If your website isn’t making you money, It’s costing you money. Think about it. Consider your website an investment. You wouldn’t throw money in the bank, or invest in stocks without the promise of a return. Why would you expect less from your website? How many hours is someone spending on your site – making it look pretty, updating your blog, etc? Whether you maintain your site in-house or not, everything you do to it costs you after tax money. So, if you’re not getting at least a 200% return – you need to have a serious look at your website strategy.
And while we only touch on each subject briefly, here are a number of things to consider:
Analytics
First off, make sure you have analytics integrated into your site. If you don’t know what’s going on with your site, in regards to traffic, pages visited, leads lost, leads converted, etc., how can you improve the site. There are many great tools available. Google analytics is free.
Deliver the goods
Content is definitely King. Engage your readers! Credible content goes a long way to maintaining returning viewers. Good content is also shareable via social networks. It’s also important with search engines, like Google, to have as much relevant content based on the viewer’s search phrasing. Keyword stuffing no longer works. Are you communicating with them on their level and giving them enough relevant information? Provide content your audience will find useful. Keep in mind that your your website needs to reflect your brand – language, tone, colour schemes, and imagery need to be consistent with your offline materials.
Optimize your site for the search engines
Proper search engine optimization (SEO) tactics will help with ranking your website as high as possible on search result pages. Sure, you can always buy traffic, but in the long run SEO costs less. High rankings means less monotonous searching. Know your audience. Do your homework. Research your competitors. And research what keywords phrases are being used by your prospective customers. And build your pages accordingly. It takes time. If you don’t have enough of it… get external help. A SEO team knows how to edit your text and website code, and submit your site to search engines and directories.
Provide a lead generation form
Communication is a two-way concept. Use “lead magnets” to entice visitors to leave their contact information before they go. A lead magnet could be a free offer, white paper, sales promotion, newsletter, etc. Add a simple opt-in contact form. If it’s connected to your email marketing software, all the better.
Be social
If you are having trouble getting a social following, add social media buttons to your site. Using these will no doubt increase shares and likes of your content. Word-of-mouth is a powerful tool. Make sure that you give your viewers a positive experience and they will spread the word.
Be available
Use a contact page with a response form. Add your phone number to every page, and include your address. These offer credibility to the viewer, especially toll-free phone numbers. Customer service is a valuable asset for every online business.The more ways you can be reached, the better.
Make your site searchable
Website viewers spend as little time on a site as possible. To wade through endless scrolling pages of content can be frustrating. The use of a simple search box will alleviate their agony by bringing up the information they need in a quick manner.
Mobile-friendly
More people are using their smartphones and mobile devices to view websites which means you website must work seamlessly from desktop to mobile. As we mentioned before, Google now uses mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. Luckily, they also provide a free Mobile-Friendly Test to check your site’s url for mobile issues. You can check it here. Most new web development tools now off responsive coding to apply to your site’s design, plus there are services that can develop mobile-only sites, however, a responsive site is what we are recommending. Why pay to maintain two sites when you can have one that works on every device.
Speed up your site
No one likes to wait. If your website loads too slow you risk the possibility of losing viewers – your competitor is a only click away. There are tools available to check loading time and offer ways to fix the issues:
Often, there’s too many scripts and gadgets blocking the browsers loading efforts. Using a content delivery network (CDN) is a great way to start by using cached networks to load fast.
Engage leads at critical points.
By integrating marketing automation with your website you gain the ability to easily:
- Optimize all of the stages of the customer experience with Behavioural-Based Email Automation
- Identify leads on your website with VisitorID
- Integrate Call Tracking – assign unique toll free numbers to each marketing initiative to fully understand the return from each tactic
- Track each prospect’s activity from initial engagement and conversion to closed sales and repeat business with built in Customer Relationship Management (CMR) system
- Report on campaigns from high levels to detailed drill-downs
Online marketing strategy
Now that you have a fully-loaded website, how are you attracting customers besides organic searches? Consider Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. Contrary to popular belief paid advertising works. Customers have an expectation of getting exactly what they want if an advertiser is willing to pay for a click. Consider working with qualified Google Adword certified company. Traditional marketing tools like direct response mechanisms and print advertising still have their place. However, targetted pay-per-click ads generate leads more cost effectively.
For more information on how to turn your website into a lead generation tool, contact Mystique Brand Communications today.
Frank Beecham
Mystique Brand Communications