7 Ways to Stand Out Online and Win New Customers

You've got a website. High five; that is a great place to start. But now that it's built, are your customers coming? Are you happy with the traffic you are getting and the sales you are converting from your traffic? You are in business to earn business, and for most of us, that means growing by generating more sales consistently. So how can you get your great website found so more potential buyers find and choose you first, increasing your opportunity to win more business? We've got seven ways to help you stand out online, resulting in more website traffic to increase your odds of winning more business over your competition. 

But first, we can only jump to action with a plan. Here are four questions to answer to best leverage our seven steps.

1. Who is your customer? The most important part of your strategy is knowing everything you can about your ideal customer. Everything you say and do should be directed at your ideal customer.

a.    What words and phrases are they using to research solutions to problems you solve or needs you fulfill? Where do they go to search for answers? There are about 5 billion online users, and Google has over 84% of the global search market share, according to statista.com.

b.    How do your customers search? Over 60% of all online searches are performed on a mobile device.

c.     Do they rely on business listings? Do they look at online reviews? Above half of the online shoppers (54.7 percent) read at least four product reviews before making a purchase.

Statistics are exciting and give us a sense of macro trends, but you need to understand YOUR customer. And often, it isn't enough to describe a customer as "female adults 18 - 100". When you think your customer is virtually everyone, your customer is no one. We all want to be "liked" by most, and our products or services may fulfill a broad need, but not everyone may need our product or service right now. So, the more detailed you can describe your ideal customer right now, the more you can invest your time and money on practical activities, the best messaging, and optimal channels to reach prospects in the market to find and buy from you. 

2. What do you want your customer to do? When your ideal customer finds you, what action do you want them to take? Every buyer is on a journey. Your job is to meet them as early as possible in their journey and convince your potential buyer that you are the best solution to their problem or fulfill their need better than any other option on the market - so you want them to look no further than you. But understanding your buyer's journey will help you align the right action at the right time to ensure that even if your buyer needs a little more time, they will be convinced you are their choice when the timing is right. Only some people are ready at first sight. It's like dating; are you proposing on the first date? Of course not, so for some of us, our products and services take a little more time and convincing before our customers are ready to commit. It would help if you thought about the actions you want customers to take based on where they are in their buyer's journey. If customers are early in their research, then make sure you have an action your prospects can take - a free consultation, a free assessment, a free trial, helpful content, or resources (checklists, templates, examples). If later in their journey or your type of business has a super short sales cycle where people searching are willing to buy at first sight, ensure that your message and offer are clear on the action the customer needs to take to become your customer. Is your offer a one-time solution? Is it something they buy partially into and then continue to increase investment over time, or is it a subscription? By knowing what you want your customer to do, you can build a strategy that locks customers in early and drives repeat business.
 

3. Why should your customer do it (buy, subscribe, visit) with you? Knowing what makes you uniquely positioned to deliver the best possible solution, product, or service to your ideal customer will help you communicate the right message across your marketing channels. It is a good practice to look at your message and value proposition and remove your name and logo for a minute. Does it look or sound like every other option in your space? If it does, give your message a refresh. Focus your message on anything that differentiates you and how you will service the customer. Your differentiation could be in your approach - think about every stage of your buyer's journey, both pre and post sale to identify differences that could be called out as unique offerings that appeal to prospective customers. 

4. How much do you need? Marketing is measurable. Most of us don't have endless resources and budgets, so we must know exactly how our marketing is working today and have a clear target for the results we need to achieve. We need to have these targets identified for every single activity we consider. Do you know your website traffic numbers today? Do you know how many website visitors take action on your website? How many visitors convert to sales? How many customers do you need to hit your sales targets? Knowing these conversions gives you a sense of how much additional target traffic you need to bring to your website. You will be able to identify which of our strategies to prioritize now. 

Now that you've considered vital questions to guide your strategy let's review the seven actions you can take to increase online traffic and grow your sales. 

1. Optimize for search - To maximize your search engine visibility, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is needed to improve the quality and amount of website traffic from search engines. Why is this number one on our list? Because organic traffic is free traffic. It is also the most qualified traffic. Think about it: do you click on the paid ads or instead skip down to the results Google has curated for you organically? Note that the overall average click-through rate on Google AdWords paid search results is only 2%, meaning that only 2% of traffic for any given search goes to the paid advertisers. Your goal with SEO is to focus on the most likely search terms your audience would use to find you. Not all terms are created equal, of course, but knowing what words your audience is using to see you today, what words your customers are ranking for, and being aware of the gap of words that you'd like to get found for at the top of Google results will give you the guidance to build a content plan. The more you can show up on the SERP, the page that a search engine returns after a user submits a search query, the more traffic you'll win. Typically, only the top 10 search results appear on the first page. The difference in click-through traffic from position 1 to position 10 is about 40%. Consider that 40% more potential customers click on your competitor listed in position one if you are number 10 for the same term. That is just one search result! If you can rank in the top few results for several words, your traffic increases, and then you can do the math on potential revenue based on your average site visitor to sales conversion ratio. And don’t only focus on the high-volume keywords, at least initially, when starting your strategy. Instead, look for low-difficulty and moderate-volume words. You'll rank high with a little focus on new content featuring these words. The volume may be smaller, but the traffic will be qualified and happy to click through to you.  SEO is a big topic, and improving results takes time. Still, with a strategy in place, you will steadily rise in the search ranks, and the effort will pay dividends. 

