In such a social media era like ours, it is still somewhat of a mystery how some websites manage to keep getting views on their sites while others literally struggle. It almost feels like there is this magic wand that the successful websites have that the struggling one don’t. Hopefully, what I’m about to share will help you gain the needed insight and command your own wand, driving more eyes to your website.
The Number 1 Rule of Owning a Website
Few business owners understand this, but the main purpose of a website is to get seen. When you get seen more than once and by multiple eyes, you are said to be generating leads. It is from these leads that clients come and business flows. However, like many have observed, the trend is to sell, sell, sell; after all we are in our online marketing filled world. This can tricky and sometimes hard to think beyond just creating an offer using a landing page and selling instantly. Who doesn’t want to make it Big? I’m talking about the long haul here.
Websites like Techpoint and BusinessInsider and many others like them have understood that the money is in the numbers. I by that I mean repeat numbers. How many stores do you know are still open for business without leads walking in frequently each day?
When businesses like Techpoint share their website content, chances are that people who like the content will share them on social media leading to much more reads and leads, which is their number 1 goal. That is what your aim should be- to get people excited by your content that they end up sharing instantly. Do you see the point?
What is your own business goal?
Have you determined the steps you must take to reach that goal?
Where does your website fit in in the series?
What can you share to get people to click the link that leads to your website content?
Have a click bait
A Click Bait is best described as content whose main purpose is to attract attention and encourage visitors to click on a link to a particular web page- google
Again going back to what Techpoint, BusinessInsider, TechCrunch and your favorite websites do, reflect on what they write that makes you unconsciously click to read more. That sentence or two is the click bait. And because their content is good, you always go back, thereby increasing their google rankings and open rates. What do they get in return? More leads, that’s right. You’re getting it!
In case you are wondering, Click baits can be text, video or both.
Before jumping into creating any content, first think about what you want to share; what you want your business to be known for- it could be ;
Your culture
Trends you are passionate about
Businesses you love
Causes you support
It could be anything really. The idea is that you write for those people who are as passionate about that topic/ cause/ idea as you are. Then think about the choice of words that will get them to click to read more. See some suggestions from contentrow. Notice how enticing the contents are.
There’s a caveat here though – you must have something relevant to share that’s rich and informative and resonates with a specific audience segment, not the whole internet. Otherwise, your rankings will reduce. Meaning you have to be in this for the long haul. You may want to hire a freelancer or a team of copywriters to help you out here.
Notify visitors of new content
Have an automation system in place that automatically notifies your readers/ leads that you have put up new content. I personally recommend Onesignal.
While it requires some setting up to have it active and in play, you will be very happy to have it on your side when you push out content. Onesignal sends out automatic notifications to subscribers the moment updates are shared. I personally love it for it’s simple setup process.
You might consider other tools however, but Onesignal is free. So what’s there to lose?
Conclusion
We all will be happy if our website got thousands of views each day. I know I would. With a strategy in place and the appropriate tools as discussed above, it is possible. But it begins with you knowing why you are creating content and for who? I hope the tips above are helpful to you.
If so kindly share your thoughts in the comments below.
I’ve been particularly interested in the ‘what’ and ‘why’ that makes it possible for ideas and business proposals to be accepted. I’ve tried different ideas and strategies in hopes of finding the right mix that’d make it smoother for my ideas to be accepted by right audience.
I believe strongly that behind every idea and pursuit is a potential for a global phenomenon, given the right circumstances of course.
Problem
Many ideas I’ve come up with have hit one too many brick walls – eg
‘It’s not practical to the target market’
‘It’s numbers don’t add up’
‘The idea is plain sack’
‘No one will fund this’
(You can add to the list here)
It absolutely sucks to be in this position where you believed deep down that that idea was going to be revolutionary but get shut down when you bring it up to a potential client or investor.
Over time, this is what I’ve learnt:
Irrespective of our backgrounds, we all want it SIMPLE.
Think about that for a sec.
When we listen to ideas, we are only moved by it’s simplicity regardless of our exposure and experience. It is the simplest form of an idea that makes prospects and investors feel connected to that business idea, proposal and concept you bring them.
The slight wrinkle however is that ‘simple’ is subjective. Their SIMPLE might be your HARD and vice versa.
It’s why some of us still find it hard to figure out the place of some technologies in our businesses or our grand plans. At least for now we don’t see the clear picture yet.
It’s also why no matter how sweet your offer is, no body seems to give a damn.
Solution
To keep your idea simple, you must understand what your prospect cares about the most and prepare your idea strictly for that problem.
Now I’m not saying it is something you will figure out right of the bat. You might have to dig a little deeper to find this one because contrary to popular opinion, you won’t really get this stuff from Google. I mean, you might get a little. But you see that thing that a guy and and girl attempt to build before they tie the knot? You should be doing it to.
Imagine walking up to a guy or babe you’d like to date and then you start rambling about how their life will suck without you in it? 😮😮😮
You know how the story will end before beginning right?
Keep it simple.
