You thought you’d have more leads and sales by now! You launched your new website yesterday and still haven’t seen any forms be submitted. A little doubt knocks at your brain and suggests that you wasted your money or were sold magic marketing beans (again maybe?). The Wingman crew wants to shed light on some of the expectations you should have with different aspects of digital marketing, particularly surrounding a new website. We want you to have realistic expectations about the honest goods of how long it really takes to see traffic on your new website based on the various tactics and kinds of marketing that you implement.
What to Expect When You Launch a New Website
The first thing you need to grasp is that you should NOT expect everyone to suddenly have the urge to surf the web and look for your new website overnight. It doesn’t work like that (nor has it ever). The reality is that 19 out of 20 websites on the internet never get seen from a single Google search. Any traffic that is driven to your site will be a direct result of typing your URL into their browser (which means they needed to already know of its existence) or referral traffic (clicking on a link from somewhere other than a search engine). This means if you want traffic early in the process, you need to work for it. At launch, if your website was built by reputable hands, all your key webpages should already be optimized for search engines (SEO – more on that below) to find them. This is a good and necessary first step. Add to this, social media content strategy, paid search (SEM/PPC), blogging and email (not in Canada). Without attention-feeding tactics like these, your website sits amongst the other billion+ websites in the vast ocean of the Internet.
This awareness-generating activity should have one goal… to drive leads to your website. Realistically, if you want people to view your website, you must give them a way to find it and an enticing reason to go there. How are you directing people to your website? What kinds of “triggers” and “magnets” are you using to inform people of your amazing new website? Consider whether you have told anyone of your new site. Are you telling current customers and new customers about your fancy new website? Now is the perfect time to do this if you haven’t already. Share related information on social media with a link to read more. Harness the potential of a targeted email (outside of Canada) list with offers, information, and resources that link back to your website. Introduce yourself and your solutions-focused website to strangers on LinkedIn via Premium or Sales Navigator. Do you provide any in-store opportunities that incentivize people to go to your website even while their boots are in your shop? Utilize as many communication channels as possible to direct traffic to your website.
Bolster lackluster direct and referral traffic
Prop up your lackluster direct and referral traffic by proactively sending a new Website Announcement via social media, press release, emails to existing clients and more. Your new website announcement will serve as an opportunity to have a simple contact with your current customers / contacts and encourage them to check out your new online space. If this is your inaugural website, a website launch announcement could feature a way for users to give feedback so you can optimize the experience to their needs and make it even better!
Make yourself a Source of Information with Social Media, Blogs and Newsletters
Implement a consistent cadence of social posts, write a cyclically timed blog and send a monthly e-Newsletter. Consistently communicating through these mediums with strong calls-to-action back to your website is a critical way for your business to drive traffic to your site. It is a way to be seen in your industry as a subject matter expert and go-to person/company for useful and timely information. Tailor your content to your audience and personalize the emails you send. Keep in mind, your message should entice readers to click the link to your website to read the rest. It should provide an authentic hook. Don’t give away the farm, though. If the medium for communication includes the entire message, then readers have no reason to go to your website.
Make Your Customer’s Life Easier
Provide customer-centric resources known as lead magnets. If customers have a place to “help themselves” on your website, you will increase the recurring traffic to your website. While a blog is included as a resource, consider what documents you can have accessible to be downloaded and printed by the customer. Are there follow up questions typically asked for which you can create responses? What tools can you integrate on your website? For example, you could include an estimate calculator. In each of these options, you are giving people a reason to visit your website.
So…how long will it take for your Site to rank higher?
Gaining visibility from technical and local search engine optimization (SEO) depends on the extent of the SEO work implemented. Since only 5% of the billions of websites on the internet ever get found in an organic search, it’s paramount to implement tactics to make sure you are among the few organically searchable websites. Regardless what other tactics you implement to get your website found, Wingman highly recommends you do not skip this immensely important element of your web and digital presence. Keyword research should be a part of ANY website and SEO optimization its focus. When done well, it drives better results down the road than paid search. [As a side note, the applications that agencies and SEO experts use to perform keyword research is not cheap, which it why it is well worth it to seek expert help for your SEO development.]
We’ll Say it Again… Search Engine Optimization
Basic SEO setup (such as local reputation and citation) for a new site takes roughly 2-3 months to show results. Why does SEO take so long? First, you have to recognize that SEO is a long-term strategy. Think of it like a healthy lifestyle to maintain your goal weight as opposed to a 4-week diet. With the internet, it takes time for the changes you implemented to be read by all the bits and pieces. Keyword Implementation can show initial positive results in the first month. SEO tactics involving researching and implementing high value keywords for your website pages will take around 2-3 weeks to start showing noticeable results. Very targeted and/or local SEO work can yield results almost immediately. Highly targeted SEO efforts on one blog post, for example, could be seen as quickly as 2 minutes after you hit publish and re-index the post in your search console. Keyword research and off-page optimization to make the page as crawl-friendly as possible are the major contributors for this. The results you see will vary case by case, page by page, industry by industry because of what your competitors might be doing to target the same position.
Conclusion
Need your website to be found? Wingman Direct Marketing (WMDM) offers search engine optimization services as well as search engine marketing services to small and medium businesses alike. Haven’t yet built your website? Wingman also has you covered! WMDM creates websites that are elegant in design, lightweight, and found easily through search engines. A well-designed website can convert leads into sales, and WMDM can give you those results. Book a Wingman today and we’ll get your project off the ground!