Are you tired of the “Top 25 or Top 50 tips” kind of posts to generate more traffic. These posts expect you to be a superhero. But they end up creating so much choice that it’s difficult to prioritize!
Your basic need is this: if you get more people to engage with you, then the number of clients who will ultimately buy from you will proportionally increase.
The reason a lot of “top 25” posts don’t work is because they are overwhelming. You are unable to balance short term results with the time investment you put in. You don’t want a strategy that is not very feasible to execute- not everyone can guest post frequently, or create multiple landing pages, do extensive keyword research for SEO, or build a community, or even spend more time on an extensive social media strategy. These are all good things to do, but it’s best to build a foundation and work on them consistently over time.
That’s why we wrote this post with only 2-3 things to do. It is intended to help those of you who are worried that their website does not receive too much traffic, and/or has no real call to action.
The actions include in this post don’t require a lot of prep. To be fair, you should also be thinking about doing other things in the “Top 25 tip posts” which will make your website more authoritative in the long term.
Remember, your goal is engagement, NOT just traffic!
Note: Don’t miss the “Prepare” section at the end of the post. We included that section last for a reason – we didn’t want to negatively affect your bias for immediate action. It’s too easy to get busy with “preparing” vs. getting busy with “acting and refining”.
An incentive or lead magnet is something that you offer for free on your website in return for a visitor to take an action. For example, the interactive assessment that you created with Evalinator. People will give their email address if they feel they are getting something of value.
So if you don’t have a lead magnet, then start simple. It can be as simple as a 1 page PDF, or a simple Evalinator assessment. The ideal combination is both – so those who take the assessment get the PDF.
For example, you could simply create a offer that says “Take this 5 min assessment and get customized tips based on your score” PDF which includes a few (typically 5 or 7) tips that you would generally give on the topic of your assessment. These can be based on the key questions that are already contained in your assessment.
If you don’t create the assessment, another idea could be to include 1 or more short stories (anonymized, and not more than 1 page each) of how other people have used your assistance – what challenge were they facing, how your clients came to a decision to do something, what they did, how they persevered, and what was the outcome. It doesn’t need to be a case study, just a story that is valuable for your readers to learn from. Your promotion is implicit.
A lead magnet builds trust because you share your knowledge, and offer an insight or advice to prospective clients. People love them if they are relevant so they appeal to the audience you want to attract.
Remember: Keep it simple so you can create this in a day or two. Don’t make it too complex to start with.
There are several directories available. For examples coaches can list themselves on directories such as Noomii. Experts can list themselves on These directories generally have their own marketing engine running to get prospective clients to visit their site and search for experts and coaches. So those people who meet your criteria will likely end up on your website.
Most directories will offer a free plan so it’s better to start with that first to get a feel for the experience before signing up for a paid package at the one you like best. Paid packages may include direct links to your website, videos, and dedicated pages on the directory.
If you would like people to take your assessment, then they should be able to see it first. We suggest making the assessment available in a few prominent places on your website. Your lead magnet should be a part of this call to action. “Example, see where you stand by taking a free online assessment and get an eBook with actionable tips for free”.
Some location to position your call to action are:
You may want to create a page on your own website that can contain your Evalinator assessment. See this post on how to embed your assessment on your website. This is optional of course.
Regardless of what anyone tells you, everyone is advertising to generate more traffic and build awareness. Once you have it you can slow down but it’s a great way to start.
You need to advertise sensibly and watch your expenses. Most Evalinator customers are either coaches or consultants. So Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook work best for them. Google and others are good too. Whatever you decide is good for you, start small because you are looking for “relevant” traffic that will take meaningful action.
Free outreach – 1
This is very simple – simply post on LinkedIn or Facebook. Describe your assessment in 2-3 sentences and include a link to your assessment.
For example: “Studies show that almost 60% of business owners agree that they need to balance their career and family better. But they do not know where to start. That’s why I created this assessment to be that perfect start. In 10 minutes, you will be able to pinpoint where you need help most. Take it now“.
