STOP WASTING TIME ON THE INTERNET!
Like most business owners, you are probably distracted and overwhelmed by the possibilities of doing business online. It is true that the Internet is a game changing tool for collecting leads, attracting customers, growing a business, finding staff, providing awesome customer service and building communities.
It is also true that most of us fail dismally in our online ventures.
So here are five things you can do in the next week to get the needle moving in the right direction.
1. GET SPECIFIC
Have you already heard of SMART goals? The acronym SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound. SMART goals are part of an idea that has been around for decades and has helped businesses and individuals increase productivity and stay focused.
Ask yourself this question: If you could have 10 new clients today, but they all had to be a clone of one of your existing clients, who would the existing client be?
The best way to find that existing client is to identify who is the most profitable, gives you the least amount of grief, is a joy to work with, refers you new business, pays on time and who you would genuinely like to have more of.
Once you have identified this client, ask yourself what industry they work in, the size of the business, their turnover, what kind of products and services they offer, how many staff they have, what their business aspirations are and what value YOU offer the relationship.
Now visit your website and read all of the pages, view all of the images and work your way through the site as if you were your number one client.
Imagine that this website has been built specifically for you.
Ask yourself these questions:
1. Does the language used on the website resonate with you?
2. Are the images engaging to look at?
3. Is the information relevant and interesting?
Your website should be built for your number one client and nobody else. This is usually difficult to execute because we are afraid of potentially losing other clients. However, if we have identified who our number one client is, doesn’t it make sense to then focus on just attracting more of them?
2. GET ACTION!
Most websites fail to achieve a measurable goal for the business because they fail to ask the user to take action. If the goal of your website is to encourage potential new clients to pick up the phone or email you with an enquiry, then you need to be explicit about asking them to take that action.
Have you ever been in a clothing boutique when the shop assistant asked you if you’d like to join their VIP club to receive a discount? Some of us join; most of us don’t. But when was the last time you walked into a clothing boutique and asked them if you could join their VIP club? Never. The point is: if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
3. GET FOUND!
It’s no secret that millions of people are using Google every day to search for information and answers to their questions. That’s why you have to ensure that you are in the Google index. This is like making sure your card is in the library index so when someone searches for your type of book they can find you.
Type the following into the Google search engine to see if your website is in the Google index:
site:yourdomainname.com (replace “yourdomainname” with your actual website address).
If your website is not in the Google index, you will need to open an account with Google Webmaster tools and submit your website to Google. Here’s a great video from Jennifer at Google explaining how it works.
4. GET SHARED!
This is the part that requires actual work. You’ve probably heard a thousand times that the key to getting shared on social media is to create engaging content.
Have you ever been at a party and found yourself quoting someone else from a conversation you had a few days ago? Have you ever been at a party and overheard somebody else quoting something you said earlier in the evening? The same principle applies to getting shared on social media. People share things on social media based on how it is going to make them look to their peers. So if nobody is sharing your content on social media, then you need to create different content.
Ask yourself what you could create that your number one client would be interested in sharing with their peers. Types of content can include a blog post, a free report, a video interview, a podcast or a free e-book just like this one you are reading. The key is to make it as useful as possible to number one client and make it easy for them to share.
5. GET BETTER!
The only way to improve your online activities over time is to measure what you are doing.
Luckily, Google provide us with an amazing free tool to track how visitors are behaving on our website. Google analytics should be installed on every page on your website and you should be reading your Google analytics reports once a week to understand how your audience are responding to you.
CONCLUSION
The Internet provides business owners with huge opportunities to connect with new clients and better service our existing clients. It also provides us with an enormous amount of information, white noise and distraction.
My goal was to give you some actionable steps that will make a real difference to how your website is performing for your business.
For more information you can browse our site at https://dermol.si.