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6 Reasons why investing in your website is good for business
In today’s digital world, a business needs to have an online presence if it is to maximise on the opportunities the digital marketplace presents. Most businesses these days will have a website, or at the very least a presence on social networks.
Back in the day ….
If you are a business that has been trading for a few years, you will probably remember the time when Yellow Pages was the ‘go-to’ resource, the directory where you had to have a presence to generate leads. Also popular just a few years ago were local newspaper advertising, leaflet distribution and posters in shop windows. At that time, this was the only way to market your business, but then the Internet came along and changed the business landscape forever.
Now your audience is online. You need to connect with them digitally in order to generate leads and make sales. If you have a website, think about how much time and money you have invested in it in the last 2 years. The chances are you have invested a lot less in recent years than you were spending with Yellow Pages all those years ago!
Websites and digital advertising were a lot cheaper in the early days, but this was when there were fewer businesses online so it was easier to get brand visibility. Websites also were easier and cheaper to build as they didn’t need to adapt to different screen sizes, different browsers and didn’t need to include dynamic content in order to get noticed.
Now, however, the online marketplace has become a highly competitive environment. Pretty much every business is now online, so the battle for a Page 1 spot in Google Search has never been more challenging to achieve.
How much visibility does your brand have online?
Search for your business online. Use search terms you think people may use to find the products and services you offer. How much visibility does your brand have in Google Search Results Pages? Are you happy with your website positioning in search results? Does your website look good on your mobile phone? Did it download quickly? How easy is it for people to get in touch with you? How easy is it to place an order via mobile?
Your website should be helping you to achieve your business goals, but it does need continual investment to ensure it is well-maintained and managed, and it is adapting to changes in the search & buying behaviour of consumers.
Continually monitoring, reviewing and adapting the way in which we connect with consumers will ensure we maintain competitive edge and reap the rewards.
6 key reasons why investing in your website is good for business
- Increased brand visibility
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a technique used to increase the visibility of your online content in Google, Bing and other search engines. There are over 200 factors that correlate to page rank, but with the application of Best Practice on-site and off-site SEO, generating positive reviews and building a strong profile on social networks will help to increase your overall online brand visibility, making it easier for your potential customers to find you and connect with you. - Gain stronger competitive edge
Your competitors are online and they want a share of the pie. To gain competitive edge your website content needs to be ranking better than your competitors. Conduct keyword and competitor research to establish what keywords you need to be ranking for and what competitors you are up against. With this insight you can create a strategy that will help to achieve competitive edge. - Increased lead generation and sales
An optimised website will attract highly targeted traffic because you have made the website work to rank for keywords that are important to your business. This will result in better quality traffic reaching your website, which are more likely to convert into leads and sales. Working on strong calls-to-action, and creating targeted landing pages will also help to increase conversions. - Increased brand authority
Generating positive online reviews is key to gaining increased brand trust and authority. Whether you work at encouraging your customers to leave reviews on Google, your social profiles or via a third-party review platform, displaying the reviews on your website and building up more positive reviews over time will give you some Google brownie points and it will help to increase trust amongst your consumers. - Better connections with consumers
There are so many ways to connect with your customers. You could invest in a 24/7 helpline, and online chat widget, easy to complete forms, regular enews bulletins. Video is becoming a strong medium through which many of your customers may wish to connect with your brand. Give your brand some personality with a series of videos that will entertain, engage and educate your audience. - Reach new target markets
A cross-channel digital marketing strategy gives you the chance of reaching new markets. Have you considering YouTube for example, the 2nd largest search engine? Have you considered app advertising to reach app users who may be interested in your services or products? Have you considered a paid social campaign that will extend your reach to a new audience outside of your current following? There are many opportunities online for reaching target markets that you perhaps haven’t yet tapped into and you can adapt and create website content to help connect with these new target markets.
The loss of rank and visibility of a website can happen very quickly if the website is unmanaged, if it hasn’t adapted to provide a good experience for mobile users, and if the content doesn’t work to connect with the target audience. After a longer period of inactivity and minimal investment, your website won’t be working for you, and your business will certainly be losing out to its competition.
If you want to turn things around and get your website working for you again, the first thing to do is get a website audit report which will identify any technical and usability issues that may be holding the site back.
From there we recommend conducting keyword and competitor research, and analysing your website traffic and users over a period a time. You will then have some insight on which channels your target audience use and you will see where your new customers are coming from. Using this insight, you can create a new strategy that will target the right users on the right platforms, maximising the chance of increasing conversions.
This will help you to adapt your online content to create better connections with your target audience, which will increase engagement on-site, and which in turn, will increase consumer confidence resulting in more leads and more sales.
For a FREE WEBSITE AUDIT, please contact Louise at Whizz Marketing on 01252 622129 or visit whizzmarketing.co.uk for further information on all the SEO and digital marketing support services we provide.
Telephone No.01252622129
