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Transforming Leads Into Customers

One of the first steps in business involves producing leads. Once you have produced those leads, what comes next? What do you do with these leads?

 

  1. Follow up with each and every lead. You will never know the full potential of a lead if you do not take the proper steps to conduct follow ups. It is very possible that a seemingly weak lead can result in big sales, and a strong lead could result in nothing. This is why every lead must be treated as it could bring in sales and turn into a long term, loyal customer.
  2. Have a specific game plan. While it is vital to follow up with each and every lead and treat them with equal respect, you must execute the exact game plan. This game plan depends on several factors, such as the number of leads you have and the number of employees.
  3. Have a sense of urgency. In order to maximize your lead conversion, every sales lead needs to be responded to as soon as possible. Businesses are more likely to qualify a lead that responds to inquiries within an hours. After a full 24 hours, the chances of making the conversion drop significantly.
  4. Establish trust. After the contacts have been made, your first thought may be to win over the lead. Many of your leads will be skeptical initailly, so you need to gain their trust. You must have an extensive, thorough knowledge of your products and services in order to answer questions – if you are confident in what you are selling, so will your new lead. You must also be friendly and courteous as possible to your leads; everyone appreciates a nice conversation and friendly attitude.
  5. Keep your promise. When you are following up on your leads, make sure you stay true to what you say. For example, if you offer a commitment that you will give a free trial download, then follow through with it. This can be extremely bad to your campaign and business as a whole.

SEO Terms to Know for Small Business

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be rather difficult to fully comprehend, but knowing the basics behind it can help boost your business’s performance. Understanding basic SEO terms is important because most Internet users use refer to search engines immediately to find exactly what they are looking for. When trying to rank high for your small business, it is important to remember various major factors, including on-page factors.

On-Page Factors

The way your website is built and the content on your website are large factors in how well you rank in search engines. Here are the most important factors involved:

  • Title tags: Title tags appear in the URL bar of a website and is also used in sharing pages on Facebook and other social media sites. Title tags are also a big part of rankings in Google. Keep your tag to less than 70 characters, but make sure it is creatively done for each of your pages and that keywords are included in these titles.
  • H1/H2/H3 tags: Marketing up text on your site shows that the information provided is important. Playing up on words using bold, italics, or underlying type text can draw attention to them, but the best, more proper way to rank higher and grab attention is using these tags – specifically H1. Make sure that each page of your site has an H1 tag that contains the keywords you are looking to rank.
  • ALT tags and Image names: these tags are titles given to the images you are putting in your pages. Make sure you name them appropriately – like including keywords.
    • Meta descriptions: meta descriptions are the few sentences that show up in search engine ranking pages (SERPs) under the title.
    • Website content recommendations: the information you publish on your website is obviously important. The more useful the content is, the better for not only your users, but your business. You don’t need to write pages upon pages, but a couple hundred words and keywords you want to rank will boost your page ranking.

Understanding that while SEO takes a bit of effort, the work will pay off for your business. Make sure all your on-page factors are properly set up and implemented, including keyword repetition!

Keyword Cramming and Hidden Text: How to Fix it According to Google

Many sites and companies aren’t trying to cram their keywords into content or hide any text on their site, but Google still attempts to warn web designers to avoid them. “Hidden text” or “keyword cramming/stuffing” refers to putting and writing keywords and terms solely for the purpose of search engine ranking, not for the customer or user to gain information from. This involves putting a keyword phrase multiple times in a webpage so often that the text and information on the page does not make sense due to the repetition of keyword phrases.

While times have changed, many still use this strategy today with a few updates, including placing text underneath another element already on the page, or to just set the text as hidden. Google’s Matt Cutts explains that by using things like JavaScript and other user-friendly ways to show more text is okay. He specifically discusses the point that many spinner programs – those that take content already available on the web, spit in, and create new content typically don’t pass a test used to detect keyword spam.

Much keyword stuffing is obvious to detect, and it may be difficult to know you are doing it moreso than informing your readers. In order to test this, try reading your written text out loud. If it sounds unnatural. If it makes sense to you and sounds good, it should be good enough to use.

Keyword cramming can be an issues because users who are looking for certain keywords want to see them on your page in a way they can use them and find information. They do not want to be directed to your site simply because of hidden text in your footer. This generally produces a frustrating experience for users that search through Google, which is why Google has a strong opinion on it.

Hidden text and keyword stuffing is common on WordPress sites, so if you receive a warming for hidden text, your first thing to do is check to see if you have been hacked and if so, upgrade so that you can cleanup the issue. Google also advises you to document this clean up process, including what you found, how you fixed it, and the dates in which you did so. Also include why it happened, and explain why you don’t think it will happen again.

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