TL;DR

If you’re not sure what to post or how to connect with your audience, start with a poll. I’ve used simple polls to spark conversations, test ideas, and get clarity on what people want from me.

This article walks through how polls can help you attract more clients by making your content more useful, more personal, and way less stressful to create. I share real examples, easy steps, and a free AI prompt to help you try it out. This is one of the fastest ways I’ve found to build trust and engagement without overthinking it.

If you’re looking for a quick, easy way to engage your audience and learn more about what they want from you, polls are a great option.

Whether on social media or in an email, polls let you tap into what your audience is thinking without asking for a long response.

And because it’s so easy for them to participate, you’re more likely to get some solid feedback you can actually use.

Why Polls Matter for Your Visibility

You might be wondering, why bother with polls? Here’s the thing—building trust with your audience is key to growing your visibility online. Polls give you a simple way to start a conversation and show your followers that you care about what they think.

Polls also serve as a subtle way to remind your online and email audience about what you do and how you can serve them.

A strategic question and the answer choices tell a micro-story about who you are and what you do.

When you know what your audience is into (or what’s keeping them up at night), you can create content that hits home. And when your content resonates, they’re more likely to stick around, engage, and eventually become clients. Plus, when you have that data in hand, you can tweak your messaging to speak directly to their needs. It’s a win-win.

Most email broadcast providers offer a way to embed simple polls in your emails (I use MailerLite and love their easy polling option). You can also send an email with one question and ask for a reply. That’s about as quick and easy as you can get, and it’s a great way to start a conversation with your email subscribers.

Visibility Tip

“Once you send out a poll to your audience and get sufficient responses, you can repurpose that information as different content, such as posts, blogs, email campaigns, testimonials, or stories, which can be shared on various social media platforms.” Source

Try it, and let me know how it works for you!

How to Start Using Polls to Engage Your Audience

Here’s how you can start running polls and making them work for you:

1) Pick a platform. Figure out where your audience hangs out the most (this could be a one-question poll for your email list).

Are they active on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook? Do you have a strong email list? Choose the platform where you’re already seeing engagement.

You can create a short poll directly on a LinkedIn post, as well as on posts in Facebook groups, and on X/Twitter posts.

Or, as mentioned above, send an email asking one question and requesting a reply. You’ll have to track responses manually, and it’s a natural way to start a conversation with readers who reply so you can start building a one-to-one relationship.

2) Keep it simple. Ask one or two straightforward questions. Don’t overcomplicate it. Something like:

• “What’s your biggest challenge with [your topic]?”
• “What type of content do you enjoy the most?”

3) Add a time limit. Polls on Instagram, for example, work really well with a 24-hour limit. People are more likely to participate when they know it’s a now-or-never situation.

Urgency works!

And promote the poll on any platforms you’re active on (more visibility!).

4) Share the results. Once the poll closes, let your audience know what you learned. You can share the results in a post or follow up with an email and then tell them how you will use their feedback.

5) Tweak your strategy. Use the insights you get to adjust your content, messaging, or even your offers. Your audience just gave you a roadmap—use it to meet them where they are.

Experiment with This AI Prompt to Help You Out

If you want a little help coming up with poll questions, here’s an AI prompt you can play with:

“I want to create a poll for [your specific target audience] to figure out their biggest challenges with [your topic]. Based on common struggles in this area, what are three engaging questions I can ask them in a poll to get helpful feedback?”

If you’re creating a poll with one question and several options to choose from, you can also ask for 3-5 responses that you can use in the poll. Below is the prompt I used on ChatGPT for the Target Audience poll mentioned above:

You can also ask for ideas for analyzing the results or drafting follow-up messages.

A Few Extra Things to Keep in Mind

• Follow through. Don’t just run the poll and then forget about it. Share the results and let your audience know what you’re doing with that info. It shows you’re listening, and it keeps the conversation going.
• Stay consistent. Polls can be a regular part of your content strategy. Running them every few weeks or months will help you keep the pulse on what your audience needs and wants from you.
• Consider incentives. While most people will respond to polls without needing anything in return, sometimes offering a small incentive (like a freebie or discount) can help boost participation. Just keep it relevant to your audience.

Polls are a super simple way to boost engagement, get to know your audience better, and figure out how you can serve them better. The more you know about what they want, the easier it will be to create content (and programs/services) that attract the right clients to your business.

Give it a try, and then let’s chat about it—I think you’ll be surprised at the insights you’ll gain!

This article was originally published on Your Visibility Ege.

