Website is up, now what do i do?

Hello there, Ahmed.

I had my first website set-up about 5 years ago and ever since I am still learning new methods on how to get more traffic and conversions to all the websites that I own at this point. So from all the experience I had during my time in SEO and Online Marketing I would say that it takes time for the website to build rep and authority and although the way in which search engines rank your website changes all the time one thing is always clear and that is the fact that if you have an good website the results will speak for themselves, but it even then it takes some time. My first breakthrough in traffic and conversions came only about 2 months after I set up the website and worked for a few hours every day to build links and keep it fresh with content. So have patience and keep on improving it because results will show up if your services are as good as they can be.

Jones

Well, I have worked quite a bit on my SEO back in the days when niche blogs comments, link exchanges, website directories and various other link building services were quite popular and helpful. Still I recently discovered that most of the links I created that way are actually dragging my websites down since their quality is not very good to say the least. So I for one would suggest to be very careful with link building and only try to get links from very good websites in your niche and basically focus more on the whole social media aspect because given the type of service you offer you should get plenty of customers in that way. You could also try out various ad or microjob websites to get a little more exposure, but after all if people like what you do they will be back for more and they will bring their friends as well and that is when you will have your breakthrough.

I wish you good luck with it!

One month is not much time to expect to see results of your efforts so far. You must stick with it and be patient. In my experience, new sites require several months to start to gain some traction, and then about a year to take off, assuming you continue to work to make it happen and don't quit.

Think of some ways to get person to person connections to get work and not rely on the website only. Build a client base. Start locally. Maybe there is an online charity or local charity who needs help with your area of expertise. You won't get money, but you'll get word of mouth.

BTW this is what I'd write for your copy: "Veteran WordPress Expert and Web Consultant." And that's it. I mean I don't know exactly how you have that posted. I'm sure more copy is needed in some places. But customers don't care about your launch or your name (yet) in that many words. Think about the problems that your customers have that you could solve and make other brief sentences about that.

Good luck!

Omar,

You certainly have design skills. Your website? Portfolio? Thumps up.

Mistakes

Traffic gigs on Fiverr should be avoided. I talk about this a little in my latest eBook, and aside from that, it's general knowledge among digital marketers that such gigs are worthless.

Press releases are terrific, can be, but you need to know what you're doing, release multiple, the right locations, with the right ad copy in those releases.

Suggestions

I own a share in a successful UK-based design and marketing agency. We have domestic and global clients and our services run the whole gamut.

You need to put together for yourself a marketing plan. Don't just jump into suggestions given here or ideas you pick up elsewhere. You must, must, must have an absolutely crystal clear direction for your marketing efforts.

To help you form that plan, let me give you a few suggestions.

You have past clients? Good stuff. Past clients are a resource. One client can often be a springboard to a dozen or more other clients. Quite often, clients will refer new clients, but this obviously isn't happening now so you need to incentivize them. Approach clients where you have a strong relationship and either appeal to them, nicely, asking if they might know of anyone in need of your services, or offer them some form of monetary or service-based incentive.

I'm not sure where you're located. If you have access to good local buy and sell groups on Facebook, these are wonderful for picking up new design business. Post your ads, make sure you use a catchy picture, and offer a local discount.

Alternatively, or as well as, you can use those groups to create for yourself an informal team of affiliates. I've talked about this elsewhere on WF (the Offline forum). What you do is offer a set fee to anyone who refers a new client. The fee amount depends on your area. Effectively, whatever you think will incentivize and still leave plenty of cash on the table for you.

Whoever advised you to grow your presence on socials is correct. You need to consider the two usual suspects, Facebook and Twitter, but also Google-Plus, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Yelp/ Foursquare, and Youtube.

Small offline businesses are a great source of business for design and marketing. Network with them specifically, but never send unsolicited emails or other communications. Think socials.

Depending on where you live in the world, and assuming local businesses want design work, you can often simply walk in to most small businesses and chat to the owner/ decision-maker. Face-to-face communication sells much better than any other. Bring along your iPad or laptop. Show them what you can do. Explain you're trying to build up a portfolio, so your prices are low right now (your call to action) and you need design work from businesses in key sectors.

You're currently posting on a very productive location for design leads. Take a look at the WF traffic stats: Warriorforum.com Analytics - See Traffic Ranking & Stats And think about how many new marketers, especially, require decent websites.

IMPORTANT

Web design work is "foot in the door work." You don't want to spend your career relying on this as your primary income source. Design work, or any type of one-time fee work, should ALWAYS be considered a stepping stone to ONGOING work. You need to acquire clients, paying each month, who need all manner of online marketing. The beauty being, once you give them results, they tend to retain month to month. And once you have too much work, you can hire VAs and outsource.

I could talk all day, but I hope those provisional ideas prove useful. All the best, buddy!

- Tom

Your problem is mostly about traffic so I suggest you find a good easy to rank for keywords in your niche and write SEO rich contents on your website as that would get you free steady traffic from Google since you dont have the budget for paid traffic for your new site.

Don't mess with Trafficswarm for traffic. You won't make money with your site there.

A simple PPC campaign costs only $50. You don't have the budget for that?

Have you tried joint ventures? Starting an affiliate program? Introducing a free web design ebook and promoting that to push your services? What about web design forums, and advertising on high traffic web design websites?

There all kinds of ways to get the job done. Do it. No excuses. Just make it happen.

Hi Ahmed Omar
I have just been on your website, no doubt its an amazing website and very eye catching. I can see you got a signup form for 30 min free website consultation which is great.

