So how do we get more traffic to our site?  You need to understand that the fundamental reason that prospects are on searching on the Internet is to get answers to the questions they have in their head.  Your job is to put that answer right in front of their face and to eventually get them to pull out their credit card and give you money.

Attracting more traffic to your site isn’t as difficult as you might think.  It’s as simple as making it as easy as possible for your prospect to get the answers to the questions they already have.  There are a few basic concepts you need to master but when you have these concepts down, getting the traffic to your site is a piece of cake.

The most important concept is knowing what to say and how to say it.  One of the most frustrating things I hear entrepreneurs saying is “I’m not a copywriter”.  I call BS.  You’ve talked to customers before haven’t you?  You’ve made a few sales?  Did those people just buy without talking to you, or did you have to sell to them?  The content that you need to be putting out there is the same “content” you’re giving to prospects and customers.  It needs to answer the questions they already have in their head.  It needs to be about them – not about you.  It needs to have correct grammar – without misspellings.  Most importantly, it needs to have a call to action that is extremely clear.  I’ll do an in-depth guide to copywriting in a separate post, but those are the basics to making your content.

The second important concept is promotion.  Putting content out for prospects to consume without promoting it is like having a cure for cancer locked up in the vault in your basement – it doesn’t do anyone any good. There are a million and a half ways to promote your content (see below for a few of them).  It takes a combination of a few of those ways to effectively promote the content you’re putting out.  The key to successful promotion is to track what’s working and what isn’t so you know where to put your efforts and more importantly what to stay away from.  One quick tip on this, make sure you track the most important metric for each of these promotions (aka “lead sources”) – revenue.  Often times entrepreneurs get blinded by the opt in rates.  You might be getting a ton of new leads – but are those leads converting into paying customers?

The third important concept is to make sure that you are getting something out of it.  You’ve spent time and money (the 2 most valuable resources you have) making it easy for the prospect to get the answer they are looking for and you need to get something in return.  If someone wants the answer your content provides and they are serious about getting the answer they’ll fill out a form to get it.  When you do this you’re setting the expectation that you don’t just give stuff out for free.  If someone isn’t willing to fill out a form with their contact information to get the answer to the question they have – are they willing to fill out a form with their credit card to pay for the solution you are providing?

I’ll cover each of these 3 concepts in more depth in future blog posts, but in the meantime ask yourself – “What content can I put out that will attract traffic to my business?

The 4 Most Creative Ways to Capture Leads From Your Site

1. Build A “101 list”

The idea behind a 101 list is to almost overwhelm prospects with the possibilities.  The list might be 101 ways to use your product or service.  It could be a list of the top 101 questions you get asked.  These types of lists get shared in social media circles all the time and often times become “authority documents” that writers cite when creating articles or other blog posts.  Often times that citation includes a link which helps with your Search Engine Optimization.

2. “10 Easy Tips to Help You…” articles

Again, these are exceptionally easy for others to link to.  The premise behind this lead magnet is to give them a digestible bite sized chunk of information that entices them to engage with you in some way.  By creating 10 tips – you’re casting a wide net over their issues and you’re bound to hit on one or two that is painful enough for them to start engaging with you via phone, email, social media etc.

3. Create extensive resource lists for a specific topic.

When you realize that site visitors are there to get a question answered, your next thought should be “I need to be the one that gives them the answer.”  Sometimes though, you might want to point them in the direction of someone else that is an expert in a related business.  For example, my blog is all about marketing automation for small businesses.  There are a ton of SEO experts, PPC experts, copy-writing experts that I follow that I have no problem sending you to – because I know that they aren’t competing with me.  A resource list like this establishes you as an expert that helps his or her clients save time wading through all the so called experts to find the ones that are legit.

4. Create a list of the top 10 myths for a specific category.

I recently did a webinar with Perry Marshall where he talked about this specific topic.  A “top 10 myths” lead magnet is designed to keep buyers from making mistakes.  The prospects that request this type of magnet is almost in buying mode (if they aren’t already).  The 10 myths should be legitimate myths, but the way to avoid the myth needs to be your product or service.

How are you capturing leads from your website?