Lead Generation How To Drive Consistent Streams of Targeted Prospects To Your Website

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Stuart Chapman
8 years ago
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1 Lead Generation How To Drive Consistent Streams of Targeted Prospects To Your Website Probably one of the most common questions I m asked is How Do I Get More Qualified Prospects To My Website? Truth be told, there are a number of options, but the two primary ones are, Paid Advertising and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Let s quickly review them and discuss the pros and cons of each. Paid Advertising (often referred to CPC-Cost Per Click, or PPC-Pay Per Click. I know, all the acronyms can get a bit bewildering) is without a doubt the quickest way to start attracting new visitors to your website. Set up a Paid Advertising campaign at 10:00am, and you ll start drawing visitors by 10:30. Although everyone tends to immediately think of Google as the primary place to advertise, the reality is that there are a lot of choices. Secondary search engines such as Bing, social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, websites that cater to your specific target audience there s a wide variety. With most Paid Advertising programs, you only get charged when someone clicks on your ad. Thus, creating the right ad, and having that ad show up only for the most relevant search terms, is crucial. If either of those two components aren t well executed, you can chew through a lot of money, without a lot of tangible results, in a very short period of time. Cool Tip if you re thinking about doing a Paid Advertising campaign, consider adding Remarketing to the mix. Basically the way this works is that when someone visits your site a 30-day cookie is attached to their computer. When this person visits other websites that accept advertising, your ad pops up. It s a

Paid Advertising (often referred to CPC-Cost Per Click, or PPC-Pay Per Click.

2 very clever way of remarketing to those who have shown an initial interest in your services. SEO, (Search Engine Optimization) means that your site shows up in what s called the natural search listings. Let s quickly define that. If you Google a typical term, you ll notice that there are usually 2-3 ads that appear at the top of the page, and another 6-8 that run down the right hand side. Those are the Paid Ads. The results that appear in the middle of the page are the natural search results. There s a fair amount of evidence that suggests that people tend to click on the natural result listings more frequently than they do Paid Advertising. So how does one get on the first page of Google for natural search? That s the million-dollar question, and it s a constant challenge for those of us who run SEO campaigns to stay abreast of the changes that Google frequently makes to its algorithm. Basically there are two primary factors that determine your page ranking: links and content. It used to be the number of sites that linked to yours was what got you on the first page. That s changed significantly. Google caught on to the fact that many sites were receiving links from so called link farms, and as a result have reduced the relative importance of links. Links still count, but only if they are from reputable sources. Content is the most important criteria. This includes basic things such as having your keywords included in your meta-tags and title-tags, and appearing no more than twice in the text on your page. (Determining what keywords to try to get ranked for is crucially important, and unfortunately lots of people don t do a good job of going after the right keywords.) But what is even more important is the content which appears on your blog, in forums, on other people s blogs and on social media sites. When one combines appropriate link building with these other methods, most sites can get on the first page of Google for relevant keywords within 90 days. So, which is better, Paid Advertising or SEO? The answer, not surprisingly, is you want to do both. Paid Advertising gets you traffic quickly. SEO, which takes a bit longer to achieve results, tends to get a better quality of visitor. (Remember, once you start a SEO campaign, you don t want to abandon it. There are a lot of other businesses that want to be ranked for the same keywords as you, so if you stop the effort, you ll quickly slip back down the rankings.)

If you Google a typical term, you ll notice that there are usually 2-3 ads that appear at the top of the page, and another 6-8 that run down the right hand side. Those are the Paid Ads.

