In this blog post I will talk about how you can go about getting more leads for your business using some proven strategies that are simple yet effective.
Use your Blog
Everyone loves free information, and free information reels in customers – that’s why blogging is one of the best ways to do content marketing. It allows you to keep adding content to your website without scaring customers away.
It can be difficult to make a blog post, because sometimes you just keep putting it off.
But the facts are out, and as stated in Neil Patel’s research, “companies with blogs typically receive 97% more leads than companies without blogs”.
Customers might ignore your ad, but your blog? That’s something that they want to read. Blogging creates a human side to your website, company, or organization.
Blogging is most definitely a way to keep your face in front of current and potential customers.
And if all that wasn’t enough to sway you – posting to your blog just once a month does wonders for the SEO of your website. Pair this with someone promoting and getting outreach for the blog, you will notice a significant boost in ranking.
Use WordPress
Matt Cutts, SEO guru and spam buster at Google himself, has said that WordPress is the best platform for optimized blogging – so good in fact – he uses it himself.
WordPress is easy, and it handles search engine optimization like a pro – if you don’t already have a WordPress website, talk to us about getting one – they can cost as little as $400.
WordPress makes it easy to make blog posts, and doesn’t require any coding knowledge whatsoever, it’s like using Word on the web.
Quality, not quantity
Search engines are looking for websites that have web authority and trust – they want to know that you know what you are talking about, and that the online neighborhood agrees.
The neighborhood is a collection of other sites, businesses, social media influencers, or reviewers that are in your field or area of interest. If they are sharing your content, then search engines take notice.
Use normal language. Don’t try and stuff hundreds of keywords onto a page – Google is a lot smarter nowadays and knows exactly what you are trying to do. Rather than trying to outsmart Google, instead try working with it. Google uses readability testing, so if your website sounds like it was written by a primary school child, or someone with who is not fluent in English wrote it, Google will know – and so will your site visitors.
The other thing that Google is on the lookout for is duplicate, repetitive, or mass-produced content. When it comes to content, quality is better than quantity.
Don't stop posting!
Google and Bing both love fresh content.
Search engines such as Google and Bing will score the freshness factor of a web page from the date that it was first discovered, or when it was last updated substantially enough to warrant notice.
For this reason, content needs to be fresh – not wilted, stale, outdated content that has been on your website since 2005.
To solve this dilemma, you can choose to either repurpose existing content, or simply create new content on your blog. In every blog post you can target certain keywords and customers, and score some points with the search engines along the way.
Having said that, don’t just churn out robotic content, make sure that you switch it up. If your blog is starting to sound something like this: tips to make your garden nicer… blah, blah…. how to make your garden look grand… blah, blah… make your garden look great… then you need to find a new idea, a new angle, and new topic – something!
We can help you come up with idea’s for new blog posts by analysing long tail keywords that we can use to target more customers and boost exposure.
A blog is excellent for content of all manner, whether it be articles, news, podcasts, videos, how-to guides, case studies – anything that keeps you in front of the faces of current and potential customers.
Don’t ever let them forget you’re alive – if you can commit to just one blog post a month, then you will start to notice results.
How to build links
Most people know by now the importance of having multiple, quality links directed to their website, called backlinks.
However, due to link schemes, a shady practice where links are used to manipulate search engine rankings, links coming into your site (backlinks) are scrutinized by search engines.
Search engines consider things like: where are the backlinks coming from? Are they coming from trusted sites? Or are they coming from seedy neighbors, such as link farms?
There are lots of different ways to build quality links, but one of my favorites is guest posting. Guest Posting is the practice of blogging on other websites with a high authority (or high trust) rating. When Guest Posting, it is really important to ensure that they are in your industry or niche. For example, if your website is about landscaping – look for websites about home and gardening.
One thing we do here at StudioHawk is help organise this outreach for you, and set you up with these connections so that you don’t have to, saving you time – and getting you better connections using our network.
Make sure you commit.
Blogging won’t get you to the top of Google and Bing overnight. It’s a long term strategy to build value, trust, and momentum. There are no shortcuts.
While every blog post you do may not be sensational, every post does need to provide value to the reader, because ultimately that’s what you are after. As we all know, more engagement and more shares lead to higher rankings, more visibility, and most importantly, more customers.
So I ask you – what do you have to lose?
If you need any help getting a blog set up, migrating to the WordPress platform, or assistance in reaching out to potential Guest Blogging websites, please don’t hesitate to contact us at any time, as we can provide you with free quotes and advice.
As always, if you have any questions, comments, queries, or even if you just enjoyed the post, please leave a comment below – we make sure to reply to all of them and it means a lot to us!
