It started with those five little words, “we need a new website.” Now it’s launched and positioned to compete, but there’s just one thing missing: visitors.
If your website traffic gets less hits than the San Diego Padres, then it might be time to revisit your web strategy. Thankfully, there are some tactics that you can employ right now to improve your web presence. Follow these three must-dos for your site and get the response your business needs to succeed.
1 GET NOTICED WITH GREAT CONTENT
Compelling content not only draws in visitors and serves as an engaging way to tell your audience what you’re all about, but it also helps to establish your expertise and solidify your brand. Set up your blog and maintain a consistent stream of engaging articles that’s relevant to your niche.
Sounds so simple, right? I’m detecting an eye-roll from your side of the interwebs. You’re sitting there thinking “I’m not a writer” and here’s one more person preaching about the almighty content king.
You CAN do this. You can fill your blog with great content with some focus and practice.
Get started with your document of choice (Word, Google Docs, good ol’ pen and paper) and create an outline for one potential article. An outline will help you organize your thoughts, but more importantly it will take you from blank page to actual stuff on paper without the overwhelming task of doing it all in one shot. Some ideas to get outlining:
- Share your expertise with tips relevant to your industry
- Identify trends that correlate with your business
- Consider some DIY solutions aimed at your target customer
- Answer questions that your customers often ask
Still not totally feeling confident about generating content? Find a good copywriter or freelance writer who could help you create articles to publish. You’ll want to work closely with someone who has written about your industry and provide good guidance on what you’re looking for.
Know this: great content gets noticed and it gets people talking.
2 RANK HIGHER WITH AN OPTIMIZED SITE
We’ve all heard of SEO, but not every site capitalizes on it. Incorporating basic SEO elements, such as commonly searched keywords that tie into your brand and niche, will help Google rank your site and help your audience find you.
So how do you get started? First, make sure the content on your homepage is, at a minimum, these two things:
- Clearly written
- Compelling
This may seem like a no-brainer but you’d be surprised. Just like your customers, search engines need to know what your company is all about too, so be sure that your homepage content is easy to understand. Someone who’s never come across your website before should quickly understand who you are and what you offer from the content on your homepage.
Speak human: minimize the unnecessary jargon and puh-leeease do not try to fool Google by packing keywords and locations into content in a nonsensical manner. While you’re at it, review all pages to make sure you have useful, relevant content across your entire website.
Next, keep your content fresh or maintain a blog. Wheeeeeee! We’re back to tip #1. Excited?! Google loves fresh content and will reward you in rankings when you keep your site updated and post regularly on your blog.
Finally, double check your tags. Your title tag is about 75 characters and should be a very short summary of the page with your primary keyword phrase, business name and city/state for local optimization. If the ideas of keyword density, meta tags and alt tags make your head spin, hire an SEO expert to guide you through the process.
3 BUILD AN AUDIENCE VIA SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media as a marketing tool has grown up. Popping a few social media buttons on your site is a good first step, but if those buttons don’t lead to something interesting, your visitors won’t have any reason to follow you.
Social media is an opportunity to give your brand a personality and reinforce it with regular posts. Do your followers a favor and don’t use social media just to spam up newsfeeds with marketing (instead, use ads for that kind of thing). How about you try this:
- Share your blog posts (Tip #1 again. Boom.)
- Post interesting and relevant information that appeals to your audience, not just from your site but from other related sources
- Snap some photos that demonstrate your brand personality
- Create an infogram
- Engage in conversations
- Announce contests, promote discounts and take polls
Give your audience incentive to follow you on social media, and awareness of your site and your business will grow.
