If you want to make the most out of your website and online presence, you need to position yourself as an expert.
Because, when people know you’re an expert they are going to automatically pay attention to everything you say and take you seriously.
In a world where finding a competitor is as easy as Googling them or finding them on social media, it’s incredibly important you STAND OUT and differentiate yourself to the next person.
When you stand out (in a good way of course) to your competition you have a say on who your customers do business with.
And the best part of online marketing is that you can control that.
If you’re not positioning yourself as the best in the industry, you’re ultimately wasting time with online marketing.
Let me explain this using some numbers…
Say you had 100 people who visit your website and only 1% fill out an enquiry / contact us form (conversion rate). So, 1 person in 100 visitors becomes a lead.
Not great.
But now you’ve had the chance to improve the positioning of your website and improved the perception of being an expert in your space. That means to people liking and trusting your content much more, which leads to more customer enquiries. For instance, let’s say we hit a 5% conversion rate. That means without increasing your traffic to your website, you are now getting 5 leads instead of 1.
400% increase in leads. Nice!
To help you position yourself as an expert I highly recommend implementing the following where possible:
1. Use Professional Imagery
This makes such a big difference and beats those cringy stock images all day long!
If you run a personal brand, then get some natural images of yourself and your team if you have one. Allow your personality to shine through and smile!
If you sell products, it’s a great idea to show them in their ideal environment and how they are used.
As the saying goes, an image says a 1,000 words so let them do the talking.
2. Maximise Customer Reviews and Generated Content
There’s nothing better than customers’ telling other customers’ how amazing you are. As modest entrepreneurs (yeah right!!!) we need our customers to help share our good work, otherwise, the world will not find out. 🙂
Whatever form your user reviews comes in (videos, written reviews, images), you need to be maximising it.
I’m talking about adding it to the website, posting on your Facebook page, sharing on Instagram stories and telling potential prospects about it.
3. Create WOW Content
When you create high-quality expert content with the sole purpose of helping your audience out, the force of reciprocity starts to kick in.
The more you give, the more you get.
When I say “get” that doesn’t necessarily mean clients. It could be speaking opportunities, being featured on well-known publications or open doors you never knew existed. Like the time I met Instagram. 🙂
Here’s an excellent example,website mistakes to avoid.
4. Add Feature Badges Across Your Website
I was recently featured in one of the biggest SEO blogs on the planet.
What do you think I did when that happened?
I added it to my website, shared it on social and critically, informed every client that was thinking of working with us for SEO and Content Marketing services.
Look what I put on the home page…
To start, think of all the places you have been featured on and start adding those badges to your website.
Don’t worry if you have none or very little currently, with a few months of focused effort and strategy you can rectify the situation.
Your Turn
Positioning yourself as a leader within the industry is one of the most critical steps of a building a successful online presence.
As point 2 and 4 above suggests, it’s an ongoing process. Personally, as my business has grown so has my positioning organically,
So, don’t feel like you need to rush through all of this, but just give enough importance to it.