Since our launch in 2011, we've been able to overtake an impressive list of established digital agencies and SEOs on Google's rankings, and helped the vast majority of our clients to dramatically increase the numbers of leads they're generating through their own sites as well.

With that kind of progress, it's no surprise that many potential clients (and more than a few competitors) have started to wonder what we are up to. They tend to ask us – in one way or another – whether we have an online marketing "secret sauce" that we could share.

The answer is probably a little more mundane than you might expect... although we do have a few closely guarded strategies, our real "secret" is pretty open and obvious – we make clear and compelling communication a top priority.

While other firms worry day and night about search algorithms, keyword placements, anchor text, and pay-per-click bid positions, we simply look for new and better ways to attract the attention of quality prospects. While those might sound like the same things in theory, in practice one is about engagement and the other has to do with minor details. In other words, we put the message before the medium.

Despite our positive track record, a lot of people simply refuse to believe that things can be that straightforward. If you'd like to get a close-up look of the process for yourself, here is how we do it:

We start by knowing our clients and their customers.

If you don't know your own competitive strengths, as well as the features and benefits your prospects consider to be truly valuable, then no amount of technical knowledge can save you. That's why research, with an emphasis on detailed buyer personas, is at the heart of everything we do. Beginning with the right focus and information puts you miles ahead of your competitors who won't bother to do the same.

Next, we create enticing content that prospects want to read.

The knowledge we gather about your buyers becomes invaluable when we start creating content, because we already know what your most important prospects’ concerns and hot buttons are. That lets us speak to their interests, and their level of understanding, rather than just blanketing them with generic marketing messages.

Then, we encourage our clients to be very active online.

It takes more than a website – or any one piece of content – to attract and keep prospects coming back. So, we show our clients how to manage things like blogs and social profiles on their own, so they can use them to remain active throughout their online marketing campaigns, be easy to find online, and build their credibility as well as strengthen their search positioning at the same time.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie

And finally, we create offers that draw both influencers and decision-makers in.

We don't want to squander the interest we get from prospects, so we help our clients to develop offers (like premium reports and downloadable white papers) that grab the attention of influencers and decision-makers and get them to take the next step. That next step might be a small commitment, like sharing their email address, but it's a good movement towards growing a business relationship that culminates with them contacting us when they are ready to make an investment.

We can understand that it might be a little bit disappointing to find out that we don't have a top-secret sauce for search engine domination, or an unbeatable formula for generating links. But, as we've learned time and time again, online marketing is like any other kind of marketing – if you can find the right people, open communication, and share benefits, good things are going to happen more often than not.

To learn more about our approach, feel free to reach out to one of our team members. Want to really learn about building a better business website, then get the book.