25 Website Must Haves for Driving Traffic, Leads & Sales

25 Website Must Haves for Driving Traffic, Leads & Sales – Having a website alone isn’t the key to great results. Instead, it’s the ability turn your website into an inbound marketing machine. Your website has a hefty goal and it needs to wear many hats.

A website needs to not just exist, it needs to perform. It needs to attract visitors, educate them and convince them to buy. But I know what you’re thinking – easier said than done.

Today, the web is social and interactive. It’s not static like most websites tend to be. As such, a website can no longer sustain as its own island. We now need to consider integrating search, social media, content, blogging, and more with our websites. Gone are the days where all it took was a URL, fancy Flash graphics, and an expensive advertising campaign to temporarily boost traffic.

The reason for this shift is largely due to changing buyer behavior. Today’s buyer wishes to consume information when they want and how they want it and often-times without the involvement of a salesperson. And more importantly, they want to be educated and not sold to.

As you can see from the following chart, websites and new forms of inbound marketing content (such as podcasts, blogging and social media) have become a considerable factor in the buying cycle.

You’ll also find in HubSpot’s State of Inbound Marketing Report that inbound marketing is more effective in reaching today’s buyer. Results show that inbound marketing has a 62% less cost per lead compared to outbound, or traditional, marketing.

What might not be apparently visible here is the role your website plays. It’s actually a big one. In most cases, traffic from blogs, social media, organic and paid search end up converting into leads or sales on your main website.

Without a website acting as an online basecamp, it would be difficult to attract new business to one source. This is why having an effective website is so crucial and that it contains key elements to driving more traffic, leads, and sales.

So without further ado, I present to you 25 Website ‘Must Haves’ for Driving Traffic, Leads and Sales. To learn more about a particular must-have, you’ll find additional resources at the bottom of each topic.

Definitely take advantage of these if you’re looking to master inbound marketing.

GET FOUND ONLINE

A great website isn’t so great if no one visits it. This is why the first chapter is dedicated to getting found online, which covers the very top of the funnel of your inbound marketing strategy.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an absolute must-have to any website strategy, but it takes hard work and consistency when aiming for the top spot. These tips will help get you on your way to increasingyour organic (non-paid) search engine rankings.

Building Inbound Links

Every website on the internet has the goal of reaching the #1 position in search engines but because there is only one top spot per keyword phrase, not everyone can make it. So what gets a first place ranking? Off-page search engine optimization (SEO) is the most important factor to increasing your ranking results.

Off-Page SEO is about building inbound links, essentially getting other quality websites to link back to you. Search engines call this authority or “link juice.” The more inbound links you have, the more important your site must be, thus the higher you’ll rank.

Link building, when done right, isn’t easy since adding links to other websites is sometimes out of your control. Here are some tips to building inbound links:

• Create high-quality, educational or entertaining content. If people like your content, they will naturally want to link to it.

• Submit your website to online directories. This is an easy way to start.

• Write guest posts for other blogs. This is a win-win for both parties. People will want extra (quality) content from others and in exchange, it’s a great way to build inbound links.

• Researching link building opportunities with other websites, but always check the authority of the websites that you are trying to get links from. There are many tools online that allow you to check domain or page authority.

• And don’t borrow, beg, barter, bribe or buy links.

25 Website Must Haves for Driving Traffic, Leads & Sales

Building Inbound Links

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