The landscape of business has changed drastically. In a long to do list, website is a must have.
We say this because our analysis shows that more and more consumers go to the internet in search of information about the product they are going to purchase. This comes as no surprise given that Google gets over 100 billion searches every month.
If you are wondering, what does this have to do with you ? You need a website that is visible to your customer, provides information otherwise, you could loose a potential customer.
Every business therefore, wants to succeed on the internet and for that a website is a very crucial element. Having a website is not enough, you need to market it, promote it so that your customers can find you.
We will discuss everything in this blog, what is a website ? why do you need one ? how can you promote your website ? We will also show examples of strategies that have worked and how can you use it too.
Table of Contents
What is a Website? Why do you need it?
A website (or web site) is a collection of web pages that can be accessed using a domain name. It is hosted on the web server and is accessible via internet.
It is a store of information about a person, company, products & services, government etc. over the internet.
You can create a website about yourself, your company, products & services, experiences etc. and can host it on the web where others can find you.
A website is a very crucial element for your business. It makes your business discover-able over the internet. In the 100 billion searches, there could be searches about your products or services too.
It can give you potential leads, customers, sales and a ton of things that can help you grow and expand your business.
We have a blog on How digital marketing can help your business and in that we have explained how website is a vital tool for you. You can check out that blog post by clicking here.
Website Marketing Strategies
Your website is like your retail store over the internet. You can write about your products, services or experiences and also explain how are you better than the competition.
You can convert a visitor to a potential lead and further into a customer. Today, with eCommerce, you can do all at the same time on your website itself. Your website can be your revenue source. There are endless number of objectives that you can fulfil from a website.
There is a small concern, a website is very useful when you have traffic on it. A website without traffic will not be of much help to you, you will have to promote it. You will need customers to visit your web site first.
There are proven strategies and tactics to drive traffic to your website.
Here we share with you, some of the most useful strategies that work and can help you boost traffic to your website.
If you are doing social media marketing or thinking to do social media marketing yourself. Then our book is meant for you.
It covers everything you need to know from choosing the right channel to business features, platform demographics and making a strategy with examples. A complete package for you – Available on Amazon.
1. Website Analysis
We can argue that the first step should be website marketing strategy or plan. However, we can justify that it is better to do a website analysis first.
It is very important you audit your website. This analysis of your site layout, design and content will help you understand what is working for you and where do you need to improve.
The user experience of your site is of utmost importance. Your site should be easy to read and navigate. Small things, like the font size, color scheme and images make a huge difference in user experience.
The average time a visitor spends on your website, bounce rates, traffic sources, web page loading time etc are some of the vital metrics to look for. These help you understand what is your current visitors user experience.
You should also keep in mind the shift in search trend. We see more and more searches originating from mobile devices than desktop. An important indication for you is, that your website needs to be mobile responsive.
These are some of the metrics that also help you a great deal in search engine optimisation (SEO).
“If you want a detailed website analysis, we can do it for you. We will give an in-depth report for your website and web host highlighting the positives and improvement areas. All you need to do is get in touch with us and we will have you covered.”
2. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search engine optimisation or seo is one the vital ingredients in marketing your website. It is a process of making your web page / content attractive for the search engine.
Customers search their query on the search engines like Google, Bing etc. It is a very rare scenario where the customer directly searches for your product by your name. It happens when you are an established brand.
Thereby, it is important that you appear on search engine result page (SERP) for your relevant keywords. The better you do your SEO the higher you appear in SERP.
The question here is, How to do SEO ?
The problem with search engine optimisation is that its an ongoing process. Whenever the search engine updates its algorithm, you will have to make the changes too. However, we share with you some of the best practices for search engine optimisation or seo.
Keyword Research
Your seo will be dependent on your keyword research. These are sentences, phrases or words that your customer searches when they want to buy products or services related to what you sell.
There are many tools that can help you find search phrases or terms that are relevant to you. You can also understand their intent, how frequently is it being searched and what is the level of competition for that keyword(s).
For example, one such tool is Google Keyword Tool.
Content
Once you have your list of potential keywords, you need to plan and write content around those keywords. The main purpose here is not to stuff your content with the keywords. The goal is to write engaging, informational content that adds value to your audience.
If your web page has a good user experience, the chances of your website being found in the top results of SERP will be high.
On Page Optimisation
It is not only content that forms your seo strategy. You also need to optimise your on page elements such titles, meta tags, image alt text. Using your keywords strategically can help you rank faster.
Link Building (Off Page)
It is a very complex yet an important part in SEO. Search engines use external links to understand how valuable the content is.
Earlier, it used to be something which was very very important, but now we have seen content rank without external back links also.
Social Shares
Social shares refers to the number of times your content is shared on social media platforms. This also acts as an indication for search engines. It helps to understand the value of the content and how many times has it been shared.
Sharing content across social media has become easy and is a seamless process.
Tip – If you have a website, also create social profiles where you can share your content and drive traffic.
3. Optimise & Promote on Social Media
Ranking on the first page of search results may not be easy always. It is a time consuming process. You can optimise and promote your website on social media to drive traffic.
We have an entire book written and published on how you can use social media for marketing your business and more importantly, you can do it yourself. We have a series of blogs on how you can do social media marketing effectively.
If you are doing social media marketing or thinking to do social media marketing yourself. Then our book is meant for you.
It covers everything you need to know from choosing the right channel to business features, platform demographics and making a strategy with examples. A complete package for you – Available on Amazon.
Social Media is a place where your customers are. Today, social media has widely penetrated into the lives of people and is impacting in a big way. The brands, on the other hand also use social media to engage, entertain and educate their customers followers about the products and services they offer.
