During the span of my online career so far, I have often heard things like…
How long will it be before I get visits & sales on my new website?… Lee, tell me the things you have learnt over 10 years so I can quit my day job… etc.
Harsh Reality: There is no one size fits all answer and it will take time and consistent effort.
Also, I often hear website owners say… I have not got time to do this everyday, tell me something I can do every month or so.
Harsh Reality: It does not work like that, you need to be consistent, daily if possible.
Cheery Reality: It does not have to take over your whole life. 30 mins to an hour per day can really be effective
Truthfully, there is no definitive answer to any of these questions, it depends on how much time you have and what you are trying to achieve not to mention numerous other factors. Also, it depends on you knowing what you are doing to start with.
That is one of the reasons we provide our clients with training and we are currently creating the Online Marketing Tuition product via Affordable Websites Now.
All of our websites are search engine friendly, but that is not enough on its own. Success online requires carrying out a well executed plan on a consistent basis, focusing on the requirements of your target audience or customer base.
Shameless plug here – If you are thinking of having a wordpress based website built or possibly a redesign of your current site, you should consider our service. At the moment, our online marketing tuition is being offered for free to our clients as we are still developing the syllabus, but eventually, we will be selling this course as a home study pack.
So, to back up what I am saying about consistent activity, here is an interesting view from one of our website stats. In the interest of privacy, the domain will remain anonymous.
The graphic shows how only 30 mins (approx) per day, consistently working a strategic online marketing plan can make a huge difference. Ignore the spike, this high exposure marketing did not impact much on revenue, just visits. The important bit is that the traffic has slowly grown from 0 to over 100 unique visits daily in less than 12 months. Now 100 visits per day may not blow you away, but, these are targeted visitors who are generating a growing revenue for the business owner. Recently, sales exceeded £20,000 within the first 12 months.
This is the right way to do online marketing…
Consistently & steadily to a predifined plan. There are no short cuts. If anyone tells me differently, I don’t believe them, but I am happy for them to try and convince me 🙂
Click the graphic to study this example of good, consistent online marketing.
In comparison, here is one of my sites that I have neglected. This is the stats of a failing website. I know what to do about it, but need to do it consistently for it to be effective. If your stats resemble this, you need to make some changes.
Please feel free to contact us about our SEO services or to get your name down to be notified about the launch date of our Online Marketing Tuition course.
Also, if you wish to share any of your own experiences with online marketing, feel free to leave a comment.
Never a truer word or in this case, words spoken! I am fairly new to marketing online through my website and its just something I have to manage into my day – like the filing. It’s a challenge – but I find that if I book time into my diary as I would a meeting then it works better than just making a mental note that I need to do it. I am hoping that if I am consistent with this approach it will become part of what I do rather than being part of all those things I should be doing! Thanks Lee.
Thanks for the comment Catherine. It can be difficult to incorporate into the routine, however, in my experience once you have the routine (the one that is right for your business) it feels wrong to not be doing it. The difficulty I have is maintaining the routine along side the increased workload it generates but that is a good problem to have 🙂
The subject of internet marketing can be so overwhelming as there is no way one person can do all of the things people say you should be doing. It is much better to do a little often than a lot seldomly.