that basically leads nowhere. Once people are done consuming the material, they get off the page since there's nothing else left for them to do there. This causes a high bounce rate which is definitely not good for your SEO ranking. What you should be doing is to let the audience feel that they need more from you – that they want to go and see what else you have in store for them. You should be able to smoothly take them from one step of the process to the next. Now the question for a lot of marketers is: What should be the next step?
3 Possible Next Steps To Lead People To
- Have people consume more content.
One of the simplest things you can do when you put out content is to make sure you link back to other pieces of related content on your site. By having links, they'll still be where you want them to be. Another way to keep people glued to your website is by a WordPress plugin called Related Posts that will show you all the related content and it will auto populate those content for you. Also, to make it easy for your Related Post plugin to find related posts, you have to have a specific niche. If you're blogging and you're being too broad, it will be harder for you to tie in different articles together.
- Have them opt in to get them on your list.
You should lead people towards opting in to something. You can do this by offering something of value first. If you're an ecommerce company, you could offer a coupon or a discount. If you're selling information products, you could have an opt in for a report, a video series, or a checklist. Anything that can help you get their email address and add them to your list. You might want to check out Thrive Leads, it will help make great lead magnets.
- Have them buy something from you.
Many marketers have this dilemma when it comes to the frequency of selling. How often should you sell to people anyway? The truth is, you should always have something for sale. That doesn't mean you are going to do hard selling. You can be subtle about it. If you have content for example, with affiliate links, you should also have a link for your own product or service.
When you have great content, you can actually do these three things together. You can have links, related posts, and a call to action, as long as it is congruent with what you've put out there.
It's super important to keep people in your web and go through the flow. The more people visit and consume stuff from your website, the more Google Analytics will give you a higher SEO score. You have to make sure you keep them hooked on content or you can give them something to look forward to. Everything should be intentional and should lead to the next step. It all boils down to having a great content strategy that makes sense and marketing it the right way.
If you need resources on some of the things we've referenced on this podcast, you can head on over to www.HappyHourHangouts.com/resources.
