You’ve spent thousands on developing great content. Your SEO efforts have put your site on page 1 of the SERPs for Google, Bing, etc. You’ve even doubled (no, tripled!) your Twitter following and your Facebook engagement is the best it has ever been.
Traffic is coming in, but no one is buying what you’re selling.
What’s going on?
Well, there are times when the best content in the world can’t save you.
Usually this happens for a number of reasons.
When The Best Content In The World Can’t Save You
1) You’re not collecting email addresses of your visitors.
No matter what you do, you should always be collecting the email addresses of your site visitors.
That’s not to say you need to force them or make them feel uncomfortable handing over their email address – but by collecting the email addresses of your visitors you begin to build your relationship with them. Whether you’re sending them free exercise tips every Sunday (and selling them natural supplements the rest of the week) or emailing out new blog content, engaging your customers via email is powerful.
When you’re asking for an email address, give them something of value in return – a free eBook, a funny picture, a free sample – know your audience and what appeals to them and then match the gift accordingly.
Having an email list is also something that is truly an asset that you own and control (to an extent…people can always change their email address).
When you can reach out to your customers via email you don’t need to worry about the whims of the Google algorithm, changes in the Facebook newsfeed, and other online marketing nuisances.
A well-nurtured email list becomes more powerful with age – and the better you’re engaged with your list, the most successful your business will be.
2) You have a poor path-to-conversion
The best content in the world isn’t going to save you if your site visitors don’t know what to do once they hit your site.
Are you selling something?
Is what you’re selling available to them (for example, are you only wholesale?)?
Are your products available now or are you gauging interest pre-launch?
If your landing pages don’t have clear, concise conversion pathways, then your traffic will come – and quickly leave.
Make sure your site visitors can tell in 20 seconds or less “Who you are.” “What they can do on your site.” and “Why they should care.”.
3) Your content is attracting the wrong customer
Don’t spend all of your time, energy and money creating content for the wrong audience.
This may seem pretty obvious, but time and again I see plenty of websites with content on their site that has nothing to do with their business.
Sure, you can get tons of traffic from people clicking on cute kitten videos on YouTube, but if you’re selling industrial electrical parts you’re putting a lot of effort into content that’s not going to bring qualified leads to your site.
Make sure you’ve spent the time to develop your Buyer Personas – and then build your content from there, always making sure you’re speaking to your audience and developing a relationship with them.
Content that brings in the traffic is great – but content that converts is even better.
