5 Strange Ways a WordPress Site Will Get You More Customers
By Rachel Young
Alright, let's be honest. You weren't expecting a silly blog site like WordPress to drive more traffic to your site, were you? You certanly weren't expecting anything that's FREE to get you more business, right? Surprise! WordPress can do all of that AND MORE! Here are the 5 Strange Ways WordPress Can Get You More Customers:
#5. Go Viral - Ever have a site so strange or out there that people can't help talking about it? Something that is so far outside your comfort zone that you smile and almost apologize when people see it - but that makes you a CRAPLOAD of sales?
NO? I have. This very site use to be black and neon pink. The header was of a half-naked woman (her lower torso) and the phrase "Marketing for Men with the B*lls to Get Rich" (the site targeted male business owners specifically). Keep in mind I'm a woman. Having ANYTHING half-naked on my site was outside my comfort zone.
But guess what happened? First of all, the site went totally viral. I mean that I didn't have to pay one red cent for marketing and had a waiting list over 6 months long.
Secondly, and I didn't see this coming, most of the people who contacted me to have marketing material one were WOMEN. Turns out, women felt that I was poking fun at men. Men felt like I was talking on a level they understood. Between the two, I made more money in 6 months than I'd made my entire copywriting career beforehand.
Going viral was the best way I coulda gotten the word out about my marketing services. But trends change and in order to remain on top, I gotta change too (and so should you). Which leads me to point #4...
#4: Being Flexible - One of the great things about WordPress is that you can switch, change, and customize your skin/theme on the site to suit whatever's hot at that second - without having to change the words or usability of your site. That's why I work as fast as I do - trends can disappear like a fart in the wind (weren't expecting me to write that, huh?) and if you want to remain on the cutting edge, you have to work quickly too.
Granted, no one's gonna go to your site and say, "Well, I was going to buy their widget, but they're using fall colors and its almost summer" or whatever. If they're that picky, did you really want them as customers to begin with? (I'll help you with the easy questions) Um, NO. But by being willing (and able) to change the look and feel of your site almost overnight, you're assured a top spot in your particular niche (and that's a great position to be in!)
#3: Get Searchable! - I've told you before that WordPress makes it easier to get ranked in the search engines like Google and Bing. Wanna know why? (Doesn't matter cause I'm gonna tell you anyway.) Here's the thing: the search engines send out these "robots" and "spiders" (their names, not mine) that "crawl" through your website, looking for ideas to what your site is about, and then they file that information away in their databases.
When someone types in a certain keyword (like "dog grooming"), the database instantly pulls up a list of sites they've "crawled" that have to do with "dog grooming" (some VERY relevant to the topic, some miss the mark entirely).
But here's the key...Most sites that are put on the ol' World Wide Web don't "DO" anything. They have a home page that's been the same since 2007 and nothing on the site is ever updated. So the robots and spiders crawl the site, get the gist of the topic, and MAYBE come back every 6 months or so to make sure that's what's still going on...and most of the time, the site looks exactly the same.
WordPress is totally different. You can update your home page on the fly, create a new blog post, add a new page...and it keeps those spiders coming back a LOT more often (I've trained mine to come back every other day)!
This translates into their database thinking, "Wow. These guys are happening! This is a site that is constantly updated, so the material stays relevant and fresh! We gotta come back more often to make sure we stay on top of what they've got going on!" The result? Your page gets ranked higher for the words you use most often on your site. You get ranked more often (ever see a search that has multiple results for the same website? Like that.)
Bottom line, it's a VERY good thing indeed.
#2: Look like a genius - Quick, it's the night before a major holiday. You just thought of a KILLER promotion that'll tie into exactly what's going on the next day. Do you have time to contact your webmaster and communicate to them exactly what you want done, wait 3 days for them to get to it (they were on vacation, don'tcha know) and by then the opportunity has passed.
OR
Would you rather be able to hop onto your WordPress site, make the updates yourself, and the following day be able to roll out a brand new promotion that looks like you'd prepared for it all year? DUH! (Ok, help with the easy questions again) OF COURSE YOU WANNA DO WITHOUT the EVER-VACATIONING WEBGUY!
Don't get me wrong. There are certain things you really want someone else to do (that whole fear-of-breaking-something-you-don't-know-how-to-fix...that's what I'm here for.) But there's a BOATLOAD of changes and alterations you already know how to do (or a quick tutorial would show you how to do) to add pages or make changes on the fly!
And that leads us to the #1 Strange Way Your WordPress Site Will Get You More Customers (is that a drumroll in the background?
#1: Become a Social Gathering Place! Whuh?
Look, not ONLY can you have Twitter updates and comments on your blog all over your Wordpress site (in appropriate places, mind you)...but its CAKE EASY to add a forum where your readers can get into discussions (HELLO! It doesn't necessarily involve you writing anything!) about relevant topics that they can even create themselves!
How does this translate into more customers or even sales? It's a fact that the longer someone stays on your site, the more likely they are to buy. You're building a relationship with them through the words, pictures, videos, whatever on your site.
Get em to keep coming back because they want to see the latest comment, update, or question posted on a forum, Tweet, or blog posting and you're golden, my friend!
So what are you waiting for? This is only a SNAPSHOT of what your site is capable of! Head over to Big Cheese Marketing dot com right this second (while it's still fresh in your mind) and let's get the ball rolling!
To read more about creating a custom site that puts YOU back in the drivers seat AND gets you more traffic (and sales), check out Rachel?s site about all things WordPress at http://www.bigcheesemarketing.com.
To your marketing success,
Rachel Young
Big Cheese Marketing
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