5 Inbound Marketing Tips to Get You Started
Inbound Marketing is often something overlooked by businesses. The word in itself can seem intimidating at times, but it is becoming the topic of many conversations lately. Inbound marketing refers to using blog posts, videos, eBooks, and other premium materials, along with search engine optimization, to draw customers to your website. Although outbound marketing is still an effective strategy, inbound marketing is quickly becoming the preferred strategy to reach people you don’t know and who don’t know you, but who are looking for the services or products you offer. With these five inbound marketing tips you’ll help grow your business by harnessing the power of the internet.
A Strong Website Design
Everything funnels back to your website. One of the basics of inbound marketing is having a useful and helpful web site that makes it easy for customers to find the information they need. It must be easy to navigate, and the easier and more helpful your site is for the user, the better the likelihood of them converting to a client or customer.
Search Engine Optimization
Once your site design is complete and live on the internet, you must make sure customers can find it! That is what Search Engine Optimization is here to do. By optimizing your site for search engines, you are trying to control how your site ranks for particular keywords when potential customers search for a product or service you offer. There are many ways to optimize your Website, one way is making sure every page has proper keyword tagging, meta descriptions and titles. Another way is by maintaining a blog and posting to it frequently. If you don’t know what to write about, look for other businesses that are creating content, and see what they’re doing. For instance, if you’re an insurance agency, you can write about what customers should look for when comparing plans. Ask your vendors to link to your site in exchange for you writing about their products and linking back to them. With this combination of content and linking, you should improve your SEO quickly.
Promote Your Content and Site
Creating the nicest web site and writing the best blogs are invisible unless you promote them. Include your website in your email signature and social media profiles. When you write a blog, be sure to share it out to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and you can even post it to Pinterest with a nice photo and link to that blog. Connect with others in your industry or who are interested in what you do and see if any of your peers will share your blog post with their connections.
More Content, More Content, More Content is Key
Always look for ways to expand your content offerings. Content is king when it comes to the internet. Look through your blog for common articles you’ve written about and see if you can put together an eBook from them. You can create checklists, guides, PowerPoint slides, and make them available for download. Creating premium content for your readers that they need, is key to mastering the craft of Content Marketing.
Measure and Monitor
You must be able to measure where your inbound traffic is coming from. Use a tool like Hubspot to keep tabs on which sources are driving people to your website, and take advantage of that information. A software like Hubspot emails you a daily prospect list of people who visited your site and a list of sources, which shows you where your traffic is being driven from. Having information like this available to you allows for you to better assess where you should devote more time and focus to improve your business, and convert more leads into customers.
The Bottom Line
You must start with a great website design. Having a great website and drawing traffic is the core of these inbound marketing tips. By creating premium content, you create something that can bring in customers motivated to spend money on a product or service you offer, and hook them with your expertise in what you do. Using these five inbound marketing tips is a great start to building a strong foundation for your business.