2. Get found locally - A sub-strategy under SEO, but worth calling out separately, is to have a local SEO strategy. You might not be able to rank high on search results globally, but if your audience is mainly local, you can still be the authority in your local market. Google will reward you as the local authority with more search volume. Some quick wins for Local SEO include having a complete Google Business Profile - including a map, a clear description of your business, adding images, posting questions, and sharing updates. This isn't a set-it-and-forget-it strategy. Most set up their Google Business Profile when they launch and never revisit it. Still, with minimal work, plan to update your Google Business Profile regularly by providing updates and posting pictures to watch your local search traffic increase. Another quick win is to write content; the most straightforward form is a blog on local topics that help you get found in common searches like "salon Washington, DC" and "hair salons near me." 

3. Focus on reviews - Your online reputation is king. So, knowing what your customers are saying about you and having a plan in place to get your customers to write you a review is critical. Most prospects trust companies with at least 40 reviews and are more likely to invest in those with a 4.5-star rating. You want to avoid racking up many negative reviews, but even negative reviews are helpful. They can direct your attention to an opportunity you need to be aware of to improve your business. Even if your business is new, understanding the impact customer reviews have on your business will ensure you have an immediate strategy to acquire reviews from your customers as you win their business. 

4. Appear everywhere your customers are - Most know the importance of maintaining their Google profile, which we discussed under the local SEO strategy. However, that is just one of the hundreds of places where businesses can be listed locally, nationally, or even globally to be found by customers. In some cases, there could be 50+ listings that you qualify for in your industry or category. If each site has thousands of visitors but your business is not represented, think about the volume you are losing. But, knowing what listings are available for your category or market can take a lot of research. When you find listing opportunities, managing 10s or even 100s of listings is impossible with everything else on your plate. Also, more than just being listed is needed to help increase your visibility. It would help if you were listed consistently, meaning everything about your business, from location to phone number to description, should be the same. Having a solution in place (there are free options, and Red Panda Marketing happens to have one) to centrally manage your business profile and placement on all listings will increase more prospects coming to you.

5. Social Media Marketing - Refer to your initial planning questions - know your customers because it isn't necessary to be on all social platforms, only those where your customers are active. Once you know the social platform(s) where you want a presence, build a complete profile and plan for the consistent posting of content. Focus on one social platform first to establish your company and ensure you can show up consistently. If you can't or can't right now, it is better to hold on to this strategy until you can commit to actively contributing on your social page often. There are solutions to help you automate and schedule your posts to one or all platforms. Once you launch, find groups in your space and be part of the conversation. Don't push your business. Win traffic naturally by building up trust and authority with your comments and participation in the discussion. Suppose you are consistently (emphasis on always) sharing helpful and actionable guidance in a group. In that case, the members will want to learn more from you, and the first place they'll go is to your website for more information and resources and sign up for any content sources like blogs or newsletters you are sending to your community. 

6. Write frequently and consistently -  If you can't write or post every day, pick a schedule and stick to it. It is better to show up always one day every two weeks than to be sporadic and go months being silent. Creating ideas to write content consistently may seem daunting, but make it simple. Consider the questions your customers are asking, search for questions you think your customers might have to see what Google says customers are asking, and write articles or website pages to address these questions. Are you researching anything at the moment? If so, write a blog helpful to your customers about what you discovered. What are you attending, reading, seeing, learning, and doing that might also benefit your audience? And often, you can take a single piece of content and share it in multiple ways. Most of us want to read short snippets anyway, so you can get some good mileage out of a long article by splitting it up. Consider communicating through a series that drips out over time or posting short excerpts in different places (social media, in emails, for example) to tease the article to your audience and drive them to the entire article should they want to learn more. Think about the service or product you provide and the helpful information you can share in building that trust and authority with your audience so that they continue coming back for more guidance and ultimately want to invest with you. 

 7. Go mobile! Is your website optimized for mobile? With over 60% of online searches coming from a mobile device, you want to ensure that when your customers find you through search, you keep them when they click through to your site. If the site isn't responsive on mobile devices or is slow to load, your visitors will likely abandon it and return to their search results to find an alternative. A mobile-friendly strategy ensures that whatever you share online is consumable from a mobile device. This strategy includes emails too. Your website will have more content, but knowing that your emails are likely to be read on a mobile device will impact how much content you include. Always send yourself the email and check it on a mobile phone before sending it to your customers. Write again if your main message isn't viewable on screen without having to scroll. 

Bonus step - Set up tracking for everything. Make sure you have a way to measure your marketing activities. Go back often and look at trends in your traffic. You need to listen to your customers and prospects - what are they doing or not doing and make adjustments to your strategy and tactics based on how your audience is engaging or not engaging. You could be wasting your time and budget chasing a dozen different channels instead of focusing on the few where your customers are most active. 

It would help if you found what works for you and your customers. Our steps are a suggested order based on previous experience but perhaps focus on number 1 first to ensure you have a solid SEO strategy, start to measure impact, and use the results to guide your order of execution. 

Red Panda Marketing is a full-service digital marketing agency for small and local businesses. We offer a combination of technology and services to help automate and simplify these functions, which will help increase your online visibility and generate more sales. Contact us today to get your free business snapshot report. The personalized information will give you immediate opportunities to improve SEO, and website performance, getting listed on all the proper business listings and seeing what customers say about you online and how your social channels are performing. We also have a free business toolkit to enable you to address many of the gaps revealed by your snapshot report. We look forward to reviewing your personalized business snapshot with you.