The post How Simple Polls Can Help You Attract More Clients appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

At a retreat I attended in 2009, a colleague pointed out I was more of a tactician than a strategist. At the time, I felt slightly offended by this comment because I believed that strategists operated at a higher level than tacticians.

Over the years, I’ve come to realize he was right. This doesn’t mean that I don’t know or understand strategy—I do, and I help my clients with marketing strategies.

But where I get my juice is from creating the plan for implementing the tactics that enable the strategies to succeed.

Strategy is the overarching plan or approach designed to achieve long-term goals. It’s the big picture, the roadmap that guides your business towards success. Think of strategy as the “what” and “why” of your marketing efforts.

Tactics are the specific actions or steps you take to execute your strategy. They are the “how” and “when” of your marketing plan. Tactics are the practical methods and tools you use to achieve the strategic goals.

You cannot have one without the other.

So, let’s say you want to boost your online visibility to grow your audience (strategy).

Your objective is to increase online visibility, which will attract and engage a larger audience and ultimately lead to more clients or customers.

Your tactics to achieve your objective might include:

• Content marketing
• Social media engagement
• Search engine optimization

Once you flesh out what you want to generate for each high-level tactic, start with the low-hanging fruit. 

For example, before creating new content, conduct an SEO analysis of your existing blog posts to enhance and optimize them.  

Use your AI tool of choice with a prompt like this, for example:

Example Prompt:

Review this blog post [insert URL] and suggest improvements to increase its SEO value.

This will save you loads of time and give you a list of action items to implement, supporting your goal of boosting your visibility.

Rinse and repeat with every tactic you want to implement. AI is a useful and time-saving tool that helps you identify the tactics to support your strategy and then implement each one.

What do you think? Is this useful? Please reply or comment and let me know.

This article was originally published on Your Visibility Ege.

The post Strategy vs. Tactics appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

In addition to aligning your content with your searchers’ needs, good SEO makes your site intuitive and easily navigable, and it creates a foundation for site visitors to interact with your site and move through your conversion funnel. Because of this, SEO not only attracts visitors at every phase in your conversion funnel, but it impacts every visitor to your site, regardless of how they discovered your brand.

Here’s how optimizing content for searching journeys in each phase, from initial awareness to final conversion, attracts more organic traffic and boosts conversions.

SEO Attracts Visitors at Every Phase in the Conversion Funnel

SEO makes your site findable to the right users at the right moment, but only if you have an effective content strategy. Holistic SEOs do this by studying how your searchers become buyers and optimizing the content on your site for users in every stage of that path.

Optimization for organic search is another way to effectively grab those valuable upper funnel searchers and users at every phase in the conversion path with a one-time investment in content strategy and evergreen content creation.

Step 1: Awareness

Awareness of your brand is the first phase of the conversion funnel. Let’s assume we are working on an SEO strategy for a portable self-storage moving company.

When Mary, our potential customer, starts thinking about moving across the country, she needs to figure out the logistics of her big move. She turns to Google for suggestions and types “help moving” into the search bar. 

This query can be answered in a variety of ways. Rental moving trucks, professional moving services, and hourly movers could all be solutions to Mary’s general task of finding help for her move. Our fictional business can use this general query as an opportunity to make Mary aware of their solution.

A holistic approach to SEO would ensure this site had a dedicated landing page educating those who need “help moving” about their flexible storage and moving containers. This page would be optimized for keywords that reflect this search journey.

Mary is now aware of the existence of portable self-storage and moving containers. That landing page would also offer an intuitive funnel users can follow to learn more about storage and moving containers as visitors like Mary move down the conversion funnel into the interest phase.

To better understand how to create your beginning of the funnel, consider asking ChatGPT along with an AI tool like Keywords Everywhere, for example:

   “My main keyword is [KEYWORD]. Which keywords should I be
   focussing on to attract people who are just researching
   options at the very start of their searching journey?”

Step 2: Interest

Mary is now aware of portable self-storage as one solution to her task of moving. But there are still questions about what portable self-storage and moving containers would mean for her move. Mary again turns to Google to learn more. “Moving containers” may be her query this time as she enters the interest stage in our conversion funnel. The customer is aware of the offering but wants to know more.

Holistic SEO ensures that our site is optimized for searchers in this next phase of the funnel by offering information about what moving containers are and how they work. 

