4 Advantages of an Inbound Marketing Website

No one can dispute the value of a website in business. However, you may be unfamiliar with an inbound website and it's value for sales.

For starters, inbound marketing is an innovative style of marketing that humanizes a brand and with a purpose to educate the consumer instead of selling to them. So, an inbound marketing website would adopt the same mission while including a way to generate better leads.

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Inbound marketing is a new style of marketing that humanizes a brand and with a purpose to educate the consumer instead of selling to them. So, an inbound marketing website would adopt the same mission while including a way to generate better leads.

What is an Inbound Website?

An inbound website is a site designed for a positive visitor experience. It's a business tool that helps your entire marketing process to educate, solve user problems, build brand awareness and generate leads.

Inbound Website vs Traditional Website

These days there are many ways to build a website along with several types of tools like WordPress and HubSpot CMS. The visual differences between an inbound website and a traditional website are subtle to the untrained eye.

In trying to understand the differences between the two we’re really referring to methodology and purpose of each style of design - so, let’s review.

Traditional Website Purpose

The purpose of any website traditional or other, is to display organizational information in an informative way to website visitors.

Common website information is company data, products, services, news, events, etc. Typically the focus would be on creative and delivery of content with less of an emphasis on conversion tactics. Simple tactics include a contact form or newsletter subscription sign-up.

Without any attached value, these conversion methods usually fall short of delivering new leads. So, the pages and site are not pulling for a common goal and exist simply to exist.

Inbound Website Purpose

The purpose of an inbound website is aligned with business goals. Typically, these goals are to increase website traffic, increase website conversions and generate new leads.

In order to achieve these goals a lead generating environment needs to be created using an inbound method to attract, engage and convert website visitors.

Inbound Website Design

We know that your website represents your organization. So, a poorly designed or outdated website reflects negatively on your brand - regardless of your market.

Inbound website design is a modern approach to web design - where the creative and layout structure leverages a good user interface (UI) to promote an exceptional user experience (UX).

The website UI should contain solution-based content, be personalized for your audience, built for SEO and use a call to action leading to a relevant offer.

Solution-based Content

A critical difference between methods occurs within the content itself. Your content is what a user needs to connect with your brand.

For example: a traditional website may display lots of content pertaining to a service and list it on a webpage. However, this content may simply talk about a core service and what it does without solving any problems. This leaves the consumer uninspired as we don’t know where they are within their buyer’s journey - are they ready to buy, just researching, etc.

By creating a blog post focused on solving a user’s problem, need or challenge - you’re content has a better chance of resonating as a solution. When this happens, the user respects you and your content as authoritative. This fosters trust and credibility for which the user is more inclined to engage with you and convert on your offer.

Don’t put off writing because you’ve never done it before or if you’re not a good writer. There are many writing services where you can enlist their help and they’ll ghost write for you.

Personalized for your Audience

Now that you know content is the key for attracting and converting prospects it's important you personalize the content for your target audience.

Start by uncovering the specific challenges your audience is facing and write content that solves for those questions. Taking this personalized approach helps make your content more relevant and will convert at a much higher rate.

When personalizing content it helps to add context to your writing. The added degree of context helps the visitor better relate to your content. They can see that you understand their specific problem or situation and have taken great care in producing a written solution.

So, writing highly personalized content ensures you’re attracting the right person, with the right message, at the right time. This also ensures that you are targeting only good fit prospects from your buyer persona.

Built for SEO

Let’s face it, if no one can find your content, what’s the point of writing it? For an inbound website to be found in search you’ll need to employ a solid SEO strategy.

SEO Signals for your Inbound Website

One of the biggest search signals is to publish new content to your blog frequently and consistently. Adding fresh new content sends good search signals to Google and creates more indexable content.

So, there’s a fundamental difference between pages and posts. Think of your pages as static resources that don’t change very often like an “About Us” page. You write it and simply forget about it.

A blog post is heavily researched because you're trying to write better content that answers user questions better than the competition. You’ll want to add rich visual content like images, infographics, SlideShares and videos to strengthen your content. You’ll also want your content to evolve over time - either with new data, expanding your point of view or as market demands changes.

Call to Action

As I mentioned your call to action needs to be more than your contact page. A CTA allows a new website visitor to enter your buyer process (buyer’s journey) or move an existing prospect further down the buyer’s journey.

You need to offer additional value that users can’t get anywhere else. You can offer white papers, tip sheets, ebooks, videos, free services/consultations, etc. - so as long as it’s relevant to the post content they’re already reading. The offer also needs to be aligned to your buyer persona and appeal to their position in the buyer’s journey.

Typically, the CTA will load a special landing page focused on that offer and that lead conversion. When the user downloads or opts-in to anything via a lead form, you’re creating a net new lead.

Creating an Inbound Website

You may have a flat traditional website that’s adding little value to your business goals. Don’t let that stop you from turning your website into a sales machine. Most websites can be converted into an Inbound Website with a little effort and the addition of inbound marketing tools from HubSpot.