Harness the Marketing Power of Your WordPress Site

According to  Econsultancy’s 2016 Conversion Rate Optimization Report, only 22 percent of businesses are satisfied with their conversion rates. If you find yourself among the 78 percent of business owners that are unsatisfied with the conversion rates generated by your website marketing efforts, there’s no better time than right now to harness the marketing power of your WordPress site.

You may feel a bit rattled about revamping your website for a number of reasons: it seems like a lot of work, it’s not in the budget right now, you don’t have the staff for it, etc. However, consider the following recommendations as steps in a long-term project. Reinvigorating your website marketing won’t happen overnight but if you work slowly and methodically, you’ll create a lead-generation powerhouse for your business.

Implement Responsive Design

Visiting websites is no longer limited to surfing from a desktop or laptop. Data from Pew Research Center found that as of 2015, 68 percent of U.S. adults owned a smartphone, and 45 percent owned a tablet. Furthermore, research from Adobe discovered that on average consumers use five different devices per person.

With people looking at multiple screens that come in all shapes and sizes, every business should implement responsive design on its website. Responsive design enables better social sharing numbers, improves Google scoring, lowers bounce rates, and boosts overall website speed. Make it as easy as possible for potential customers to browse your website with responsive design.

Use Clear Navigation

You’re going on a road trip. What do you absolutely need? Probably a GPS system, or a map, at the very least.

Website navigation is how users find their way around your site. If this information is unclear, they’ll like click away. However, if you make it clear where visitors need to go to learn more, make a purchase, read your blog, and/or contact you, these individuals will be more inclined to take the digital journey on your website.

Make it SEO Friendly

Once you have a website that is designed for any device, you want to make it easy for people to find. Since 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine, a website’s SEO ranking plays a crucial role in engaging new leads.

From keyword research to anchor text and everything in between, SEO is an ongoing effort. An SEO marketing expert will install the appropriate WordPress plugins on your site and monitor reporting with Google Analytics, along with a multitude of other tasks to build and maintain your SEO ranking.

Cultivate Content

It’s one of the most important parts of your website marketing strategy but too often it is relegated to the back burner and forgotten. However, companies who regularly post new content on their blog receive 6.9 times as much traffic as those who don’t. Additionally, blogging is great for SEO, with 72 percent of marketers saying it is the most effective SEO tactic.

Just like SEO, cultivating high-quality content is an ongoing practice. At first, it may seem too daunting to take on but once you’ve developed a content strategy and calendar, you’ll find it’s easier than you imagined. Content marketing is a sizeable endeavor but the efforts are worthwhile.

Create Engaging Imagery

As important as written content is, there’s also a lot of value in visual content, which is 40 times more likely to be shared on social media than other types of content. Whether it’s unique photography or interesting infographics, there’s always a way to engage your audience using imagery.

Today, branding your business means telling a story through graphics. A picture says 1000 words without the hassle of having to read. That’s what users want. Satisfy your audience’s craving for visual content by creating imagery that builds a bond between your brand and them. It’ll bolster your bottom line more than you realize.

Develop a Valuable Destination

Why should people visit your site? New content is one reason, and eye-catching imagery is another. However, you want to make the proposition of clicking through to your website as enticing as possible.

Use your website to provide value to your visitors. Whether it’s exclusive offers or special discounts, you have to sweeten the deal. For example, if you decide to give website visitors a coupon for in-store purchases, you can promote this on your social channels. This will drive traffic to your site and bring people in the door. Ultimately, you want to make it worth their while to click through to your site.

Put it Through the Paces

More often than not, marketing practices will be put into effect without testing them. Is there a real need to test your website? The short answer: yes.

Testing empowers you to pinpoint what is working and what needs to be changed on your website. For instance, if your home page is generating a lot of clicks to your contact page but users aren’t filling out the contact form, testing lets you see why your audience isn’t getting in touch with you. Make sure to test the following components of your website marketing on a regular basis:

• Targeting
• Calls-to-action
• Offers
• Form fields/length
• Formatting and layout

It might seem unnecessary or excessive but it’s worth the investment to test your website marketing implementation so you can perfect it. In the long run, testing saves you time and money because you aren’t wasting resources on a website that does not meet your audience’s needs.

Review Analytics

Over time, you will review the reporting analytics of your website as a way of keeping your finger on the pulse. Maybe a page that performed really well during the holiday season is receiving no traffic during the spring. This tells you that you need to update the page seasonally to continue meeting the demands of your audience. Use your reporting analytics to guide your website marketing tactics moving forward. It will prevent you from having to massively overhaul your site in the future.

Website marketing is a major venture but ultimately a purposeful one. Your website should be working for you: generating leads, engaging former clientele, and building brand awareness. Of course, you can’t be expected to know everything about content marketing, web design, testing, and so on. Connect with experts who can effectively transform your website now.