Your Website is Your Most Important Asset
These days, it’s pretty rare for a business of any kind to not have a website. Regardless of what industry you operate in or the size of your company, it is a wise decision to invest in a good website. In the mobile age of technology, your website will likely be the first point of contact between your company and most of your audience. A clean and easy to use website will give visitors a good first impression of your business and encourage them to return. A good website will also serve as a reliable hub of information for your loyal customers or potential customers who have questions about your business. A successful website makes for a successful business, and everyone should dedicate enough time to developing one.
5 Important Considerations When Promoting
- Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a collection of practices designed to direct organic traffic to your website. The end goal of search engine optimization is to rank at the top of a search engine results page, the list of blue links Google shows you after searching for something. The top three links on Google tend to get as much traffic as the bottom seven links combined. This means there are a lot of benefits to be had from effective search engine optimization.
SEO can be broken down into two categories: on-page optimizations and off-page optimizations. On-page optimizations are any changes made to visual elements of a webpage with the intention of improving its SEO value. This includes changes to the content, images, and even structure of a webpage. Off-page optimizations are generally considered the more technical half of search engine optimization. Updating metadata, resubmitting updated sitemaps, and breaking broken links are all examples of off-page optimizations.
- Social Media
Social media is completely unavoidable at this point. Facebook alone has over two billion monthly active users. But social media is more than just a global network of individuals. It is also an incredibly powerful tool for digital marketers looking to promote a company website. With minimal investment, a company can create an online profile and deliver marketing messages to the world.
Social media has a few advantages outside of the massive audience of potential customers it offers businesses. It is also one of the few digital marketing avenues that allow for two-way communication. This means that a company can reach out to the internet and individuals can engage directly with the company in a public forum. This level of engagement is phenomenal for generating buzz around a brand or website. Social media efforts are also fairly inexpensive compared to other digital marketing methods. One person and a well-maintained calendar of future posts can provide a social media account with consistent content with ease.
- Content Marketing
Another way of earning organic traffic for your website with through content marketing. Content marketing is the creation of content with the intention of spreading awareness about a company or engaging with its target audience. This content can be blog posts, news articles, press releases, or even promotional videos. Successful content marketing will be spread as online users share it and will earn your company some extra engagement.
The most common form of content marketing on the internet is blog posts. Blog posts are a content marketer’s bread and butter and for good reason. Blogs are easy to maintain, they provide readers with interesting shareable content, and they bring traffic to a company website. Guest writing for other blogs is also a fantastic way to earn your website more backlinks from other reputable websites. This will boost the SEO value of your website and increase its chance to earn organic traffic.
- Email Marketing
Email marketing has one primary advantage over other methods of promotion: it travels directly to the individual. With marketing emails, promotional messages can be delivered to a potential customer’s inbox and they’ll be notified of the email. This is a lot of encouragement for the customer to at least glance at the email. The directness of email marketing makes it incredibly effective at affecting behavior. Marketing emails that include coupons have an even higher response rate.
Marketing emails can also be catered to serve specific purposes fairly simply. For example, one problem facing eCommerce companies is shopping cart abandonment. A practice where online shoppers leave the website during the checkout process. Marketing emails that encourage visitors to return to the website and complete a purchase are known as shopping cart abandonment emails, and they’ve been proven to be effective.
- Influencer Partnerships
One of the newest methods of digital marketing is to partner with online influencers to promote a website or new products. The classic example of influencer marketing is the unboxing video. This is promotional content where a company sends an influencer a new video and the influencer opens and reacts to the products.
The most important thing to remember with influencer marketing is to always partner with a relevant personality. For example, a leadership development consulting firm should partner with corporate influencers who focus on business management and success. Partnering with influencers who are not relevant to the business or product you’re promoting will confuse viewers.
Features Your Website Should Have
- Responsive Design
Responsive design describes a website that automatically reshapes and reorganizes itself to fit any window size. This means that a website will automatically transition between different layouts for a desktop, a laptop, a tablet, and a mobile phone. Today, responsive design is an important element of search engine optimization. A few years ago, Google decided to value websites with responsive design more than stagnate websites. This means that you can begin ranking higher in search engines simply by supporting multiple display sizes. Additionally, websites with responsive design are more accessible to internet users who only have one device to browse the internet with.
- Easy Checkout Process
One of the leading reasons for shopping cart abandonment is a long or complicated checkout process. You want there to be as few barriers between a customer and their purchase as possible. Consider eliminating any unnecessary fields in the checkout process and enable guest checkout. This will ensure customers complete the purchase. You should also offer a few different shipping methods to accommodate the needs of every customer.