Questions like: “How much do they cost?”; “What sizes are available?”; “How long can I use them?” or “How quickly can they be transported?”, could all be answered on a landing page for the interested visitor. Users in the interest phase should also have content from the next phase in your conversion funnel clearly laid out for them when they are ready to move from interest to consideration. Use email marketing to engage users who are not yet ready to move down your conversion funnel.

For this optimization strategy, consider using the following prompt:

   “My main keyword is [KEYWORD]. Which questions should I
   answer throughout my site to inform my target customers
   that this may be the best solution for them.”

Step 3: Consideration

At this step, the customer wants a particular brand or product. Mary loves the idea of portable moving containers but isn’t sure which brand will best meet her needs. “Compare portable storage containers” may be our query this time. Mary knows portable storage containers will be her solution. She wants to find the best deal though and she’s using search engines to point her to options she can compare as she gets close to making her purchase decision.

During this phase, your site needs to be optimized to communicate your unique value proposition. Are you convincing visitors through your content that your offering is the clear choice for your potential customers? 

When you’ve outlined the benefits of choosing your company and offering, encourage your visitor to make the final move to conversion with an intuitive path laid out for your visitor. At this stage, a well-optimized digital business card is important to consolidate your brand-driven assets.

Here, consider a prompt like this:

   “My business is [DESCRIBE WHAT YOU DO HERE]. My main 
   competitors are [COMPETITORS]. How can I convince my 
   customers that my business is the best option for them?”

Step 4: Conversion

Mary has done all of the groundwork; she’s ready to convert! The decision is made. Mary is ready to purchase but can’t remember the domain and wants to skip navigating through the site. “Brand name moving containers” is the query this time. She just wants to be connected with our key landing page, which is set up for conversions.

With holistic SEO, you’ve ensured this page exists and meets the expectations of your soon-to-be buyer. It should include the information Mary needs about her portable storage container like size, price, and transportation. It should also have a streamlined checkout process to make sure converting is as simple and intuitive as possible.

   At this point, prompt AI on how to use your CTAs, 
   identify what your landing page is missing, and how 
   you can improve your conversions. 

Holistic SEO Pushes Users Further Down Your Funnel

SEO doesn’t just attract people from organic search at every step in the conversion funnel; it also pushes people down it. Holistic SEO isn’t just about aligning content with queries. It’s also about optimizing the user’s experience on your site. It’s about making your site intuitive and useful so that it will drive conversion.

Users who land on your site to learn more about your general industry should find an answer to their questions. They should also find why your solution meets their specific needs, why your solution is the best for them, and where they can take advantage of this great solution. Good SEO turns “awareness” into “interest” or even “conversion.”

SEO Touches Visitors from All Sources and in All Phases of Your Conversion Funnel

SEO touches all site visitors, regardless of the source or phase in your conversion funnel. Because of your SEO efforts, visitors who find your site through a display ad in the “consideration” phase have the perfect landing page to express your unique value proposition and move them seamlessly to the “conversion” stage.

“Interested” users who look for your brand after seeing a TV ad have content to answer their questions about your product as well as the facts about your company and the path laid out for them to move further down that conversion funnel.

Social media visitors who are just starting to learn about your industry in the “awareness” stage can find the information they need to move down to the “interest” or “consideration” phase and compare your offering to your competitors. The content and path alignment created through holistic SEO makes purchasing easy and intuitive for ALL your site visitors, regardless of source or phase in the conversion funnel.

Most brands invest in SEO because organic search drives relevant traffic and revenue to their site. Holistic SEO does more than just improve a site’s performance in organic search. It lays the foundation for all online touches with your brand by aligning your site’s content with what your unique users are looking for. Holistic SEO also boosts the performance of your entire marketing program by optimizing content for each stage of the conversion funnel, resulting in overall improved traffic, revenue, and conversion rate.

Key Takeaways:

• Holistic SEO involves studying how searchers become customers and tailoring content to users in each stage of that journey – awareness, interest, consideration, and conversion. This captures more upper-funnel searchers and leads them further down the path to purchase.
• Aligning site content to searchers’ evolving needs makes a site more intuitive and usable. SEO not only brings in relevant organic visitors, but it also helps push them through the conversion funnel.
• Good SEO benefits all site visitors regardless of source. By creating useful, tailored content and conversion paths, holistic SEO boosts the performance of overall marketing efforts – more traffic, revenue, and conversions.

In summary, holistic SEO goes beyond driving organic traffic to lay the groundwork for guiding users seamlessly through the purchase process. It boosts marketing results by optimizing the entire customer experience.

