New business owners often come to me for a new website.
Now, don’t get me wrong, of course I’m happy to oblige, but I also want them to know that having a great website by itself is not enough. With over a billion websites in existence*, a business owner cannot just sit back and hope someone finds them.
The good news: there are both offline and online tools you can use to increase your company’s visibility. There are several “eTools”, i.e., online, I recommend.
Sometimes business owners think it is a choice between one or the other. For example, one South Bay real estate broker asked me, “Why do they need a website if I have a Facebook Page?”
We recommend using these six tools together to get the most of the Internet’s reach. Each serve a particular purpose, so its not a matter of which one, but how to use them together effectively. To do that, the first thing is you need to be sure understand who you are targeting and what your messages are.
#1. Have a Great Website – Your website serves as your “home base” where you can let your prospective clients know you can help them solve their problems, and call them to take the next step in engaging with your company. It needs to reflect who you are and represent your business well.
#2. SEO – Organically Optimize your Website
Drive more traffic to your website with organic SEO, i.e., optimize your web pages with keywords that people would search for to find companies like yours, in your geography if you deal with local business. Links from other quality websites to yours are also important in search engine algorithms. Blogging is a great way to keep your SEO juice flowing with keyword reach, unique, useful and engaging posts on a regular basis.
#3 Paid Advertising – Kick it up a notch with online paid advertisements such as Google AdWords and Facebook Ads. Drive more traffic directly to your website. This will enable prospects to self-select themselves. You can determine the demographics and geo targeting of who you want your ad to be seen by.
#4 Strong Landing Pages are important follow-through for your Paid Ads. Be sure the web page your ad is linked to provides the information visitors are expecting after clicking on your ad – do not direct them to a generic page or home page where they don’t find the specific information you highlighted in the ad. There should also be a CTA (call-to-action) on the landing page, inviting the visitor to take the next step to solve their problem.
#5. Email Marketing is a great way to stay connected and drive visitors back to your website. Include an opt-in form on your website and invite visitors to add themselves to your email list. Be sure to provide a way for the user to unsubscribe whenever they wish, and let them know they can do that upfront so they won’t fear being locked in. Sent out information related to the content on the web pages and blog posts they visited.
#6. Social Media – Let’s “face” it… most of the world’s population is using at least one social media platform. Know which one your prospects live in so know which you should spend energy and resources are. But a Facebook page does not replace a website. The timeline content is transitory. Can you imagine posting information on your services to only have it disappear in a week?
Post engaging content and build your community. Answer questions. Help out. Include links back to your website to drive back to your site, e.g., blog post pages, but don’t oversell. You will lose followers if you are constantly asking them to buy something
Use these etools together to get your message out about your business and reap the benefits. Best wishes!
Want help implementing? Contact UmeWorks at 323 638-9328.
*Per Quora
