You’ve launched a website for your brand or business. Now what? Setting it up isn’t enough — you need to actively find new clients and customers. Here are 10 ways to help you generate inquiries, leads, and requests for service on your site.
1. Make it easy for potential customers to contact you
To add a contact form, click on + Add in your page editor, then select Contact Form in the dropdown menu. Once the page is created, don’t forgot to make it visible in your main menu.
Create a Contact page on your site titled Contact Us, Work with Me, Order Now, Inquire, Sign Up, or something similar. Add a contact form on the page, which is one way for people to get in touch without you having to display your email address. The contact form has four default fields (Name, Email, Website, and Comment), but you can customize them depending on what information you need from a prospective customer.
2. Promote your physical storefront with offline contact information
In addition to or instead of a contact form, display business details like your phone number, physical address, and directions to your brick and mortar storefront, if you have one. This contact information demonstrates your business is legitimate and provides alternate methods to get in touch.
Add the Contact Info and Map Widget by going to My Site(s) → Customize → Widgets, then select the area where you want the widget to appear. Click Add a Widget, then search for Contact Info & Map.
Add the Contact Info and Map Widget in your sidebar to display your location, hours, contact information, and a map. Alternatively, you can embed a Google Map alongside basic contact information on your Contact page.
3. Optimize your site for search engines and social media with SEO tools
WordPress.com Business plan subscribers: explore SEO tools in My Site(s) → Settings → Traffic.
WordPress.com sites have great SEO out of the box. Of course, there’s always more to learn. If you’re a WordPress.com Business plan subscriber, you can optimize your site for search engines and social media with SEO tools. Additionally, the WordPress.com SEO guide for Business plan subscribers can help set your site up for SEO success, Google Analytics tracking, and more.
4. Connect your site to your Facebook page to continue conversations
You may have readers who are interested in what you sell or offer but won’t contact you via your site — they might be more comfortable interacting on Facebook, where they already spend much of their time online.
You can activate the Social Icons Widget and Facebook Page Plugin at My Site(s) → Customize → Widgets.
Give these people the option to engage with you. Add the Social Icons Widget or the Facebook Page Plugin to your sidebar (or the footer, as seen on Ashley’s site, Wanderlust in the City) so potential customers can visit your Facebook page.
5. Visually promote your products and services on Instagram
Instagram is an ideal place to visually promote what you’re selling and offering — your new book, an upcoming workshop, or your consulting service. Share a new product on Instagram with a custom image, and then link to the Shop page on your website in your Instagram bio. Not a graphic designer? Use free design tools like Canva or Pablo to create images with text overlays.
Hanny Kusumawati, the writer at Beradadisini, shares a pre-order teaser image about her new book Break, Hearts, which has its own page on her website so readers can learn more.
6. Direct your readers with a call-to-action button
Need inspiration? These six sites using the Radcliffe 2 theme use a CTA button in different ways.
With a call-to-action (CTA) button, you can nudge potential clients to a certain page on your site: your merchandise, your list of massage services, or details about your organization’s levels of membership. Some themes have a customizable CTA button built into their designs, like Goran, Edin, Gateway, Pique, Karuna, and Radcliffe 2.
To add custom CSS, go to My Site(s) → Customize → CSS.
Don’t have a theme with a call-to-action option? If you have a WordPress.com Premium or Business plan, consider using custom CSS to add button styles.
Use Image or Text Widgets to create clickable book images or a badge to a shop of your artwork.
One free alternative is creating your own clickable button using an Image Widget and placing it prominently in your sidebar.
7. Build trust and credibility with testimonials
Showing compliments from clients and customers is a great way to establish credibility, build a reputation, and snag more gigs. Some themes have a built-in testimonial feature, so you can display reviews and recommendations as seen on these portfolio, small business, and consulting sites.
Editor’s tip: one of my favorite themes, Zuki, has a special Quote Widget that displays beautifully — see it in action.