Say Hello to Smarter, Faster, More Effective Content Creation!
Join the Club! 👇

Blog cover image: Unsplash+ In collaboration with Spenser Sembrat

*Some or all links on this page may be affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission if you make any purchases based on my recommendations.

The post How to Transform Visitors into Buyers through Holistic SEO appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

As a small business owner, I know how time-consuming yet critical content marketing is for attracting new customers. Like many entrepreneurs, I struggle to create quality blog posts, social media content, and other materials consistently even though I know my business depends on it.

When ChatGPT crashed in my awareness, I discovered how AI tools can help streamline content creation without sacrificing quality.

“AI tools like ChatGPT can help generate content drafts faster, allowing business owners to focus on higher level tasks.”

While AI is amazing and I’m a huge fan and advocate, I caution you not to rely on it completely. These tools can “hallucinate” (make stuff up). I doubt you want your brand communicating false information, so you need to critically review any AI-generated content before publishing.

Following are some of my recommendations…

First, optimize your content for SEO by using AI to identify top keywords, then tailoring content accordingly. I recommend using Keywords Everywhere (the Chrome Extension) which integrates with ChatGPT.

You can also leverage AI to summarize surveys and interviews, gaining insights into your customers’ common questions and pain points. From there, you can create personalized content that speaks directly to their needs.

To maintain brand consistency across AI-produced content, develop a unique brand voice and style guide. Use samples of your existing content to have AI analyze your tone. This ensures your content aligns with your core messaging and personality. 

While integrating AI with your content marketing may feel overwhelming, if you haven’t started, take action today, even starting small, like generating a few social posts.” Leveraging these tools will save you time, maintain quality, and ultimately boost your content marketing results.

Repurposing owned content is another key application for AI tools. AI makes it simple to create social media posts, key takeaways, and summaries from your existing blog posts, podcasts, and videos.

What will you try first when it comes to AI? Let me know in the comments!

This interview with Paul Guyon of The Lead Machine Growth Show was published on June 28, 2023. The content in this post was created using the following steps:

• Used Descript to get a transcript and edited out the filler words and some unnecessary comments that didn’t add anything to the interview.
• Since the interview was audio only, I used Descript to create an audiogram to create a video file I can post on YouTube, blog post, etc.
• Copied the transcript into Claude.ai and prompted it to create a summary of the transcript
• Followed up with the next prompt to draft a 500-word blog post from the summary:
  Rewrite the summary as a 500-word blog post in the first person, focusing on the reader. Include quotes from the original text
  What I got back was about 357 words.
• The next prompt asked for a TL;DR statement:
  Add a TL:DR statement for those who don’t want to read the full post
• I rewrote most of the draft in first person with a focus on “you”
• Used Grammarly to clean up spelling and grammar. 😎

If you want to learn more about creating prompts (the secret sauce for getting great results from AI tools), check out the AI Success Club’s Prompt Playbook: 33 Game-Changing Prompts to Boost Your Traffic and get 50% off using coupon code: 50OFF.

Recommended Reading

5 Proven Traffic Generation Steps Every Small Business Owner Should Take

10 Ways You Can Use ChatGPT for Your Content Marketing

6 Entrepreneurs Share Their Strategies for Successful Integration of ChatGPT into Marketing

*Some or all links on this page may be affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission if you make any purchases based on my recommendations.

The post How AI and Content Marketing Can Transform Your Small Business Success appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

In today’s digital age, your website is your business’s most valuable billboard, open 24/7 and accessible from anywhere in the world. But having a website alone is not enough. You need visitors – lots of them – to turn your online presence into tangible results. If you’re a small business owner looking to generate traffic to your website without breaking the bank, you’re in the right place.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through a simple yet powerful 5-step process to attract more visitors to your website. No jargon, no expensive strategies, just practical, proven steps you can start implementing today.

I won’t insult you by claiming this is stunning new information. There are some new tools to help you, though. And yes, I’m referring to Artificial Intelligence – AI – like ChatGPT, which can make these steps faster and easier for you to implement.

If you’re a DIY small or solo business owner, you most likely know everything that is laid out below so consider this a reminder and if there’s a missing piece in your traffic generation strategy, it’s time to make that a top priority for your business.

“You can’t just open a website and expect people to flood in. If you really want to succeed you have to create traffic.”

Joel Anderson, CEO, Walmart​¹​.

Let’s get started…

Identify and Understand Your Target Audience

Research and identify the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your ideal customers.

• Understand their needs, wants, and interests.
• Use this information to create customer personas.