And include a link to your assessment. Do it with variations every other day. (see this post on how to embed your assessment on your website)
Free outreach 2
Do you have an email list? Or are you part of any associations or groups? Post a message there. You can even request that others help you spread the word.
Paid outreach
Paid outreach does work when you need to reach new people who are not in your network. These days social media channels limit the visibility of your free posts substantially so you may be just reaching the same people every time.
Start simple. Create a simple picture advertisement and include your value proposition in an easy to understand manner. Select your audience carefully (all platforms allow you to target your advts), and test with a low budget of say $5 or $10 per day on ONE platform. Don’t start all platforms at the same time. You just want a few people right now as you test this out and make sure people who click will convert or take meaningful action like taking your assessment that you have built using Evalinator, or download your eBook etc.
Remember, your goal is sales, NOT marketing!
So no gimmicks. Stick to a good, easy to understand value prop. Don’t be too broad in your offer – e.g. “improve sales” may attract a lot of people but most will bounce off and won’t do anything because they may not relate to what you do. Instead we did something like “Have you added interactive assessments to your content marketing toolkit yet?” and found it was a better way for us. Or even better, include some results from your Evalinator “60% feel unrecognized at work. See what you can do about it?” was what one of our customers did, and she linked the advt. to her landing page.
Create a nice professional profile on the platform you are advertising on. A smiling picture with a professional background and a simple description of what you do (stay away from politics and activism unless that’s what you do). It’s amazing how so many people try to bring “personality” into their profile and end up making it look unappealing (risky) to someone new who is going to spend money for your services or products.
Hopefully you will generate more traffic and get a few people to click through to your website by advertising. Now install Google Analytics (its free and takes 2-3 hours to setup and learn the basics), and see what’s going on. Are visitors just bouncing off (clicking on your advt but not doing anything else), are they clicking to the next step or looking at your profile, are they taking and completing your assessment, what else are they clicking and reading?
You may be getting 4-10 people every day with a $4-$10 daily advertising budget but that’s good enough to see what’s going on over a period of 8-10 days. We ourselves saw these things a) people coming and doing nothing else 2) coming to the pricing page and then not following through 3) reading some of our blogs but then not doing anything else
Be realistic when you generate more traffic: Even with good targeting, 1-3% people typically convert. So expect no more than 1 or 2 new customers (or conversions) in 8-10 days with this low budget. If you are not getting that or seeing very low responses, then analyze, analyze, analyze, and be truthful to yourself. When we say customers, we mean conversions to your offer – people who take your assessment for example, or download an eBook. They may not be paying you yet. That’s a whole different ball game.
This could have been the first step but it’s actually continuous. So best to get started first and not lose yourself in over-analysis.
And now that you have seen a little traffic, and seen what the people do when they click on your advt, you may be both excited and disappointed at what you have seen.
At this time, it’s really up to you. You know your business best. Gimmicks won’t help.
First, take a hard look and pretend to be in your customer’s shoes.
The answers will be painful, and will need both thinking and hands-on work.
What we did was we reviewed our journey personally with a few target customers (and even our friends) and got direct feedback on what they felt.
It was crushing! But good learning. You may feel you are doing everything for nothing. But simple things will help.
If you can then:
People who are never going to buy from you have an uncanny knack of giving a lot of feedback that is not actually useful.
Don’t go overboard with changes unless a few real prospective customers give you the feedback.
People like simplicity. But because we are experts we tend to make things more complicated than they are.
Keep looking to improve the targeting of your advts. Remember, your end goal is engagement, not just traffic! So put your paid advertising on hold for a few days if no one is clicking. See what you can do to fix the issues. And keep on doing the free stuff. Don’t give up!
Hopefully this gave you motivation to keep going. It’s not complex but just needs a little bit of love and systematic execution. You’ll make it through!
A little experimentation and investment (sensibly) helps. We feel it’s better than spending sleepless nights, and long hours tweaking your stuff without any feedback on what’s working and what’s not!
But you know your business best. So decide based on what you think will work, not just rely on our tips.
Good luck. We are rooting for you!