If you’re not using a theme with built-in testimonials, turn on the testimonial feature in My Site(s) → Settings → Writing → Content Types so you can add testimonials on a separate archive page. Another alternative is using multiple Text Widgets to display quote-style testimonials in your sidebar or footer.
8. Make selling and buying seamless with a payment button
WordPress.com Premium and Business plan subscribers can add payment buttons on their site to sell their books, merchandise, classes and workshops, conference and festival tickets, memberships, and more. Explore how individuals and organizations use the payment button and learn techniques that top sellers use to get the most out of the feature.
To create a new button in a post or page, click on + Add in your post or page editor, select Payment Button, and follow these steps. For each button, you’ll add a product name, description, price, and image, which will look something like this listing, seen on writer Alexis Kanda-Olmstead’s Webinar Series page:
9. Grow your email list with a Mailchimp popup form
Are you a WordPress.com Business plan subscriber? The MailChimp for WordPress plugin provides a range of features beyond a signup form.
Do you need to build an email list? Email lists are often composed of more engaged readers and dedicated followers: people who are willing to receive updates in their inbox and are more likely to buy products or services marketed to them in this way.
Some of you may already use MailChimp for your email list. To grow your list, add a MailChimp Subscriber Popup Form — like the one below from Lauren Webster, a photographer in West Virginia — so visitors can subscribe right from your site.
10. Share your expertise in a guest post
Collaborate with a site you respect and contribute a guest post. Ideally, the site is managed by an individual or group that you have previously interacted with and has a similar or complementary readership. Perhaps you’re an author with a new cookbook and write a post on a fellow food writer’s blog. Or you’re a travel photographer, back from an adventure in the desert, and publish a photo essay of selects from your trip on a camera and gear review site.
Offer value to the site and its audience by sharing your expertise, philosophy, and perspective on a specific topic, as guest blogger Kelsie Marchand demonstrates at photography site tea&bannock. Kelsie’s approach is subtle — there’s no direct selling involved, yet she promotes her work to an appropriate readership.
Depending on the host site and its audience, you can try more direct promotion, as shown in this guest post by author Kathleen Gage on the blog of Lucinda E. Clarke. You may want to offer a discount or a special perk to these readers, too.
Ready to do more on WordPress.com? Upgrade to WordPress.com Premium or Business and enjoy more advanced features.
Great tips.
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This is great information. Is the CTA button available on all plans and designs?
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Hi there! As mentioned in the post under #6, not all themes/designs have a built-in call to action button. I listed a few themes above that have the option.
At this time, unfortunately I don’t think you can sort through the themes in the showcase (https://wordpress.com/themes) with this feature. (But you can find more information about all themes on their showcase pages.)
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Also — you do not need to be on a paid plan to display a built in button (or make one).
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Absolutely awesome post!
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Very informative and useful tips. I loved it. Thanks for sharing.
ravi
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Great tips. Thanks a lot for this. Mam can you please answer a query of mine? I’m a budding psychotherapist (done with my masters degree and specializing in educational psychology currently), can I use these same methods? Or should my approach be a little different? Any sort of feedback is welcome.
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Hi thepsychogrok — if, in your current work, you are building a client base, yes, many of these tools might be helpful. Or if you’re first establishing your professional presence online (and building your reputation as a psychotherapist, for example), some of these features would be useful, too (adding a contact form, link to a professional Facebook page, testimonials, CTA button or just a dedicated page in your menu about your interests and background, etc.).
If you’re actively interested in or engaged in research and sharing findings, perhaps building an email list in the future (to share your work with a loyal readership including colleagues and others in your field) might be of interest, or if you do any teaching, you can offer things like courses, sessions, or workshops and use a payment button to allow people to register from your site. Examples of all of these things are linked to in the post — hope this helps.
No need to call me “mam” — Cheri is fine 🙂
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Oh thank you very much for this madam. I have a lot of things to change on my site now. I actually design and conduct workshops for high school students. I also interpret psychometric tests customized for each individual. Your tips are very helpful.. I really appreciate your comprehensive feedback.. I hope you have a great day Mam!