Implementation Tips:

• Use free online resources like Google Analytics to gather demographic data about your current website visitors.
• Conduct surveys or interviews with your current customers to understand their needs and interests.
• Use this information to create 2-3 detailed customer personas.

How to Use ChatGPT:

ChatGPT can help analyze data, identify patterns, and draft customer persona descriptions based on the data you provide.

• Provide ChatGPT with the raw data you have gathered about your customers, and it can help identify key characteristics or patterns.
• Ask ChatGPT to draft detailed customer personas based on the characteristics and patterns you have identified.

“Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first”​¹

Wendy Piersall

Optimize Your Website for Search Engines (SEO)

Identify relevant keywords that your target audience might use to find your products or services.

• Optimize your website content and meta tags with these keywords.
• Create high-quality, informative content that provides value to your visitors.

Implementation Tips:

• Use free tools like Google Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest to identify relevant keywords.
• Include keywords naturally in your content and meta tags.
• Regularly update your website with new and informative content related to your industry or offerings.

How to Use ChatGPT:

ChatGPT can provide guidance on SEO best practices and help you draft SEO-friendly content.

• Ask ChatGPT for tips on SEO best practices and how to optimize your website content and meta tags.
• Provide ChatGPT with a list of your identified keywords and the type of content you want to create, and it can help draft SEO-friendly content.

Leverage Social Media Platforms

Identify which social media platforms your target audience uses the most.

• Create and share engaging content related to your business on these platforms.
• Interact with your audience by responding to comments and messages.

Implementation Tips:

• Choose 1-2 social media platforms to start with, based on your target audience.
• Use a social media scheduling tool to save time by planning and scheduling posts in advance.
• Engage with your audience by responding to comments and messages in a timely manner.

How to Use ChatGPT:

ChatGPT can help generate ideas for social media posts and draft engaging content for your chosen platforms.

• Ask ChatGPT for ideas for social media posts that would engage your target audience.
• Provide ChatGPT with details about your business and target audience, and it can help draft engaging content for your social media posts.

Start an Email Marketing Campaign

Collect email addresses from visitors and customers.

• Send regular newsletters or promotional emails to this list.
• Make sure the emails provide value and are not overly promotional.

Implementation Tips:

Use a free email marketing tool like MailerLite to collect email addresses and send emails.

• Offer a free resource or discount in exchange for an email address.
• Make sure your emails include a clear call to action (CTA) that directs readers back to your website.

How to Use ChatGPT:

ChatGPT can assist in creating compelling email copy that engages your subscribers and encourages them to visit your website.

• Ask ChatGPT for tips on creating effective email newsletters or promotional emails.
• Provide ChatGPT with the information you want to include in your email, and it can help draft the email copy, ensuring it is engaging and includes a clear call to action.

Implement a Referral Program

Encourage your existing customers to refer their friends or colleagues to your business.

• Offer some kind of incentive for both the referrer and the referred.

Implementation Tips:

• Decide on a suitable incentive for your referral program (discounts, free products/services, etc.).
• Use a simple referral program software to track referrals and manage rewards.
• Promote your referral program regularly to your customers via email, social media, or on your website.

How to Use ChatGPT:

ChatGPT can help brainstorm referral program ideas and draft promotional messages to encourage participation.

• Ask ChatGPT for ideas on what incentives to offer in your referral program.
• Provide ChatGPT with details about your referral program, and it can help draft promotional messages for email, social media, or your website.

Each of these steps takes time and effort to implement, and they are all cost-effective strategies for driving traffic to your website.

There’s plenty of help available to get you on the right path to attract more traffic to your website and business. If you want to learn more about how to integrate AI tools like ChatGPT in your marketing plans, take a look at the AI Success Club. We deliver new marketing and copywriting prompts every week.🔥

Want some prompts? Get the AI Success Club’s NEW Prompt Playbook: 33 Game-Changing Prompts to Boost Your Traffic

You can get our new Prompt Playbook – a collection of prompts all focused on helping you get MORE traffic to your website and offers. Details here (Save 50% – use 50OFF coupon for a limited time)

Recommended Reading

10 Ways You Can Use ChatGPT for Your Content Marketing

6 Entrepreneurs Share Their Strategies for Successful Integration of ChatGPT into Marketing

Disclosure: I co-authored this blog post with ChatGPT-4. I created prompts with the questions and directions I wanted ChatGPT-4 to answer. Then I did some editing, adding, and rearranging to create the post.

The post 5 Proven Traffic Generation Steps Every Small Business Owner Should Take appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.