Connect with them
Genuinely care about them
Look out for their interests
Show in clear terms how a solution will impact their business as clearly as you can.
(Add your own)
Little by little, they will share their deepest concerns with you and most likely request your assistance.
***
hmm… I wonder who you know that is doing just that and have reaped huge rewards as a result? 😎
***
Clearly your results depend solely on how easily you, your idea and/ product gets received or perceived by your audience. Sadly, you can’t separate the trio.
If your idea gets across to your prospect or lead as too difficult, strange, unexciting, scary, boring, people get turned off. If you think about it, it’s probably happening to you already. You just have to keep it simple.
*Are you with me?*
Here’s the point
It is in keeping your ideas simple that your prospects will engage with your copy and content leading to possible sales and future transactions.
When you think about it, isn’t this what makes for successful online courses, facebook ads, converting landing pages and successful businesses?
You can write 10 pages of an ad copy and it will flunk if the idea is not simple enough for your target audience.
———————————————- Let me let you in on a little secret.
———————————————-
We are all wired to resist the difficult to understand. It’s why many of us still shut down whenever we see maths equations. It’s the same reason why many business ideas seems to fall on deaf ears irrespective of how brilliant and foolproof they are. Many of your clients are at this state right now, thanks to the millions of opinions out there.
KEEP IT SIMPLE.
Your keeping it simple may require just a change in how you deliver your content or product.
Your keeping it simple may take some extra time for you to figure out the simplest form of your idea.
But, that slight change in your overall strategy could be the magic wand you have been missing all along that’ll score you great sales and huge clientele.
.
I launched my business. I am super excited about the future. Everyone is happy for me (or so I think)- they are all smiles. I have printed my business cards some fliers and started talking to businesses and potential clients. Hmm…they seem interested in what I do…
But….
Something tells me I’m missing something. Ah..yes. I need be have a website. A business coach I respect says so. After all, how can I own a business for clients beyond my locale and have no website. Clearly it’s a no brainer- I need a website. But where do I begin?
I’ve seen many websites on the internet- millions of them.
How do they do it?
A quick Google search reveals that I can hire a website designer or design my website myself. Sweet.
I think I’d love to build my website myself. I saw a few videos on youtube on how to create websites from the scratch in under 1 hour!
SUPER AWESOME!!!
I will do this myself.
Where it all Begins
My website is like a house. A house needs to be on a property owned by a landlord and has a address for easy location. To stay in my current place, I pay a yearly rent to my landlord. Similarly, for my website to be identified and found by people, I has to be hosted by a landlord – a webhost, and will need an address – a Domain Name.
There are thousands of webshosts on the internet who host websites for businesses like mine. I want one that’s in Nigeria and will cater to my needs. So I search for some Nigerian webhosts and voila! I think I’ve found my choice. The plan is good and the pay is just within budget. I make my decision based on storage and bandwidth- two crucial factors I hear are responsible for a super or horrible website navigation experience.
The storage capacity determines how much data I can upload to my website for visitors to access. Videos, audios, and Images can easily consume space. I’m selecting a storage space of 20GB at this time. I don’t see myself exhausting that capacity in a year. In any case, if that happens, I can simply upgrade my hosting plan- yeah It will cost me a little extra. But if the need arises, I sure know what to do.
The bandwidth determines how fast my website will go irrespective of the number of simultaneous user access. I believe the bandwidth on my present storage capacity will do just fine.
Who’s ready to build his own first website? I know I am.
CMS or Hard Coding?
I am a huge fan of ease of use. I have seen several arguments for and against CMS and Hard coded websites. One thing I have observed to be consistent with the two is that you need softwares to hardcode a website as well as to build on CMS (Content Management Systems). My use case it seems favors CMS. I hear WordPress is super cool and has enough options to help me achieve my dream site. Let’s get started.
Phew!
Setting up WordPress
Setting up WordPress is pretty straightforward as you will see in the video below
That was pretty cool right?
Your next step now is to start building your website just the way you like it. You may find it helpful to draw inspiration from the websites of other businesses you admire. That way your question will revolve around ‘what plugins?’ you will require for specific functions and tasks on your website.
Now there are millions of plugins and templates out there to choose from, so take your time and be sure you have a pretty good idea of the basic functionality your website must have. Start from there and work your way up. I have found that approach to be quicker and efficient as it helps me get the website online in as little as 48 hours or less!! Yep, you read that right.
Conclusion
Creating the ultimate website is a matter of context, your own context. Your context is determined by what you hope to achieve with your website. That said, you only have to bother yourself with the essential parts that come together to make your website functional like ours. To do this as explained above, you need a hosting plan, a domain name, a CMS and a few necessary plugins and you are good to go.
I’ve tried to make this as brief as possible. If you found it helpful, kindly share with your friends and colleagues.
If you have questions you would like answered, be sure to ask in the comments below. I’ll be happy to answer them.
Have you ever done things before without a pre-set plan in place? Well many of us definitely have. When it comes to business is there a need for a business plan?