3 How much does it cost? The answer will depend in a large part on the keywords you want to be ranked for and how competitive they are. But here are some big thumb numbers to work with. Paid Advertising is typically done most effectively by using a local market strategy. You can target multiple cities or regions but the most effective approach is to zero in on the locations where your best prospects are. A budget of $750- $1200 per month is a good place to start. You can adjust that upwards or downwards after 90 days, depending upon results. SEO requires a large amount of manual labor and there are a lot of moving parts that need to be coordinated. With the changes that Google periodically makes, this is increasingly a highly specialized service that requires an integrated implementation plan. Plan on budgeting $1000-$3000 per month for a campaign, and realize that it takes time to achieve results. To give you a sense for all the components of an effective SEO campaign, here is an example of what we do for clients: Initial SEO Audit/Performance Analysis On Page SEO Analysis & Recommendations Site Authority / Off Page SEO Analysis & Recommendations Keyword Research & Rankings (You can make recommendations about keywords if required, we will add them in list) Development of top Priority Keywords Competition Analysis of Priority Keywords Selection of Final Keywords On Page SEO Check List Content Optimization for keywords in terms of Content, Title tags, H1 title, Meta tags, Meta Description (Adjust in current pages if possible or New pages required for keywords) Website Structure modifications including making On-Page changes as required Broken Links Analysis and corrections to redirect/fix broken links Back-linking Process According to new guidelines of Google, Back-links must be: Manual Relevant Diversified Contain variation in anchor text Only White Hat (No Grey Hat/ Black-Hat)

You can target multiple cities or regions but the most effective approach is to zero in on the locations where your best prospects are. A budget of $750- $1200 per month is a good place to start.

4 Only Natural Links (No Paid networks, No Sidebar links, Link Farms, No Header/ Footer Links) Mixture of do-follow & no-follow Relevant Forum Postings Develop and implement queries to find do-follow & relevant forums in vbulliten, punbb, mybb plate-forms Develop and implement relevant & quality postings. Allow posts mature for 3 or 5 days without links to make them nonspammy After posts mature, insert relevant links. Blog Commenting Develop and implement special queries to search relevant, non-spammy, do-follow & no-follow in Disqus, Wordpress, BlogSpot & other forums. Develop and post relevant comments Directory Submissions Manual submission of General Directories Manual submission on Niche Directories Social Book-Marking & Social Media Manual submissions on all relevant social media platforms Web 2.0 Properties & Unique Articles Submission Web 2.0 Properties including tumblur, webnode, wordpress etc. We will submit your content or articles to identified Article Directories Link-building on Web 2.0 Properties & submit your Articles to make them indexed Online Business Profiles We search and make business profiles in online business directories such as yelp, yellow pages etc Summary: While attracting visitors to your website is a crucial element of a marketing system, it s important to remember that it is only one element. The key components are: 1. Identify a specific niche that you want to target. (Remember, I m not suggesting that your entire business be devoted to this one niche, just your marketing campaign. It s so devilishly difficult to get prospects to pay attention to you, that the more they see a reflection of themselves in your

Allow posts mature for 3 or 5 days without links to make them nonspammy After posts mature, insert relevant links.

5 marketing materials, the greater the likelihood is that they ll read, listen or hear your message. 2. Create a great free offer. According to many studies, only 3% of visitors are ready to purchase, or speak with you, when they first come to your site. Staying in touch is crucial. Obviously, we need a visitor s contact information in order to do that. The trick is to create a report, or other free offer, that has a great hook. Success or failure will be determined by that one factor. (As an aside, creating great hooks is one of the things we re excellent at.) 3. Create a series of soap-opera style follow up messages. These messages should be developed with one goal in mind move your prospective client to take ACTION. 4. Drive targeted traffic to the page using Paid Advertising, SEO, or (ideally) a combination of the two. If you follow these 4 steps, you ll have a Marketing System that will provide you with consistent streams of new business for months and years to come. I hope you found this helpful. Naturally, please let me know if you ever need assistance with: Brainstorming your marketing strategy. Writing your free report. Creating a series of soap opera follow-up messages Developing and implementing a Paid Advertising or SEO traffic generation campaign. Thanks and Best Regards Mark Mark Satterfield Gentle Rain Marketing mark@gentlerainmarketing.com

Obviously, we need a visitor s contact information in order to do that. The trick is to create a report, or other free offer, that has a great hook.

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