I find so many business owners, especially in small business, have a misconception about the ‘true' purpose of their website and therefore, aren't getting the most value out of their website. The most overlooked marketing tool that (almost) every business has is their website. Many business owners, when they start, set up a website because it's what is expected nowadays. Your prospects expect to find you on line and it's where your competitors are, so of course you need a website if you want people to take you seriously.

No matter what you ‘think' the purpose of your website is, it should be to generate leads and conversions.

The average website conversion is 1-2%, proper SEO could double your traffic and an effective call to action can increase your conversion to 4-5%.  If you know how many visitors you're getting to your site on a monthly basis and how many are converting to leads, do the math.

So how do you implement some fundamental Inbound Marketing strategies like SEO and lead generation to improve your business?

There is a lot that can be done on-page (on your website) and off-page (internet) with Inbound Marketing to boost your organic rankings and convert visitors once they're on your site.  But here are 5 SEO and lead generation tips to get you started and improve the value of your website.

1. Choose the right keyword phrases:

a. Know who your audience is, who's coming to your site and why.

b. Choose keywords that your audience is using and that you can rank for in the search engines. There's no use going after high traffic keywords if its next to impossible to rank for them.

2. Make sure each page on your website is optimized for unique keyword phrases (not the same keywords for every page):

a. Page title
b. Meta description
c. H1 tags
d. Content
e. Internal links

3. Inbound Links

a. Don't direct all your traffic to your home page

b. Make sure the links directing traffic to your site are hyperlinked with keywords relevant for the page.

c. Set up relevant landing pages that have a compelling offer to encourage visitors to fill out a form or contact you in some manner.

4. Have a call to action on each page.

5. Set up some form of analytics to track your results.

In recent weeks I've conducted many website audits with Hubspot's Website Grader tool and I would say 90% are missing fundamental Inbound Marketing strategies like SEO and lead conversion. Is this your website? 

If so, here's your action plan:

1. Check your website out yourself at Hubspot Website Grader or contact an Inbound Marketing consultant to do it for you.

2. Then set yourself some conservative goals such as: increase your traffic by 10% and conversions by 1%.

3. Make some simple changes as mentioned above, or contact an Inbound Marketing consultant to help you.

4. Monitor the results. Tweak. Test. Monitor.

I would love to hear how these tips and the action plan have helped you. And your results.

If you know someone who would get value out of this blog post please pass it on.