Hey everyone!
This week, I'll explain why launching your website marks only the initial step in using it effectively:
- What most businesses get wrong
- What to do after your website goes live
- Why you need to spend time on lead generation
The reason is because you put so much effort into launching your website. Once it’s live, you take your foot off the gas. But once you understand that this is only the beginning, you set yourself up for your website to become a success in your business.
Let’s get started!
Don’t make these silly mistakes (most businesses make these)
In order to have a website that works for your business, you first need to make sure you don’t make a few of the most common mistakes:
- Build it and they will come. This is an outdated mentality that relies on the thinking that, what you have is so great people will just so show up.
- No strategy for growth. Having no clear plan to iterate and improve your website is setting yourself up for failure.
- The website launch is the end. The day your website launches is the beginning, not the end. Here is where the work starts.
The reason people tend to make these mistakes is because they don’t have a complete picture of how a modern website works. And as a result, they keep themselves stuck in this feedback loop of misaligned expectations.
So, here’s how to fix it.
Congrats, your website is live! What’s next?
Whatever you do, don’t stop here.
This is where most businesses throw in the towel and wait for visitors to show up.
Your website is different than a brick and mortar store. A brick and mortar store has a physical location with built-in lead generation channels via it’s location alone.
Your website doesn’t.
It can get lost on the internet and never be seen by anyone.
Did you know there are over 1 billion websites that exist today?!?
Now, how confident are you that your website will be discovered?
Here’s what you need to do instead…
Come up with a strategy for lead generation
How you generate leads to your website is critical for your website’s success.
No matter how good your website is, it’s useless if people don’t know about it.
The first thing is to emphasize your website launch.
You can do this by telling everyone you know that your new website is live.
- Share it with current customers
- Include it in your email footer
- Post about it on social media
This is a great way to drive an initial spike of traffic to your website.
Next, you need to think about a more consistent long term game-plan.
For small businesses, I always recommend to start with social media. It’s a great way to raise awareness for your business and to drive people to your website.
Here is where you can establish credibility and build an audience of people who want to learn more about you.
With a well optimized profile, you can funnel all those who are interested straight to your website.
Test and iterate on this strategy
If you aren’t testing and iterating on your website, you are missing out.
In a previous newlsetter issue, I talk about how to study your website analytics. This is the groundwork for continuing to make your website better.
You have to understand that your website is a piece of your marketing collateral. Growing and changing as your business grows and changes.
If you view it as a static piece of your business, it will become outdated and useless.
Instead, by studying your analytics and seeing what works and what doesn’t, you can develop a lead generation and growth strategy that works.
That’s it!
As always, thanks for reading.
Luke
