13 tips to achieve serious results in 2015

We look back on a wonderful 2014. How exciting, challenging but most of all educational it was. At the beginning of 2014, we launched Website Rentals. And now, a year later, there is a stable foundation that we can build on. That makes us grateful! We are grateful for our customers, for our partners and for the results.

Now a new year is upon us and that brings new (fun) challenges. We have already figured out the strategy and of course linked it to a TODO list (recommended). We want to have at least 10,000 unique visitors per month starting in 2016 and to do that we are going to work very hard with our new online marketing strategy.

At the end of 2014, we set up a Help Center, to serve our customers even better and make them less dependent. We also redesigned successwebsites.com. This should increase conversion rates so that we can serve even more business owners. Of course, most of our time has been spent on the websites for our clients. That it works has already been proven several times. Nice to see! Yet we want to make our online training even better so that clients can get started with their own website even more easily.

We're going to teach you our online marketing strategy

To best help you turn your website into a powerful marketing machine in 2015, we are going to tell you exactly what we ourselves are doing / have done to make this happen. Some business owners worry that they have too much competition. Well, if there is one market where there is tremendous competition it is ours. Logically, our colleagues understand the game too.

Tip 1: Develop a conversion-oriented website

In previous articles, we've explained to you the importance of a conversion-oriented website. Yet many business owners think this is not that important. Well, don't underestimate this. Of course, you're only really going to benefit from this when you get a lot of visitors to your website but, make this the top priority! Website design is hugely important to really get results. We ourselves created a brand new design last year to improve our conversion rate as well. Now we are going to make everything measurable to then optimize further. Later this year I will show you exactly what we have done.

What should you pay attention to?

The conversion of a Web site depends on several factors. Consider color usage, images, videos, control via buttons, ease of use, the layout and, of course, texts. Color use brings about quite a bit of discussion. We have found that shades of green, shades of orange and shades of blue work well.

Button control, layout and ease of use

The conversion of a website is largely determined by this component. And especially on this component, many entrepreneurs miss the mark. Lack of focus in services is regularly the problem. How many headlines does your website have? How many buttons are there on the home page? Where are you sending visitors? A website has a purpose (at least, that works well...). This is quite a challenge for many business owners. Often the focus is omitted because they are afraid of missing out on potential customers. Practice shows that focus actually gets you more customers. Why? Fair question. Soon I will write an article that will further discuss the conversion of a website.

To still set up a foundation for you that you can get started on right away:
Layout for your Menu: Home, about us, services, references, blog, contact.
Layout for your Home page: Call to action in the header, below that a piece of sales text or directly some services with button to the pages. On the pages then place a contact form so visitors can contact you directly if they want to. Of course, you need to attach good text, videos and images to those pages.

Make sure customers can contact you within 2 clicks. Don't make it complicated, go for convenience!

Tip 2: Write texts that sell

One of the most important factors for conversion: Good texts! And how hard we find that! Often the biggest challenge is that we want to say too much. A good tip here is to think about the possible problems of your potential customers and what they need to hear to find out that you have the solution. Above all, dare to be short and sweet (do keep in mind the requirements of search engines). Dare to challenge visitors and encourage them to contact you (it's okay to push a little). We are going to add an additional service for our clients this year that helps them write texts that sell. As a result, we expect them to get even more results from their website. A few more concrete tips: Think about your language, how you address your target audience (with you or with your?) and write problem-solving texts.

Tip 3: Make your website visually connect with your target audience

Images also play an important role, this because it brings with it a certain atmosphere. This is one of the reasons we use a lot of images in the header in our clients' websites. Images evoke emotions faster and you know what they say... Buying behavior is influenced by emotions. You might imagine then what videos do to you. Good videos, that is. Short, powerful and appealing videos increase conversion tremendously. (Most) People find it easier to watch a video than to read endless text. Because it immediately involves a visual experience, a video creates more impact, sticks around better and builds trust. This again stimulates buying behavior. This topic will also receive more attention later this year (probably through a video).

Tip 4: Devise an effective content strategy

Effective content strategy. So how do you do it? In our article, "The Ideal Content Strategy," we already explained how content can contribute to the growth of your business. Read this article again and get really active with content for a change! This can be in all sorts of ways. Think articles, infographics, videos, etc. What problems does your target audience face and how could you help them through the ways just mentioned? Start brainstorming about all the problems your target group has! Of course, this includes a bit of research. We can find out what Internet users are looking for. This allows you to get very focused on creating your content! At Website Rentals, we write blog articles as well as landing pages. The landing pages are purely focused on keywords that we want to rank at the top of Google for. The blog articles we really write to help our target audience.

