You’ve got a website, maybe a website that you spent quite a bit of money on and yet day after day you are waiting for a whole bunch of customers to walk into your business to buy what you have to offer or you’re waiting for a whole bunch of people to give you their email addresses so you can start promoting your product or service.

But wait. Nothing happens.

You are sitting there and your website becomes an expense more than asset. In other words you are just paying to have an online brochure that no one is seeing.

You are probably blaming Google because your site is not showing when people are searching for you or your web developer for not creating a site that all of the sudden was going to bring customers or your prospects for not understanding what your business offers.

But once you start asking why your website is not doing anything, then you start examining the reasons and start looking for solutions. If you have a website (even if it’s very basic) or you’re thinking about building one, start by implementing these basic strategies because they’ll make a huge difference on your overall business marketing strategy!

1) Have an Offer – but not just any offer. Have an Irresistible Offer. An offer that is so good that people would feel foolish to pass up. It could be a huge discount, a free service, free product, etc. Make it very appealing to your target audience. Bring a solution to your audience’s concerns, questions, problems or demands.

2) Have an Opt-in form – this is a form where you ask your visitors to give their names and email addresses so they can receive the Offer you have for them.

3) Have a Call to Action (CTA) button on every single page of your website – the purpose of this CTA is to ask your visitors to do something in order for them to receive your offer. This could be a “Download Now”, “Get Your Offer”, “Give Me Access”, “Give Me My Discount Now”, “Send My Info Now”, etc. This button needs to be very accessible. Not hard to find. The goal is to build a list of people interested on what you have to offer. This is the revenue generator because now you can promote your product or service to people that are looking for what you have.

4) Social Media Presence – Your website is just one of the vehicles you have to increase your customer base. It’s part of your overall marketing strategy. It’s your starting point. But you also must be building your credibility and authority by being present where your customers are. I can guarantee you that at least a portion of your target audience is in one or two social networks. The question is: Are you there also? Are you communicating with them? Also, by being present and active on social media you help the search engines find you.

If you implement these 4 strategies your website will go from being dormant, a nobody to a very active lead generation tool. These basic strategies are so simple and powerful yet ignored by thousands of businesses.

I just finished a pdf in which I go into more detail about these strategies. It’s a FREE report titled “The Real Truth: What You Absolutely Must Know Before Building a Website Yourself and How To Make it Successful”. It’s a MUST read if you are planning on using your website as a lead generation tool that converts leads into buyers.

What do you think of these strategies? Have you implemented them? What other strategies have you used?

How to increase the chances of your content getting shared

Social sharing is a great way to ensure that your content has exposure to audiences you may not have had access to, and can build your business far faster than ever before. What’s more, it’s quite simple to set up and implement!

A few amazing reasons why you want your content shared!

To illustrate just how social media enmeshed we all are in social media, studies show that Americans are spending an average of 37 minutes a day on their various social media accounts, even more than their email! And, it looks like about 60 percent of us are doing that from our mobile device of choice.

With so many making purchasing choices based upon recommendations from friends and review sites, having your content shared socially in a positive manner only adds to the appeal of your products and services.

And last but certainly not least, the incredible reach of social media will benefit your brand in ways you can’t possibly imagine.

4 Ways you can ramp up the social media sharing!

• Include social sharing capabilities in your content – If you don’t supply them with the ability to share it, they won’t! Make sure that you prominently display social sharing buttons on each piece of content you put out there, even emails, and make certain you use calls to action to tell them specifically what you’d like them to do! Incentivize if needed!
• Join relevant social media groups and get your brand known – There are many people in social groups on the major social media sites like Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and others. Search out these groups, join the ones you are able to, and begin to make friends. You’ll be surprised at the results before long!
• Keep it short – Kissmetrics reports those Facebook posts of less than 80 characters are engaged some 66 percent more than longer ones. Keep it brief, and be sure to include a call to action.
• Love those images and videos! – Everyone knows that images and videos are the most shared items on the web. Studies are now showing that posts with images or videos receive a whopping 40 percent more interaction than others that don’t have visuals.