Although my website came to life three years ago, I never considered creating a blog until I decided to work as a freelance digital marketer. Now that I have started blogging for the last three months, I have gained a lot of insights that I feel are reserved by the digital gurus to game up their marketing. Not bad, works for them, but what about the remaining participants of this gig economy? Will they never see the light of the day?
5 Ways to Lead Generation for your New Website
It is very simple for a large website to generate leads and then run successful marketing campaigns. But as a newbie like me, how do you generate leads? This is a matter of concern because a website is a town hall for freelancers to market their services. So, we begin with search engine optimization or SEO. Here, please make sure that every page of your site has clear search intent optimized for SEO. Rake up some free tools like Google Ad Planner and Answer the Public, and task your genius to feed your site with content that suits its appetite. I have explained successful ways of content creation here so that you don’t have to spend time navigating for a solution.
Some statistics for you- I started with 200 impressions without clicks and in three months, my Search Console reports state that I have 1.9k visitors with an average of 85 clicks. Can you think of this unimaginable ratio? If 1.9k gets me 85 clicks resulting into 4 gigs on Fiverr, and three direct leads, how much more do I have to work to increase this ratio?
Shave your Party Budget to Splurge on Code Canyon
SEO is just runaway. For your freelance career to take off, you need to have traffic or website visitors. So, we need to create magnets that will attract traffic and promote them on social media. This aspect asks you to have funds for promotion, but you need not burn your pocket for brand awareness. WordPress has several free tools for generating substantial website traffic. You can use them or shave off your weekend party budget to invest in some really useful tools for $20 on Code Canyon. You can use these tools to build your brand and your email list.
Hire a Pigeon for Lead Generation through Email Marketing
You were just kidding! So, once you have some traffic and a fairly solid email list, turn to email marketing. A good-looking actor can turn the lights off, but a good email body always turns the light on your product/service. This way, you can run a bi-weekly newsletter, engage with your audience, and market their solutions to problems that are killing them. According to HubSpot, ninety-nine percent of digital natives check their email at least twice every day. This can be an opportunity for you to learn that 59 percent of marketers agree with email marketing through e-book, quizzes, infographics, demos, contests, special offers, free trials or polls.
Lead Generation through Curating Communities
The other day, my friend, Sujata, informed me that she would join her sister’s bakery venture. I was excited to hear this. She has picked up designing from Canva and website building courses from Udemy. As a health care operations professional, her knowledge of digital marketing needed a head start. I recommended she create a Facebook group and engage with the cake lovers of Kolkata. A significant part of my advice was not to force sales that will drive and distract the group’s morale. Instead, it should be purely a group of cake lovers. Benefits include-
- Best practices shared by other baking experts in the community
- Inspiration and information about new baking techniques and recipes that her sister isn’t aware of already.
- Understanding the geographical concentration of the cake lovers for custom flavors, cost estimation, and other backchannel marketing strategies
- Connect with potential vendors and distributors with a broader network of consumers
Bookmarking for New Website Lead Generation
Bookmarking is one of the time-consuming yet inexpensive ways of attracting traffic. How can you do that without spending money, even if it costs your time? Make a list of high DA websites where you can make thoughtful comments backlinking your website. Don’t be lazy and make a random comment template for every platform. When you comment the same stuff everywhere, Google calls it spam and all the anti-spam check bots will detain your IP and add it to their blocklist. Dedicate an hour of your day, maybe once or twice a week, as per your convenience and post comments on ten high DA websites that invite the author or the publishing channel to respond. Again, don’t be hurtful. Publisher may report you as spam.
Did you know that a spammer is the most despicable creature on the Internet? They belong to the tribe of hackers and phishing experts. You’ll not know if you are reported for spamming, but in the long run, if there’s no corrective measure, you will hurt the health of your site, and spam engines record spamming everywhere.
Technical SEO Expedites for a New Website
If you run my site for speed check-up, you’ll know that there is a constant fluctuation in my page speed. Sometimes, my Google Page Analytics reports fast loading on mobile phones and sometimes on a desktop. Sometimes, it is pathetic red and the other times, yellow. I know how to fix it, but inline CSS is the biggest challenge. Make sure you don’t have them. My traffic has improved more than before, but I know that I have miles to go to have it all green. Other factors include the UX/UI of your site, the server that hosts it, and your domain provider.
Ideally, bloggers focus on their growth after they gain experience. In my situation, I share my experiences so that you don’t waste time doing the same thing and think of better ways of lead generation for your new website. I would appreciate it if you shared some of your practices that can add value to this discourse.
