Inbound websites need to be structured a specific way. Inbound marketing is a science and that science needs to be applied to your entire website. It’s a big picture kind of thing. You want your website to engage with users like the kind of engagement they would have if they set their foot into a neighborhood store. You want to address their interests, their pain points and provide them with solutions. Your website needs to take visitors through their own personal buyers journey.
The Critique
Your CMS
Is your website on a CMS that is easy to manage as well as measure? When I say manage I’m referring to making website edits, image changes, create new pages etc. When I say measure I’m referring to your traffic sources, leads, customers, conversion rates, click through rates, email opens etc etc. Yeah. That measuring part is KEY!
Like I said earlier inbound marketing is a science. And the way it works is by measuring data, making comparisons, drawing conclusions and making changes. You can’t do this without numbers and it helps to have a CMS that collects this data for you. HubSpot is the go-to inbound marketing platform. Get your website on their CMS/COS and you will be set!
Your Blog
Are you able to publish new blog posts on your website easily?! Creating content like blog articles on a regular basis is a huge part of applying inbound marketing.
Make sure that your website has a blog and that your are prepared to regularly update the blog. The articles should speak to your target audience. Address their pain points with solutions they may enter as search queries in google.
By publishing blog posts on a regular basis you get a nice boost in SEO when it comes to the Google spider!
Feature your most recent posts in a feed on your homepage. Draw awareness to your content as much as you can. It will help solve your audience’s problems if you have positioned it correctly.
Your Homepage
Does your homepage speak to your audience? If I land on this page will I understand right away what you can do to help me and what the next step is that I should take on your website to get this help or learn more about it?
If you want your homepage to engage with visitors it needs to provide multiple routes for how they want to experience their buyer’s journey.
Position CTAs on your homepage to guide visitors to take the next step. The next step in learning more or the next step in contacting you.
Have your content featured on your homepage as well. You have a guide that details your solutions? Well let the visitor know they have the option to engage with it during their journey.
This doesn’t just apply to your homepage. Your interior pages should feature CTAs relevant to what the page is talking about and offer next steps to the visitor as well. You want to guide them, this is the goal!
Your Social Media
Is your company on social media? Well you don’t have to be active on all of them but you should be active where your audience is. And then you should bring this to light on your website.
Have follow icons featured on your homepage and share icons on your blog posts. It is important that your audience knows where you are, this way they have more opportunities to find you if they need you.
My Bottom Line…
Looking to see if your website is inbound ready is no longer a matter of SEO, Pretty Images and Professional Web Copy. Now it is a matter of being personable, transparent and problem solving. You want to build a connection with your audience through your website.
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