Tip 5: Write blog articles that solve problems

I mentioned it a moment ago. Solve the problems of your target audience! We regularly get the question, "But then the customer won't need me anymore, right?" Practice shows that this actually results in more customers. After all, you are not solving anything for them. You only give them the knowledge they need to solve the problem. In 9 out of 10 cases, they need your expertise to actually solve the problem. We ourselves are going to post several articles online each week addressing the problems of our target audience. This article is an example of that. So how do you really get results from your website? Follow these 13 tips!

Google is completely focused on value. If Google sees that you are valuable to your target audience then you are going to keep moving up in Google rankings. And that's what you want, right?

Tip 6: Respect the time

With a serious content strategy, you have to keep in mind that it takes time, energy or money. You have to write the articles yourself or outsource them. Then you have to put them on your website, optimize them for the search engines and keep doing that to keep getting higher in the rankings. This just takes time. Don't let this stop you. Just keep building your website, building valuable content and you will see that with time you will start ranking higher and higher in the search engines.

If you want to appear directly at the top of Google then you need to start advertising. This costs money (depending on the competition) and also requires knowledge and experience.

Tip 7: Go outsource content for landing pages

Our goal is to put at least 120 landing pages online this year. You understand that we're not going to write all of those ourselves. That would leave us no time for other things. That's why we outsource this to a good copywriter. We can recommend this to everyone. If you search well, you can find good writers who are quite affordable. If you can't find one, please contact us. We will be happy to help you.

Tip 8: Be helpful and active on social media

Actually, this tip speaks for itself. The articles you write to solve problems of your target audience can also be posted on social media. Get started with a program that helps you put posts online automatically, it will save you a lot of time. You can also share inspirational quotes or great articles/videos that you think will be of interest to your target audience. This way you make sure that your network stays informed about what you do and what moves you. This always creates work. Also check out forums or groups to see if you can help somewhere. This active way of approaching people can generate a lot.

Tip 9: Work in a structured and planned manner

Structured and planned work helps you get to the results you want. It can be quite frustrating if you don't see immediate results. That's why this tip. Just keep going, how to stick to your plan and accustom yourself to a structure that is easy to maintain. You will see that you eventually achieve the results you want. For example, our structure is as follows: Post two valuable articles every week, 10 landing pages every month and 1 video online every month. We plan this and implement it structurally.

Tip 10: Arrange references as social proof

A very important part of your website is references. This is because references are the social proof that you are good at what you do. You can never have too many references on your website. Enthusiastic customers bring customers. We are going to film a number of clients this year to make it even more personal. During the film, the client can then tell what was done and what the result is. Surprise your visitors with enthusiastic references! It's guaranteed to work.

Tip 11: Get started with search engine optimization

Search engine optimization also remains important. In fact, you always stay on top of this. Our tip is to hire an expert who will get to work to achieve certain goals. Make everything measurable and keep improving your website! If you are using a WordPress website then we can immediately recommend installing the SEO by Yoast plugin. With that plugin you can easily do some of the optimization yourself. You understand that we understand search engine optimization ourselves. That's why we work on optimizing pages and articles every month and continuously add new content. We also provide new quality backlinks and are actively improving technical SEO.

Tip 12: Start actively building your email list

If you start implementing the above tips, you will get more and more visitors to your website. Make sure that you engage some of these visitors by giving them the opportunity to leave their name and email address (an optin). You link an optin to an email marketing system where all addresses are stored. We have an e-book that visitors can download in exchange for name and email address. Next to and below this article you can find the optin for that. As you have more addresses in your system you can get started with email marketing....

Tip 13: Build a personal relationship with your target audience

And getting started with email marketing is therefore the final tip. You can send regular emails to the people who give you their names and email addresses. Again, keep in mind that you are solving their problems, inspiring them or informing them of great offers/news. Don't go on the spam tour. That already happens way too much.

Because you have been given your name and email address, you can always address them personally. This allows you to build a personal relationship with them through an automated system. That's great, isn't it? We didn't do much with our collected email addresses last year. This year we are going to develop a video training to help our followers further. In doing so, we will also give them the opportunity to ask questions.

Good luck in the coming year!

I hope you can get started with the above tips! Best of luck, make it a great year. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to get in touch! In the course of the year we will publish several articles in which we will also reflect on our results. That way we hope it will become more alive for you too!

For more tips, I am happy to refer you to other blog articles or, of course, our e-book.