With 1.72 billion websites as of 2019, competition can be extremely stiff, and without a good game plan, it can be hard to get your website seen.
Creating a strategy for your website marketing is key to being successful in today’s digital world. That’s why we’ve put together the top 5 website marketing tips that you need to know as a small business owner. Don’t even think about running your business without reading this article first!
Let’s dive right in so that you can start implementing these tips into your marketing strategy.
1. Set Your Goals
Before you can even start developing a marketing strategy, you have to set goals. Without them, your strategy will be non-existent or going in all different directions. Your goals are not only going to help you develop a plan but will also help you keep track and see where you need to improve later down the road.
Examples of goals can be:
- Gaining 20 more paid subscriptions to your site
- Increasing traffic to your website by 20%
- Selling $2000/mo more in products
- Building your email list by 1000 subscribers
As in the examples above, all of your goals should have some sort of quantifiable goal attached.
The key to effectively setting up your goals is by starting small. Set up bite-size goals first that will help you achieve the larger ones. Once you have achieved the smaller goals, you can effectively start start expanding them into larger goals. For example, if you can 2 additional subscriptions per month, you can expand that model to 20 subscriptions per month.
2. Website Design, Development, and Maintenance
To successfully market your business (and bring in clients on a consistent basis,) having a well-designed and properly maintained WordPress website is incredibly important. Without a professionally designed website, you will lose credibility when someone visits your site.
It only takes .05 seconds for someone to form a first impression when visiting your website and if your website does not look professional, you may have trouble convincing potential clients that you can handle their business.
It all starts with a well-designed and well-developed website. This is your storefront and the first thing that your potential clients will see, so you have to ensure that it looks AND operates perfectly.
This goes beyond the visual website design (which is critical). You want to make sure that your website loads quickly and that it is easy to navigate (not only for your customers but also for search engines to crawl).
Try to think further down the road in terms of updates and security. Regular maintenance on your website is going to keep it running smoothly, quickly and securely – the last thing you want is for a visitor to come to your website to see that it has been compromised or that it is down.
This means either learning how to update & maintain your website on your own, or hiring a professional website design company to keep your site up-to-date and running smoothly.
3. It’s All About SEO
One of the most important things to make sure you nail down is your website SEO. Without proper SEO, you won’t be ranking within the search engine results at all. If you want your website to show up in the rankings before your competitors, properly optimizing your site going to be key.
If you’re new to the SEO game, don’t panic. SEO isn’t too complicated, but it does take some time to learn how to implement it properly. There is quite a bit to learn about such as:
- Creating proper headers throughout your website
- Ensuring your website Is organized and easy to navigate
- Checking all of your links to make sure they are not broken
- Testing your site speed for fast load times (Google loves this)
- Do you have images that have the proper alt text?
- Researching keywords related to your business and strategically placing them within your content.
- Creating internal and external links to your website and other relevant websites
Yes, there is a lot to cover, and not everyone has the time. If you’re one of those people, then consider hiring an SEO service provider. This will also ensure that it is done properly and effectively.
Whether you decide to try it yourself or hire a professional SEO company, this is going to be a significant part of your website marketing strategy plan.
4. Online Advertising
When it comes to your website’s advertisement, there is a lot to consider. First and foremost is running online ads, which work effectively when you set them up properly and have an awesome website with excellent SEO. Website ads are one of the most effective ways for a new or established company to get discovered.
Aside from paid advertisements, you also need to promote your business on social media. Our customer’s world revolves around their social media feeds. Most companies have some sort of social media presence and so should yours. This is an effective way to promote your brand, get discovered, and help your SEO rankings!
Another way for your website to advertise is by connecting with other businesses within the same niche (not your competition, of course). When you connect with businesses in the same niche, you are able to create a professional relationship that can benefit both companies.
An example of this might be providing a guest blog post on another website in your niche. You can likely link back to your website (from that blog post.) This not only creates more traffic to your site, but creates a “backlink” which will help your SEO.
By promoting each other, you are able to get in front of a much larger audience that you may not have been able to before.
5. Create Value
The last tip for your website marketing is to ensure that you are creating valuable content. This is a must for any industry and will help you create a growing customer base.
You want to provide your customers and potential customers with content that is relatable, relevant, and valuable. “Valuable” is the keyword here. If you give your customers something of value (for free,) they are more likely to come back. They are also more likely to view you as the expert in your field and are more likely to become customers.
You can provide blog posts and engaging content on social media. Blog posts are a great way to provide readers with the information they are seeking. This not only helps bring in more traffic (aka potential customers) but also helps your SEO and builds your credibility.
The same works for engaging social media posts. Create posts that are going to either bring a smile to your audience’s face or give them answers to something they are seeking.
Website Marketing For Small Business Owners
If you want to effectively grow and gain more clients, these 5 tips are key to your website marketing plan.
1. Start by creating goals for your company. Start small and work your way up to larger goals.
2. Design a professional website – preferably a WordPress website (make sure you have a website maintenance plan in place too.)
3. From there you want to ensure it is optimized for the search engines.
4. Promoting your company through online ads, social media, and professional relationships.
5. Lastly, create VALUABLE content for your readers that will keep them coming back for more.
If you need an amazing professional website designed, maintained, or website marketing services, schedule a call with us today!
