By now, a business’ website is as important as its physical, brick and mortar site.
In many cases, a business website is more important.
Years ago, many businesses put up “billboard” or placeholder websites. These were small, static sites with just a few pages of basic information, online pamphlets.
That’s no longer acceptable. Even if all your monetary transactions take place offline, you can use a website in many ways to attract, convert and keep fans and customers.
Web Designs Change With Time
Today’s modern websites don’t look like they did just a few years ago. They require custom photography and large images. They require a team who can install a user interface that is intuitive for your web visitors to use. If your visitors can’t find what they want right away, they’ll leave.
They’ll also leave quickly if you look behind the times, amateurish, unprofessional or even if your site is not optimized to load quickly. Because up to 80% of web traffic is now using a mobile phone or tablet, you must design your site as mobile responsive.
Make Use of New Technologies
Websites do a lot more than just sit there in cyberspace. Use content management systems to put up great information to attract and convert new leads and customers. Capture their email addresses so you can keep marketing to them.
You also want to track your site’s traffic. You want to see how many visitors you have ever month. What landing pages do they find first? How many pages do they read? How many opt in to join your email list? How many return for more information? How many buy something? What’s your conversion ratio? If you try a new headline does that convert better or worse?
If you sell directly from your site, you need a site’s that’s even more complex. You need shopping cart software to process their orders and credit card payments. You must learn about the order if you do your own shipping, or notify a third-party warehouse so they can ship the product to the customer. You have to capture the customer information. Track your inventory. Send your customers thank you and follow-up emails.
Search Engine Optimization
Do you know how long of a page title Google prefers? How about your meta description? How many times does Google want you to use your primary keywords? You can ask Google those questions, and find a wide variety of answers. A professional agency has experience with ranking many websites. They know the technical specifications to set you up on the Google Search Console.
Email Marketing
One “old” online technology remains powerful, and that’s email. Every business should collect email addresses.
Use an autoresponder sequence to follow up with your leads. Once you set up the system, it works automatically. Every day or so, depending how you set it up, it sends another email to your lead to give them valuable and entertaining content designed to drive them back to your site to buy your product or service.
Customers should receive follow-up emails designed to get them to consume and enjoy your product, and to forestall potential customer service issues. Ask them to leave great reviews, sign up for an autoship program and buy other products.
With email you can turn leads into customers and customers into raving fans.
Social Media
Many people find businesses on social media. Facebook is the biggest, but you also want your visitors to share your content on Twitter and, if suitable, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+ and Instagram.
The days are over when you could pay the teenager next door to put up a website for you just because they knew HTML. A do it yourself site is fine only if it’s a personal site. If you’re operating a business, you need an agency that knows professional site design and development, so contact us today.
To learn how we can build your business a great website, give us a call or send us a note today at Small Dog Creative 661-702-1310!
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