Boost Your Online Presence

In last month's feature article, we defined inbound marketing and the effect it has on your website's ability to be the dynamic lead generator that your organization is seeking. We also outlined that the amount of traffic your website gets is in direct correlation to the amount of sales opportunities that you away with. This month we will go over one of the best practices on how to drive users to the resources on your organization's website: Using social media.

Seemingly the entire world uses social media. Facebook alone has over one billion users. If Facebook was it's own country, it would be the third most populous nation on the planet. Other social networking and microblogging sites such as Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn all have hundreds of millions of users. With these kind of staggering subscription rates, you can see to realize that the use of these interfaces can gain you the exposure you're seeking and bring traffic back to your website.

Many of the social networking and microblogging services now allow users the option to pay to promote their posts. This is extremely valuable for users that are running promotions or advertising campaigns. For a small fee, you are guaranteed a certain degree of exposure that is hard to obtain by just saturating the interface with updates. It may not be prudent to promote every message, but by doing so with some of your organization's extra important or time-conscious posts, you can increase exposure and drive more traffic to your website.

Social media is not limited to social networking sites and microblogs. In fact, many would argue that these services aren't even the most valuable resources that you can use to drive users' website visitation. The most dynamic tool you can roll out for your website is a personal blog. Many companies don't get the most out of their blog because they make the mistake of publishing any new content under the company's handle, instead of using the name of the individual who wrote the content, or even the name of the company president or director of marketing. Sure, the author of a blog seems like a semantic issue, but crediting the content to a specific author instills in the viewer a human-to-human connection. This relationship gives the impression that a real person wrote this and has exponentially more value than anything you can publish under your company's handle.

There are several free blogging resources available. Google's Blogger interface is the most popular blogging application on the internet, but for more customizable options, there are several blogging interfaces available for content management systems (CMS) like Joomla or Wordpress. Whichever interface you decide to use, creating poignant and useful content is a must. We described the need for useful content a little bit in last month's inbound marketing primer. Basically, if you set up a blog on your company's site and you offer no other information other than blatant attempts to sell your products, there's a fair chance that it won't be as valuable to potential readers then it needs to be to keep the user on your site; letting a potential lead get away.

Another way to get users to stay on your site longer is by offering them the chance to get engaged on the site itself. This can be accomplished in multiple ways. Whether you institute a live chat option, build a forum, or simply allow users to comment on your blog, allowing visitors to get more involved will keep them on the site longer and increase your organization's chance at capturing their information. Building your company's website with dynamically interactive capabilities builds a degree of intrigue in a user's mind that isn't available with a plain website and static, uninteresting content.

An example of this is prominently posting client testimonials. If your have customers that will speak openly about how happy they are with your services; if you bring value to their organization, getting video testimonials or case studies should not be difficult. It is a fact that word of mouth is the best form of advertisement. If you are able to incorporate a place on your website to show how satisfied your customer base is, it can be a fantastic way to attract new leads.

Here at JoomConnect, we specialize in the managed IT vertical. Our JoomConnect automation software can give clients that use the ConnectWise PSA the ability to automate their website's lead-capture capabilities to turn their website into a dynamic sales and marketing hub. For more information about JoomConnect and how it can be a game changer for your MSP, give us a call at (607) 431-2200 or toll free at (888) 546-4384.