If you have a business, you want people to easily find you online so you’ll want a A Better Web Presence. Building a better web presence is a vital step in marketing your business and drawing in customers. If no one is going to your website, your business is suffering. So in order to draw traffic to your website and stay active on the web, there are steps you should take. Here are a list of seven steps you should take.
1. Identify Target Market & Set Goals
If you have a business you should already know who your target market is. So you just need to set goals that will help you reach this audience. How will you differentiate your business? How will you get new leads? These are things you need to analyze and figure out a plan in order to obtain the results you want. If you feel too bogged down with daily tasks to make enough time to set bigger goals, consider these 5 tips to help you become organized.
2. Analyze your website first
Your website is the most important part of your business on the web. It sends a message to the world about who you are and what you can do for them. If it is unorganized, confusing, misleading, ambiguous, or just plain unattractive, it will harm you more than it will help. Make sure it is easy to navigate and clearly states what you offer. If you don’t capture the attention of your viewer right off the bat, they will switch to another site very quickly. If you are unsure where to start consider these 7 ways to turn website visitors into customers.
3. Focus on your Blog, Newsletter, & Email
Once your website is perfect, make sure to coordinate it with everything else on the web. Do you have a blog? If you don’t, you definitely need to create one first. Then make sure it is linked to your company website and add content related to your field. Do you send a newsletter to your e-mail subscribers? Do you even have e-mail subscribers? Connecting with your customers through e-mail is vital because it allows you to keep people updated and current with your company. It serves as a reminder that you are still here and can offer them something. Think about an e-mail signature too. This is a digital business card showing your contacts how to keep in touch with you. If you need help creating one, we design signatures that are attractive and effective. Look at our e-mail signature here.
4. Connect with Social Media
Do you have a company page on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+? What about a Pinterest and YouTube account? Depending on your line of work, you may choose to use certain social media sites while ignoring others. If you have a portfolio of work, such as a photographer or artist, you may even use Behance or DeviantArt. Once you have social media pages, you must update them consistently and integrate them into your website, blog, e-mail and any other element you use on the web. If you are unsure how to integrate everything together you can read about it here.
5. Make it Mobile
The easier it is to view your site, the more traffic it will get and the longer people will stay on your site. Since more people are starting to use their mobile devices (including cell phones and tablets) to access the internet, it is necessary to make your site mobile friendly. You want to cover every angle possible, and if you ignore the mobile audience, you will be missing a huge chunk of your customers. Read more about mobile importance here.
6. Update with New & Interesting Content
If you aren’t constantly adding new content, people will eventually get bored and may decide to never come back. Update content on everything in order of importance. Make sure you include your website, blog, social media, and anything else you have online pertaining to your business. As far as your blog, don’t add content just to add something new. It is important to make sure it is interesting and worth saying. No one wants to read boring or irrelevant copy, so when you update, make it something worth sharing. Besides staying interesting, updating is necessary because it increases the chances of someone finding you. If you write a blog post about the latest topic and someone searches for that topic, they could stumble across your site and could even become a customer. For social media, if you are constantly creating funny or engaging status updates, people will begin to notice and come back to read more. This creates a stable audience instead of aiming to attract just anyone who may or may not stumble upon your site.
7. Make it Simple & Eliminate Extra Annoyances (extra downloads, PDFs, etc.)
Don’t over-complicate things. Sometimes you can visit a page and in order to view something you need to download a PDF (you see this many times with restaurant menus), but who wants to do that? Some people may not mind, but it is best to make things as simple as possible in order to prevent anything that could be annoying. And you have to think about mobile users, they may not be able to download a file and if people can’t open it, they are missing part of the puzzle. It is nice to want to jazz up your page with animated images, slideshows and endless extras, but sometimes being more simple is what attracts people the most.
8. Respond & Reach Out(forums, tweets, comments, LinkedIn)
Now that you have edited and managed all of your content, it is time to comment on others. Visit forums or discussion boards and engage in conversation with people in your field or potential customers. LinkedIn has many groups you can join that allow you to connect with others looking for information that you can supply them. If you offer your expertise and guidance, people may visit your site and eventually purchase your products or services. Networking is an excellent way to get your name out there and get more leads. Plus, you may end up learning a thing or two yourself.
Now you know how to build a better web presence. After these steps are completed, it may be a good idea to check out HubSpot’s marketing grader. This will give you a score to help you evaluate certain aspects of your online activity and value. It is always a challenge to keep up in the business world, and these tips will hopefully increase your success rate.
What business tips have you found to be beneficial?
