Getting and holding the traffic is one thing. Being organized enough to guide visitors through your web page and getting them to take action is a whole different ball game. All of the visitors are going to be reacting to different topics, products, and content you have on your page. With that said a different call to action will speak more to one visitor than the next. Instead of putting more and more old leaky buckets under the last, let’s trade in the leaky buckets for funnels. These funnels are much better then leaky buckets, instead of water pouring out from random holes we now are guiding the traffic with a purpose. With well built funnels we can hold traffic for a little while, nurture them and then pass them on to the next predetermined level. But what do we use as funnels? Should we just toss up a landing page, target at a keyword and hope for the best? No, we should set up “Category Landing Pages.” Look at your keyword strategy and pick out 5-8 of the best keywords that you think could handle all of the content you would ever need.
In a past post I urged you to listen to your traffic. When a person clicks on a category they’re telling you something, whether they know it or not. They are looking for information on this specific topic. Take advantage of that! Once they’re in the Category Landing Page you can show specific content that’s relevant to the Category. From a Web Optimization perspective this is great because it should reduce the bounce rate. But from a Sales perspective, you’re nurturing a lead!
For example, when you walk into Best Buy, you may walk towards the TV’s, iPods, or Appliances. Let’s say we walk towards the TV’s, when we get there, there is usually a Sales Associate asking us if we need any help with anything. Because of where we are and what we’re looking at, they can assume we’re looking to buy a TV. When they ask me if I need any help, because I’m a guy, I almost always say, “thanks buddy, I’m just looking for now.” I browse a bit until I feel comfortable enough to buy a TV I’ll go find him and ask for his help.
Websites can be Inbound Marketing Machines! But this can only work if you set them up correctly. We need to use categories to learn something about the traffic. We need to show them more and more content to nurture them. Lastly, we’re going to need to show them a direct call to action to improve conversion.
-Kevin W. Elliot
Internet Marketing Ninja 