Just few tips that can get your site ranked to google and other places, Talking about me as a customer, if i was to land on your page I personally wouldn't sign up to the free consultation.

The reason is I cant really see how you can make my website great. Second of all people like free stuff to learn from or help with there problem. Just my experience and personal view.

If you can have a separate blog site or a article section where your helping people for example explaining how to get great widget to solve few problems and how to position certain type of pictures then people start reading and knowing who you are and kind of have the feel that you know how to do things.
SO HELP PEOPLE WITH THERE WEBSITE PROBLEMS

Have helping videos on how to design websites but then a link to your website that you can also help them more then people like that and will interact more.

So help articles where people can find you on search engines using SEO and leading to you pages of free consultation or sales.

To bring traffic there are 2 ways, first way is the FREE traffic and second is PAID traffic.

Talking about the free traffic i don't really consider it free as i believe time is money. for free traffic you need to invest time and have patience.

Paid traffic are effective if done correctly, I personally use solo ads as paid and its my targeted traffic and get great results. Fiverr has never worked for me. social media also a great way to hit targeted traffic. For paid traffic results are faster.

Best way for free traffic is;

FORUM MARKETING
BLOG COMMENTING
POD-CASTING
GUEST POSTING
SOCIAL MARKETING/ FACEBOOK/ TWITTER

AND MANY MORE WAYS OF FREE TRAFFIC.

I usually say to master just 1 or 2 which suits you best and stick to it. If you stick to it and is done effectively then slowly you will see traffic come to your website.
Many people try one for few weeks and then think its not working jumping to another and they think its just not working, that's why i say stick to it and have patience.

I BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE A GREAT OPPORTUNITY IF DONE CORRECTLY SO GO ON PLACES WHERE PEOPLE ARE ASKING FOR HELP ON WEBSITE AND GIVE THEM THE INFO AND HELP TO THERE PROBLEMS AND OVER TIME PEOPLE WILL KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND WILL CLICK ON YOUR WEBSITE.

i SUGGEST YOU GO ON THE WORD PRESS WEBSITE TO START OF WITH AS THAT'S YOUR MAIN PLATFORM AND HELP ANSWER QUESTION PEOPLE ARE ASKING.

I HOPE THAT MAKES SENSE AND I COULD BE HELP TO YOU MY FRIEND.

Once your website is up, the next thing is... traffic time.

If you have some budget, then go for paid traffic. It's fast and high quality (if you know what you are doing).

If you don't have money to invest, focus on free traffic methods. facebook, twittter or forum markeitng.

I looked at your site I don't feel like its a site where people will just land on and pay you thousands to build them a website, unless you precisely target your prospects.

You need very targeted traffic. Just getting random people to your site is not going to convert.

Your product or service is created to help people with problems.

Also people buy stuff for what it will do for them not just for the product itself.

There are thousands of website developers and now ordinary people have the tools to build websites, so what does your product offer that's different? What is it about you that people should know? Why do I need to buy a website from you and not others? What am I getting when I pay my money? Why do I need a website?

These are questions you should be asking yourself and these are questions your website should be answering

Hi Ahmed-

First of all, forget about gaining traffic for the moment. Traffic is not your problem- sales are. And when you use random sources to gain additional traffic, then you get random visitors that probably aren't looking for a new website. And that doesn't really help you any except from an SEO perspective. So if you want to use your website as a tool to make sales, then you need to go where people are looking to buy websites.

First, print up some business cards and make some flyers. Hit all your local businesses, tell them what you do, and ask if they have time for a quick valuation on ways they can be gaining more customers. You'll get very little traffic from this, but the ones that visit you are looking for your services. While you're in these businesses, ask for an email address so you can send more information as well.

Next, get on your personal social media accounts and tell all your friends about your "grand opening". Ask them to review your site and if they know anyone looking for great design work, to give you a call. This gets you targeted leads with an actual foot in the door.

My favorite technique is choosing an industry I work a lot with (for me, it's usually automotive or restaurants) and searching local businesses. When I find a site that's horrible and not converting, I'll send a short, personalized email through their "contact us" page telling them that they're missing out. The key word in that sentence is "personalized"...they need to see that you'll take the time to personally focus on their needs. Then I'll send a follow--up email 2-3 days later and stop by the location on the same day.

You should also pick up the phone and call every single web designer and marketing agency you can find. While these are competitors, they're also always on the search for talent and it may lead to opportunities. You never know until you ask, and if they visit your website....then they're interested in possibly doing business.

You can also pick up your phone and call everyone you know in the business world. Straight out ask them if they know anyone looking for website help, and let them hear how eager you are to take on additional clients. Because the more you network, the more people will remember you when it comes time to design a great website....so you constantly have to be selling yourself.

Then do the same thing on LinkedIn. Every connection you make is a legitimate chance for new business, so make sure your profile sells your skills and makes people interested.

One more tip- don't worry about Fiverr or these other ways people have mentioned to get traffic, because traffic is not what you're looking for. Remember that...you're looking for partnerships and sales. So start with those close to you....both your friends/family and your local businesses. Then expand outward in all your networks.

I hope that helps.

Bringing traffic to your site is a whole new beast altogether.

It gets even more complex depending on the TYPE of traffic you want to drive.

Avoid seemingly small fixes like fiverr etc.

Your best bet would be to cold call potential prospects and get some initial clients. Do a great job and incentivise if they refer more clients.

If you're willing to spend money, try FaceBook ads but I've spent over 100k with FB and am STILL learning things about it.

That's why I'd stick to the fundamentals if I were you - Cold Call/email etc.