When you invested your time, money, and sanity! into getting a website for your company, you expected it to really help your business generate more leads.  But it didn't help!  And you aren't sure if it's something with the way web works, maybe it just takes time, or if you or your web developer did something wrong.

The simple truth is that your website most likely wasn't designed to actually bring your leads.  What do I mean by that... let's take a look...

Here's the thing... I'm not talking about just SEO and all the fluffy back-end stuff.  All of that is super important and needs to be done - but at the end of the day, if you want leads, then you need to worry more about optimizing for humans and less about pleasing the robots.

Over the years, I've literally rebuilt hundreds of sites for a variety of businesses.  Literally 90% of those sites were designed to be purely informational.

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They did a great job (most of the time) of explaining where a company was located, and what services they offered, but that was about it.  They were missing some essential elements that help them convert leads!  So let's dig into what those are...

A conversion path is as simple of a concept as it sounds like.  Just like Hansel and Gretel, you need to make it simple and intuitive for a visitor to go from landing on your site to converting into a lead you can follow up with.

So with literally EVERY page you add to your site, EVERY social media message, EVERY radio ad, EVERY flyer, and even your business cards - think about what you want them to do next!  Do they need to call you?  Do they need to email you?  Do they need to follow you on Facebook?  Do they need to subscribe to your newsletter?

Whatever your next step for them is - make it very, very, very, VERY, easy for them to do.  If they need to call you, then give them the phone number right there.  If they need to email, then pop in a form they can fill out real quick.

Just like this Mime Playing a Violin, your services, your personality, and your passion are not made for everyone.  You need to think about who your audience is, and what they want to see when they come to see your website, social pages, and printed materials.

What is their day like?  Are they always super busy and need their information in easily digestible bits? Or do they have more time to read, and prefer the details and nitty-gritty information before they make a decision?

Do they know your service(s) by the same name that you do?  Or do they have other colorful ways of describing what you do that they are more likely to be able to relate to?

What pain points drive them to you?  What goals do they have that you might could help them with?  How do they expect to be treated when they reach out to you?

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Knowing your audience is important.  And before you invest any money in marketing, it's an essential step that you need to take.  We even have a free guide you download to help you get started located right here > http://splash.synergysquad.com/build-buyer-profile

Once you know who you’re writing for, and you know what you want their journey to becoming a customer is going to look like, THEN you can focus on making sure your site will perform as well for robots as it does for humans.

Keep in mind that a search engine like Google cares more about the person doing a search than they do about your website or business.  Their customer is the searcher.  The one that is using their service to connect them to the information they seek.

So their job is, and always will be, to find the best possible matches for each search someone performs.  If you want them to care about you, then you need to the be answer, the best result, for that particular person, doing that particular search.  There are a LOT of factors that it looks at to match you up.  But if you’ve put your humans first, then all you have to do is the behind the curtain stuffs like meta tags, and keywords, to make sure that those bots understand what the pages it’s reading are all about.

Every business has an audience on social media – and I do mean EVERY BUSINESS. You just need to find the social channels that are right for you and start promoting yourself.

The big 3 players in the social game are Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. You can share the same message on all of them, but think about how your customers use them and what their mindset will be like.

For example, if you are targeting super busy business people, they are likely to be using Facebook at the end of their day when they are playing and looking at photos of kids and grandkids. While they won’t mind a business-related post, they are more relaxed and on personal time, so don’t talk to them in as professional and serious of a tone. However, on LinkedIn, they are thinking about business when they go there, so you can be more professional and they will expect you to be.

Social media also gives you an opportunity to have a two-way conversation with your potential and current clients. You aren’t just posting messages at them, you are inviting them to comment, and like and share your posts with their family, friends, and coworkers. They can leave you reviews, and send you messages. You can connect with them and let them get to know and trust you.