Many people believe the old myth: “If you build it, they will come.” It may have been your favorite Kevin Costner movie, but it’s not a great motto to live by when it comes to your website strategy. Simply having a website doesn’t mean you’ll get oodles of new clients, but having a strategy that considers key elements of online persuasion will.
Step 1 – Get ranked
Since two-thirds of website traffic originates in a search engine, ensuring that you are visible on the first page (preferably towards the top) is a crucial first step. This is one area that has received a lot of attention from business owners as people fight for top rankings.
How to be top-ranked in search engines goes well beyond a pretty website and encompasses way too many things to cover in this blog, but is a crucial first element to a successful website strategy so you should speak to your search engine coach to see where you are ranking when people are searching for your services.
Step 2 – Attract a Click
Just because you came up first doesn’t mean that the user will click on your listing. Many times people won’t even click on the first listing because they skim the list that is immediately visible to select which listing seems to fit what they are looking for. So, as a website owner you need to connect the dots between what people are searching for and what shows up when you are ranked. For example, if someone typed in ‘hair extensions long beach’ they will likely click on the listing that says ‘Top rated hair extensions in Long Beach, CA’ over something that says ‘Vals Long Beach Salon’. The first listing had a lot more relevance to what they are looking for.
What is displayed in this search listing is all controlled on the website page that is ranked. So, having a page dedicated to hair extensions would be a good idea if you are trying to attract this sort of traffic. Not only having this page dedicated to your hair extensions services, but labeling the page attributes with keywords about hair extensions. For example, your page title, the meta description and all images on the page. For more information and background on this, read our previous blog on 3 considerations for attracting website business.
Step 3 – Get them to inquire
Believe it or not, this step can be the hardest. The final stage of actually making money from your website efforts is getting the people that make it to your site, stay on your site and actually book an appointment or purchase something. This action is often called a conversion and is easily measured and studied on a website.
You could most certainly break each phase down into further steps and considerations, especially this portion. There is a lot of science and testing that goes into getting the highest percentage of people that visit your site to call, email or book with you and every step of the process is vital in increasing this ultimate conversion. For example, if the person had originally typed in ‘hair extensions in long beach’ as listed in the previous example and then clicked on a page titled ‘Top Hair Extensions in Long Beach, CA’ and when they got there it was a page all about clip-ins rather than permanent extensions, they may just leave the page and continue searching. Wouldn’t that be a shame if you offered both and you just lost that potential client because your web page didn’t list the right information?
Author Bio: Valorie Reavis
Social Marketer, foodie, closet geekA marketing professional who has focused primarily on the hair and beauty business for of the past decade, Valorie now runs linkup marketing, a digital marketing agency for the hair and beauty professional. Valorie works to engage clients in the marketing process and help them successfully engage with their clients and community. Energetic and passionate about the industry, Valorie focuses on blending traditional and digital media in order to bring salons closer to their clients.
