As entrepreneurs, it is obvious in this day and age of a technological revolution and online business, it is without a doubt a must to be able to have your business online.
Entrepreneurs must not only have their business online, but it is advisable that they make a big name for themselves there as well. It is not simply enough to have a website with a few pictures, a bio, and an address for your office.
Nowadays, you need to be able to sell your product from your site.
Today, clients will not be sold to. These clients and customers will not hear nor listen to a standard "pitch." If someone wants something, they will look for you or your product online (not the other way around.)
To be able to interact with your customers and potential customers online is paramount. While twenty years ago, this would not have mattered in the slightest, in modern times it is important that we understand how to get (drive) clients and customers to our website.
This article will not dive deep into the highly technical parts of PPC and SEO, but this offering is intended as a few basics that will help drive traffic to our website.
The first and most obvious suggestion is to utilize our search engine results. Millions and millions of people are using Google, Yahoo, or Bing every day. There are more than one search engine results, but the concept is the same. Populate your site in organic searches, and you will start to see more traffic.
Organic search always show what words the interested potential customers are using to find your product. This relevance search changes almost daily. Keeping track of the complicated algorithm is already done for you through the search engine, but you will keep track of the results for your business's personal niche. The higher-up on the search engine page the better your outcome will be.
This will show you that you are choosing the correct words that your organic customers are using. Narrowing your terms down to relevancy (to the search term), competition (for the search term), and content (which includes quantity, quality, etc.) It may be advisable to treat this process like a popularity contest, because it is.
You want to be the unequivocal winner for every keyword that you are focusing on. If you sell hiking boots, then you want to be the FAVORITE place for everyone who is looking to buy hiking boots. It is somewhat sad that we have reduced our language to "likes," but we have, and likes are important in the organic search process.
Use PPC, or Pay-per-click advertising. These are the sponsored links at the top of a search engine results page? It may seem like they are not links that you personally would click on, but in the PPC world, if five out of one hundred people are clicking your link and buying a product from your site, you are hitting an absolute home-run when it comes to cost-benefit analysis.
Hire a PPC expert to do this for you, don't try it on your own. If you are terribly concerned about hiring a PPC, base his pay on how successful he is, and give him a predetermined budget for this type of online presence (although, proceed with caution here, most PPC experts know what the cost will be, and already budget accordingly.)
The more people who click on your link and head to your landing page, the more it will help you in your organic search results, as well.
Affiliates are also fantastic ways to get your website high traffic. Again, realize that the affiliate is the expert here. There are many different affiliate networks, and there are many different ways to pay affiliate marketers. For example, you can subscribe to an affiliate network, and post an advertisement link for your company with an offer on this site.
Every person that clicks through to the affiliate's website will give your business the chance to have a customer. This is advertising today, and you will be using your advertising dollars to better advantage here (PPC) than ever before.
Every person that clicks through the link and buys something from you, you then pay the affiliate a percentage of the revenue, somewhat like a commission program.
Affiliate networks are typically a win-win, as long as you are not joining a network that is charging you WAY to much to be there. Shop around for the best PPC price, just as you would with any advertising.
You have the ability to drive traffic to your site. Tackle one traffic driving machine (PPC person) at a time, and you will see a huge increase in traffic.