Eric Thomas on Entrepreneur Success

Traffic Tip # 7:  How to Entice Your Readers to Come to Your Website

I was recently in a meeting with a small business owner who wants to increase the number of customers coming into their business. When I mentioned the idea of providing free content as a means to attract followers…they hesitated. A member of their team went on to say, “We don’t want to give information away for free. If we do that, the customer won’t have any reason to pay us.”

Here’s a formula that will make “information marketing” work. You give away 10% and sell the 90%. One of the biggest reasons why a small business owner will bring an outside vendor into their business is because they don’t have the time to implement ‘what’ they’ve been told, or they don’t have the skill to know exactly what steps to take in order to make the system work. Just today, I had a gentleman explain that it will be next week before he can begin following the instructions I’ve given him. He’s on his way out of town and doesn’t have anyone to delegate the work to.

You can drive traffic to your site as long as the content you provide is valuable. There should be enough ‘meat on the bone’ for them to get a taste of the value that you bring to the table. What are the real-life benefits that come from doing business with you? Do you help them to lower costs? Increase revenue? Shorten the sales cycle? Improve employee morale and productivity? I know by experience that you can often tell a business owner everything about what they need to do, and they get overwhelmed with the feeling of…’I don’t want to do all that!”

Here’s a formula you should use in your writing. It’s the A.I.D.A. format of writing articles. It stands for attention, interest, desire, and action.

Attention – the best way to capture attention is with a benefit rich headline. This the most important part of your article by far. Some research indicates that a headline represents 50 to 75% of the value of the article (According to Don Belding in Tested Advertising Methods). Basically, if your headline doesn’t make your reader stop what they’re doing long enough to look into what you’re saying next, what you said in the rest of the article doesn’t matter.

Interest – you maintain interest by keeping your content centered on the interests of the reader. The stories you tell have to speak to what your readers want. The language and the content needs to be something they can relate to.

Desire – make a point to paint a picture of how your reader will benefit from investing in your product or service. Paint the picture so that your prospect begins to experience the benefits of your offering. This comes by being in touch with your audience and knowing what drives them. Tie into those primary dreams and show them how you can put those dreams within their reach. When you do this properly, they’ll begin to salivate for the next step.

Action – the well-known ‘call to action’. This is also known as the close in a sales presentation. Promise them something of value if they go on to your website. Always remember…there is one radio station we all listen to. It’s WIIFM – what’s in it for me? If people perceive enough value in your offer, they will respond.

 Traffic Tip # 8:  You Can Get More Traffic as an Expert

One of the challenges with marketing nowadays is almost everyone takes the position of being an expert. On one hand, it doesn’t make it any easier for you if you’re in a market where competition is fierce. On the other hand, if you’re not an expert, you almost have no choice but to become an expert – quick. Everyone likes to think they’re learning from someone who’s the best in their class…right? Especially if they’re going to make any kind of real investment.

The good thing about writing plenty of articles is that they begin to add credibility to who you are. Picture this setting. Let’s say you needed to find a new doctor and you’re at a local networking event where four doctors are each giving 5 minute speeches on the relationship between a low-sodium diet and a longer life-span. Of the four doctors presenting, one of them has authored four 45-page reports detailing the their findings, and compiled those reports into a book. Who do you think appears more like the expert? If you’re thinking about the “author”…you’re correct.

Writing articles will help to position you as an author and an expert if you remain consistent over time. I’ve written more blog articles than I have for article directories. Nevertheless…I’ve gotten significant feedback from people who’ve read my blog postings. The principles are the same for articles in both places. If your articles index well in the search engines for your topic, your content will help drive additional traffic to your site.

Traffic Tip # 9:  If You Research Your Competition, You’ll Stand a Better Chance of Getting More Site Visitors

It’s one thing for you to have a strategy to drive traffic to your website. But what about your competitors? What are they doing to drive traffic to their websites? It’s good to look at what they’ve done and see if you can one-up them. Online marketing has the disadvantage of being very transparent. However, even when others can see what you’re doing, they still have to possess the discipline to execute a plan of action. 

Here are a few things to look for when studying your competitors:

• what keywords are they using in the title and throughout the article?
• are they using the AIDA formula in their articles?
• how is their resource box designed?
• what websites are they linking to?

Anyway you slice it, marketing is war. A wise soldier never goes to war without studying their enemy.

Are you looking for more strategies to increase sales and revenue? Click here to download my free report. The principles you’ll learn hold just as true when it comes to internet marketing for small business.

Make it a great one!

Tip # 4:  Create a Compelling Author’s Resource Box

Article Marketing is a great way to drive traffic to your website. The key is to provide valuable content that adds value to your readers. If you add value to someone by solving a problem, you’ll begin to stand-out in their mind as an asset. Your article is mostly about giving. The only place in the article for you to “take” is in your resource box.

The end of your article should flow right into your resource box seamlessly. While this resource box may talk about you, it’s really about your reader and what they want. Whatever reason you’re giving them for coming to your site has to be a benefit that means something to them.

As an example, I wrote an article some time ago entitled, “Search Engine Marketing – How to Use Google Adwords to Attract New Customers 24-7-365″. At the end of the article, my resource box invited the reader to another website where I’m offering to give them a cheatsheet that will assist them in the process of using Google Adwords. The resource box is really about providing value. That article got a 13.6% click-through rate to my website because I was offering something that the reader was interested in. Read More→