You should use social media to promote your website. We have multiple cases where we have built websites with social media as the initial traffic source.
You get two fold advantage in social media. Your content will receive a share when you share it on social media and also it will drive traffic. It helps you in optimising for search engine results page ranking.
Identifying your target audience and then choosing the right platform accordingly is very crucial to social media success. We have laid out how you can do this in our book and blog.
Every platform has its own feature and it is important you use them strategically. For example, on Instagram & Pinterest you can reach more people easily, even if they are not following you.
4. Email Marketing
Email marketing is another way to promote your website. You can email your existing customers or new leads about your products & services. You can divert that traffic to your website from the email.
In 2019, there are around 3.9 Billion email users and this number is set to grow to 4.3 Billion by 2022 according to Statista.
If you are a new business, then probably you may not have many clients or email addresses of leads. You can use social media and your website to collect email addresses of potential customers by offering something in return.
Email is also a good strategy to reach customers who might have left a purchase in between. You can bring them back to complete the purchase. It can also be used to bring new updates to subscribers notice and repeat traffic.
A study from Oberlo shows that 49% of consumers like receiving promotional emails from their favourite brand on a weekly basis.
Sure we can see that email marketing is surely a way forward for website promotion.
5. Blog
Blog is a very useful way to drive traffic to your website. You not only solve a problem or answer a question for the visitors, but also build a sense of trust with them.
You can cover as much as you want using a blog. In a product or service page, you stick to a particular thing. In a blog, you can pick up customer queries, questions, problems and give a solution to them. You can cover a wide variety of potential keywords in a blog. The more you blog post you create the more traffic it can bring.
A blog also can showcase your work or the benefits you provide and how it makes you stand out. For example, a case study where something extra-ordinary was achieved.
Opinions about your products and services, how to use them and what are the best practices. The do’s and don’ts.
You can embed the keywords used by your customers and provide valuable content. This can ensure two things, traffic and potential customers engaging with you. A possible chance of sales.
6. Paid Ads
You would love to have organic traffic and get business from it but SEO takes time. You can choose to wait till your pages or blog start ranking on search engine. Social media free promotions can benefit you to an extent.
If you want to speed up the revenue process and not loose on potential customers till the time you start ranking, then its time for paid advertising.
You can run paid ads on search engines and on social media platforms.
On search engines like Google, you can target customers on the basis of searches made and demographics. The best advantage you get here is that you can directly target customers search terms and market accordingly. Google is one of the most widely used for searches and offers multiple formats of advertising.
On the other hand, social media platforms advertising you can target customers based on demographics and behaviour. Here you can advertise customer based on profile and even market to competitors customers.
7. Remarketing & Retargeting
Retargeting refers to the advertisements / communications on third party websites, whereas remarketing is communication on own channel.
Ads on social media, search engines come under retargeting and emails, sms etc come under remarketing.
It is easier to bring back and convert an existing visitor or customer than a new one. Using the channels wisely, can assure you repeat sales and customers.
If you are new business then you will more likely be doing retargteing as you would not have contact information such as email etc. These techniques usually have a lower cost of conversion.
You can check out our blog on Retargeting and Remarketing where we explain in detail how to take advantage of the two techniques. Also we have shared our case study in it and how it helped one of our client.
8. Online Tools
This is the next level. It surely does involve a lot of work and resources but it can prove to be very fruitful.
If you can offer your visitors an online tool either for free or paid that can really solve a problem that they are facing. This will keep the visitors coming back frequently, build trust with your website and improve your user experience metrics.
You can climb the search engine results page faster. It can prove to be your revenue source and build a community.
This audience can be monetised using several different ways. Some of the examples, sale of your products & services, cross sell, up sell, ads revenue, ebooks and other digital products etc.
Offering something like an online tool, that keeps the customer on your website, for a longer duration and which turns into a community can have immense advantages. People today, provide a number of tools for free to better the user experience and gain search results rankings.
Finally - Implementation
If you are a website owner and want to market your website, then start implementing it asap. There are 1.74 Billion websites live in the world right now and the number keeps growing everyday.
If you are still considering whether you should go for a website or not, if you are a business then you definitely need one.
If you have questions as to how to make a website and what sort of a website is best suited for you? We are here for you. We can not only make a website for you, but also equip it with necessary tools to help you grow and scale faster.
Website analysis, content creation and marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimisation (SEO), search engine marketing etc. are what we can do for you.
We do encourage our clients and entrepreneurs to do it yourself. A number of businesses and entrepreneurs want to do it themselves, we then provide consulting services and guide in case you go wrong and keep you out of trouble.
We have multiple resources like our book, consultations where we teach how can you do it yourself. You can connect with us and enroll in for do it yourself.
Web Hosting - Don't Choose Randomly
A website’s success largely depends on the web hosting provider. A web host is a place where your website is parked on the internet. It can be accessed using a domain.
A web host is really important and you should review, analyse one before choosing the host you would like to go ahead with.
We review and evaluate web hosting on multiple parameters which we believe are very important and one should not miss them before choosing a web host. A web host gone wrong can adversely affect your website performance.
Therefore, check out our reviews on some of the most popular web hosting companies and how they stand our tests. We also offer you coupons that can get you amazing discounts on your purchase.
We test web hosting on these parameters
- Pricing & Hosting Plans
- Features
- Up Time
- Load Time
- Customer Service
Some of the recent web hosting companies that we have reviewed,
If you would like us to review a web host do leave it in the comments below.
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