As I listen to the latest economic news, I’m so aware of businesses that are struggling to survive. Even though business owners have more opportunity than ever to reach their target market online, many are not doing so effectively.  If you are not growing your business online, you are not alone. Here are some of the reasons businesses don’t grow online (and how to fix them).

1. No clear goal – believe it or not, no one online really cares about your goals, they care about how you can solve their problem. Your online goal is to define what problems you can solve for your target market. Think in terms of how your product or service is the answer to a problem your target market is having and write that down. That is your first goal. Then you can set other goals around that.
2. No target market – Now that you know what problem you solve, you need to decide who has the problem. If you have more than one problem you solve or your solution is good for different types of people, you should segment your market into subsets.
3. No marketing strategy – Once you have defined what problem you solve and who your target market is, you must devise a strategy to make sure that the people in your target market know about your solution. You have to have a way to “get found” online by the people who are looking for you. Generally, people will find you through search engines or social media. So, you need to have an SEO strategy and a social media strategy.
4. No way to convert - Once your target market has found you online, they can see that you have a solution for their problem. The next step is to get them to convert into a lead for your business. Depending on your sales funnel, your leads may need to be nurtured for some time. For others, once a visitor has converted into a lead, a sale may be closed very quickly. To convert visitors into leads, you need to have calls to action. Think in terms of “download this”, “attend this event”, “use this special offer code”, etc. You should have different calls to action for different parts of your sales funnel.
5. Not analyzing - How will you know if your efforts are effective? Which calls to action work and which don’t? You should always analyze your online efforts to measure effectiveness.
6. Not adjusting- When you analyze your results, you need to be flexible and adjust. Get rid of what isn’t working and improve what is working. If you are not adjusting and getting rid of what doesn’t work, you are wasting your precious time and money!
7. Stuck in the past – If you have had the same website for years and are not sure if it is helping your business or not, you are stuck in the past. If you have not added any pages to your website in years, you are stuck in the past. One of the reasons we encourage blogging so much is because it is an effective way to add opportunities to get found, convert and grow online.

In today’s economy, businesses must use every opportunity available to grow. If they don’t, they may not survive. You are solving a problem for someone, you just have to make sure they find you!

If you are in Arkansas, come to the Blogging for Business seminar in Batesville on June 16th from 1 – 4 p.m. You can click on the button below to register. Wondering how effective your website is? Click on the website analysis button and we will send you a free website analysis!