In today’s economic climate, an increasing number of business owners have slimmer marketing budgets to work with. Furthermore, print advertising is on its death bed, so many are turning to the web to promote their products and services. Here are 8 solid tips for generating more leads online with a limited budget.
1. Make Videos
Major search engines love video, and it’s a lot easier to get videos to rank well because there’s less competition. Create engaging videos and a YouTube channel with links back to your website to generate more targeted traffic to your site.
2. Build Your List
In internet marketing circles, the power of having a “list” is well known. Email marketing is an extremely effective online marketing technique because people who subscribe to your emails are more likely to become your customers over time. To maximize the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns, consistently provide immense value in your emails so that your subscribers look forward to getting emails from you.
3. Submit your website to directories
Make sure that your site is listed in all relevant business directories. Not only will listing your site in business directories help you build valuable backlinks to your site that improve its rankings, it’ll also enable you to drive targeted traffic to your website.
4. Create a targeted landing page
When you launch an online advertising campaign, don’t drive ad traffic to your home page – create a targeted landing page that reminds people why they clicked on your ad in the first place. Your landing page should deliver on the promise of your ad and have similar messaging and branding. You can perform split testing to maximize the conversion rates of your landing page.
5. Get Active in Social Media
Social media activity correlates with higher search engine rankings, so make sure you build a presence on the social web. Social media also enables you to interact with your customers and send them promotional offers and discounts. You can also position your social media sites as a go-to resource for information in your industry by consistently sharing relevant, high quality content and news.
6. Share documents and Slideshows
If you create white papers, reports, and power point presentations to promote your business, share them on sites like Scribd and SlideShare to ensure that they rank well in the search engines. Provide links to your site at the end of your reports and presentations, so people who engage with your content are led back to your website.
7. Update your site with High Quality Content
The search engines love websites that are fresh and up-to-date, so make sure you provide your site visitors with a steady flow of high quality content. Types of content that you can add to your site include videos, podcasts, and blog posts. If you don’t have time to create content on a regular basis, hire an online content specialist to help you.
8. Write SEO-Friendly press releases
Write and distribute SEO-friendly press releases that are optimized for your target keywords. Press releases will drive targeted traffic to your website and improve your search engine visibility.