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Simply Amazing!
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Agreed!
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Thanks these are really good tips!
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Wow, thank you for all the great tips!
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I think number 1 is the most important to me, and I see it missed even here on WordPress blogs a lot–there are often no ways to follow a blog via email or WordPress reader, and no contact information, so I forget about the blog–
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Great Read.
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Thank you for a very interesting post. I loved the advice and will now make some changes.
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Thanks for the tips
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Hi! Great site by the way, I like reading about food 🙂 I have a question about your blog: how did you put those watermarks on each of your images? They look well done and I’m interested in learning how to do something similar for my own photos. Thanks!
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I will let wheretoeatabuja reply to your question, but I also wanted to share this resource we published on watermarks:
https://wordpress.com/dailypost/2015/04/30/watermarks/
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Hey thanks for stopping by and checking my blog . I use an app called watermark.
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Great post. Being a consultant makes some of these options a bit tricky.
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Awesome post…my issue is how to implement these steps correctly . And then going back to them when i do figure it out!
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Wow- this is great!
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Awesome!
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Thank you.
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Wow, it’s just a wonderful piece
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Excellent!
Kudos to you
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This is very informative
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thanks for great tips!
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this is great thank you
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Good read 👌
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Wow! Nice post. Thanks for sharing😊
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Wonderful piece! Thank you fro sharing!
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After 6 hours of work and $18 in purchases i used 3 of these tips in my website just now. Feels Good. Thank you
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Thanks for the well needed information!
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Useful tips. Thank you!
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Great tips!
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Good one 👍
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I just finished updating my contact page, and this article made me take yet another look at it.
I love your posts. Thanks for making me better.
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Very helpful. Good checklist. Thanks
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Very helpful!!
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Good tips I suppose but I’m not sure of the email list. Some of this feels like you are selling to the customer and I don’t want to be a customer. I want the information I seek. I mean my favorite blogs are the ones with simple advice–no fancy heady or logos really but there is a paragraph or two at the most with such value. Oh and it’s all told my someone real. Someone who just loves what they are doing and are sharing that experience with you. That is what’s golden. Okay now I will go and work on my blog,
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There are millions of users here, all with different needs, so not all of our posts will apply to everyone. I’ll be publishing more stuff for the non-selling crowd next week and will continue to mix it up. Thanks for reading!
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Great tips!🌻
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Very informative. Thank you for sharing.
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Excellent tips thank you!
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I just started yesterday. Thank you for the tips
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I am pondering starting my creative career in 2018, great to meet you Cheri! I am Jackie
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Thanks for sharing!
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Awesome tip!
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Awesome post thank you! Very informative!
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Thank you for such helpful information
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Great tips. Thanks a bunch.
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Thanks for sharing this. Some great tips!!
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Great idea to hit the bull on the eye but am still thinking of the services and products to integrate on my site. Though am a Swissgarde healthcare products distributor. Besides my priority now us upgrading my site to a business class.
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excellent post
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Great advice! Thank you!
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Brilliant tips!
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Awesome post
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Thanks for the post. I’m not on the business plan, so some of these things are difficult to do I’m on the premium plan. What would you suggest I do to get more of an audience? I’m already leveraging my Social Media… just wondering if you have other ideas?
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The only feature in this list you can’t access without a Business plan is the SEO Tools feature (#3). All the other options here are possible with the Premium plan.
If you’d like more tips, here are resources for growing your blog, traffic, and readership:
A free ebook on growing your traffic and building your blog: https://wordpress.com/dailypost/postaday/ebook-grow-traffic/ (There are three common formats there that you can download.)
A free email course in which we send you daily emails for 10 days on the topics of branding and growth: https://wordpress.com/dailypost/blogging-university/#branding-growth
A list of previous posts on The Daily Post that covers traffic, growth, finding your audience, social media, and more: https://wordpress.com/dailypost/category/traffic-growth/
Thanks for publishing on WordPress.com!
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Thank you so much!!
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This really is wonderful, thank you again for the links and resources!
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