You see, the whole subject of marketing on the Internet can seem extremely complex— especially with lots of tech people throwing around jargon and lots of snake oil salesman trying to sell you on the latest thing.
But the reality is that getting more leads and customers online really comes down to two things.
1) Traffic
With brick-and-mortar businesses, traffic refers to the number of people who walk into your store. On the Internet, traffic refers to the number of people who visit your website.
Getting more traffic is the first step to getting leads and customers online.
In just the same way that the local antique store needs to get people to walk in the door before they can make a sale…
You need to get people to visit your website before they are going to become a lead or customer.
There are a number of ways to get more traffic to your website including improving your rankings on Google and running ads on social media sites like Facebook.
2) Conversion
Conversion refers to the percentage of your website visitors that become leads or customers (i.e. they either pick-up their phone to call you or they fill-out a form to express interest in your services or products).
The goal is, obviously, to have a high conversion and convert as many website visitors into leads and customers as possible.
There are a lot of factors that determine the conversion on your website, including how easy it is to find your phone number, whether or not there are testimonials, and whether or not it looks modern and up-to-date.
What Is the Bottom Line?
The bottom line is that if you want to get more leads and customers online, you need to focus on getting more traffic and/or increasing your conversion…
Because these are the only things that matter when it comes to getting leads and customers via the Internet.
And if someone is trying to sell you a website re-design or an online marketing service, and they can’t explain how their service is going to improve either your traffic or conversion, then that should raise a red flag.