Being in the web business, we get constant requests for web work. My favorite is when people call or write requesting a quote for a one or two page website. Which is like saying to me that I want a website but I have no money. Do yourself a favor and don’t bother. Start saving your money so you can do it right. Just having a website won’t do much. I’m constantly telling people it’s just like nailing a flyer to a wall somewhere in a dark alleyway and hoping it will bring you business. Honestly the days of simply having a web presence are over. Most websites today are systems that are meant to constantly grow and expand. That’s because the site with the most relevance wins in the rankings. Your goal is to be on the first page under your search words because few people go past the first page.
With our hook in these strange internet waters, we get a wide spectrum of questions, requests, and demands from many different ‘species’ of clients. There are basically three ways to attract people to your website. One is to spend the time or make the investment to add content and grow your website through landing pages and social media. The second way is to pay for advertising through several mediums. The last and most effective is to do a combination of both. Grow your website and advertise your website.
Time is money so if you have money you can just dump a large bunch of it into a google campaign. If you don’t want to waste the money you have to spend the time writhing content or hire someone to do it for you. No one knows your business better then you so even if you hire someone you still have to be involved to a large extent. I have always found the second to be more effective way to grow your website and is much less painful.
If you spend a couple of hours a week and keep adding to your blog to grow your website you can accomplish the same goals as dumping hundreds of dollars a month into your google account. If you don’t spend enough your simply throwing away your money. Not only that but it teaches your customers about what you do, what they can do and over time keeps growing content on your web site which will in the long run do more good for you then handing a ton of money to google for a campaign.
Some of the things we do to make this less painful is to enlist some of your employees to do some of the writhing. They all have a bit of a specialty and or a different take on the business an you will be surprised what great content they can create. The trick isn’t to do this all at once, the trick is to constantly add one or two articles a week. Another way to add content is to curate an article and add your take on it. Basically your publishing an article from someone else and giving them credit for the article. Then you add a paragraph of things reinforcing what they have written or even disagreeing all together.
Subscribe to a cartoon service. People love cartoons. They won’t be a big investment and often you’ll get more people looking at your cartoon then reading your article. Remember the key is to get people coming back.
The goal is to publish a couple of new articles every week. Your never going to do it, but try. There will be weeks and we have all had them when everything is out of control. Too much to do and no time to do it. Don’t feel guilty, it happens to us all, just try to stay on track and start again as soon as possible.
Add a lot of visuals. Something you can take yourself or maybe just buy something from a stock photo site. People love to look at pictures and like they say, a picture paints a thousand words. There are quite a few new Free stock photo sites online, just google them. They all have some really nice images.
Now that your into the flow and have developed some content, try putting an email blast together. I’d recommend every three months promoting your best articles. You can keep growing your list with people who have contacted you or people you’ve done business with. You will be surprised how fast you can grow that list over time.