“I don’t have one” was Carl Icahn’s (A renowned business man) response when asked to see his business plan for his new company.
You may think this is normal for a first time entrepreneurial adventure. But what if you were told that Carl has started many companies in his 20-year tenure as an entrepreneur?
And with all the companies Carl started, none of them have ever exceeded revenues of a million dollars. Many of them failed and Carl was forced to shut them down within the first year of business.
Does this mean Carl is a terrible businessman?
Not necessarily.
What it means is Carl did not understand the purpose and the value in creating a business plan and making good use of the right kind of technology. And unfortunately this is pretty typical of many entrepreneurs.
They think flying by the seat of their pants and relying on their street smarts and intuition is the spirit behind entrepreneurship. This could not be further from the truth.
If you don’t plan for growth . . .
Now I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that you and other entrepreneurs you know have never developed a business plan and you are doing “ok” – right?
Well, here is the big secret – you can always do better. I know for me — “ok” simply is not good enough!
And if you don’t plan for growth with the right tech you may grow, but chances are good you will not be able to sustain it. Planning for growth is essential. According to Price-Waterhouse-Coopers, “two-thirds of CEO’s of fast growth organizations develop some type of business plan”.
Deploying good technological strategy for your business plan stands to benefit your business even more.
Incorporating technology strategies into your business plan helps you to run a more competitive business. For example, you may realize that you need a certain piece of equipment to operate your business. Yet you may not immediately realize how it will affect your business financially in the long term. How you strategically use the Internet to market your business is another technology area that benefits from proactive analyzing. By addressing these areas in your business plan, you may experience less monetary surprises in your allocated budget.
Conduct Cost-Benefit Analyses
A Cost-Benefit Analysis is used to determine the payback or break-even point of any investment over a period of time. Technology continues to advance, and this fact alone makes it worthwhile to conduct a CBA on technology-based equipment and services before making a purchasing decision. Run a CBA to show the purpose of technology equipment and services you plan to use in your business. List the upfront and operational annual costs. This will include the dollar estimated value of lost time due to unforeseen circumstances, such as down-time, disruptions and sick-time. The impact of internal control, security and privacy risks must be considered on both sides of the CBA. Next, assign a realistic cost estimate to the benefits to quantify the purchase’s annual beneficial value. Deduct the annual investment from the benefits. Three years and under are typical break-even points for technology-based equipment such as computers and printers. Some investments like building purchases may take longer to reach payback. The Small Business Administration provides a CBA worksheet.
Place a general overview of how you plan to market your business online in your business plan. More details can be placed in your marketing strategy. Developing a website, selecting a domain name, and defining the products and services you will offer on the Internet are all parts of a good technology strategy for your business plan. Search engine registrations, social networking, directory listings and online advertisements are ways to market your business and solidify your online presence. These technology strategies, if mentioned in your business plan, can help you track your marketing effectiveness. Then, you can see more clearly where to make changes to remain competitive. Check out this link as it can equip you with more information on the use of internet resources https://www.huffingtonpost.com/melinda-emerson/small-business-advice_b_3826366.html
Plan A Technology Growth Strategy
A growth strategy for advanced technology can be internal, that is, companywide. For example, in the beginning of your business, you may have to wear many hats, including handling accounting tasks. Your two-year vision may be to improve the efficiency of business processes in accounting. After conducting a cost-benefit analysis, you could include in your business plan a goal to implement more efficient, streamlined accounting software and an employee. An external technology growth strategy for your business plan may be more customer-focused. You may need to acquire the needed equipment and services to get benchmarked with your competitors. Alternately, you could decide to outsource certain advanced technology services. Your ideas for strategic growth in dealing with technology can be added to your business plan. Furthermore, implementing both internal and external growth technology strategies covered in your business plan can keep it from becoming stagnant. Check out this link for further information on the use of technology as a strategy growth in business.
One skill that many entrepreneurs and small businesses struggle with daily is how to create graphics that do justice to their brands especially with their little or absent graphics skills. So it was with great applause that canva was welcome to the online community. The web-app has gone ahead to be invaluable to many businesses including me myself.
I especially love the canva app for its speed of turn-around. I literally create my designs in under 10 minutes and they are ready to serve. This is something that’d typically take me perhaps 30 minutes to an hour in traditional stand alone apps.
Now canva has a mobile app which is so brilliant. The accompanying image was designed right from my mobile phone. Interestingly I have somehow forgotten I have other traditional apps I use.
Canva is not the only webapp that creates graphics. I tried my hands on CTDesign another mobile app that create cool graphics. The learning curve however may not be palatable for most users- it does have cool features though – however not as amazing as canva. I must be objective here. Canva is awesome!
If you have yet to check it out, do so. I endorse fully.
Especially with the rise of instagram and the massive appeal of images, there has never been a better time to create eye popping graphics that project your brand to the right audience in an appealing form. My handle has literally gotten more engagement because I can now design and post on the go without having to think about when I can get on my PC to plan, think and design a graphic.
I hope you take advantage of this super cool tool and utilize it in your business going forward.
