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HOW MUCH VALUE DO YOU PLACE ON YOUR WEBSITES PERFORMANCE AND WHAT ARE YOUR RESULT EXPECTATIONS?
Small business owners face a multitude of challenges in these uncertain times! running and promoting their businesses and with the new Covid - 19 challenge may also be faced with limited or no funds to invest in an effective marketing strategy.
If you do own a website that is under performing and fit this profile and want to improve then read on this article is for you.
A websites main purpose is to promote a business and generate leads into the conversion
arena if it fails to meet this basic criteria then any investment made in a website cannot be justified!
Limited marketing budgets often manifest into poor performing websites leading to neglected sites that under perform and therefore serve no real benefit to a business.
The success of a website as a companies number one sales promotional flagship marketing tool on the Internet, will only succeed if owners relate to the importance of a website in the overall marketing mix and understand the following criteria:
1. Why does your business need a website?
2. If it needs a website what is its purpose?
3. In what target market do you want it to perform?
4. And what is required to make it perform?.
An effective start point is to initiate an online presence audit that will establish current ranking on search engines, like Google, again
st primary competitors and visibility, if carried out correctly the results will provide useful data on which to base remedial actions to improve performance.
Knowledge is power and the audits valuable data enables owners to make informed decisions to action on web design and SEO improvements to boost performance and leads.
Running a business always comes with challenges not least related to marketing so don't expect to ever figure out the perfect marketing strategy, it's something that needs continual work and refinement.
Its not all doom and gloom or problematic though, there are areas within the owners grasp to overcome a poor performing website without incurring unnecessary costs, the following headings provide some key poor performance indicators for site owners to investigate.
WEBSITE MARKETING INDICATOR 01
Poor Performance (Planning & Goal Setting)
You have an existing Wix website that has been neglected and in need of attention.
Your existing site isn't converting or meeting your performance expectations.
There are no integrated marketing tools active on-site to promote your product or services.
Search engine results are poor and your site ranking is low or non-existent.
WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT INDICATOR 02
Inadequate Budgeting (Strategy & Launch)
You want to improve your online presence, visibility and get found by search engines.
You want to connect with your customers, automate your workflow and drive more traffic to your site.
You want to attract more customers but realise this is not an easy task.
You want to increase your market share and set your company apart from your primary competitors.
WEBSITE FUNCTIONALITY INDICATOR 03 Lack of Strategy Commitment (Website & Analytics)
Your existing site lacks functionality related to your product offering.
You're searching for a specific bespoke system unique to your business.
You've built an internal business tool that you'd like to bring to market and sell to consumers.
You would like to add unique functionality to demonstrate your product benefits.
WEBSITE CONTENT INDICATOR 04
Ignoring Your Website (Monitor & Improve)
A recent HubSpot survey, 42% of marketers admitted to only make improvements to their website once or less per year!
Think about the last time the company went through a website redesign or online audit! How did it feel after the site launch? If like most people, there’s a good chance the final product was liked, but the process of getting to that point was complex, time-consuming and expensive.
The main website service focus should be to evaluate, maintain, update and improve the site, these actions will contribute towards improved performance, greater online visibility and search engine results, note don't let your company website stagnate.
SOLUTIONS
Checking the Functional Status of your current website
Before getting started refer to your answers, what is a website for etc, and be crystal clear about what's expected and what, as an owner you want the website to achieve. To get started on the right track, here are some useful tips to consider when creating a professional hi-performing website:
Set practical, achievable, realistic goals that add value & stimulate demand
Select a reliable website builder for example (Wix.com)
Start by using a blueprint frame to suit the business activity
Create a home landing page
Associate the domain name with the business brand
Gather dynamic content to use on the site
Set page layout, types and headings
Add call to action buttons (CTA's)
Design the site with growth in mind, (GDD)
Create an SEO strategy plan then optimise the site for search engines
Develop a social media strategy
Register with Google my business and all local directories
Make sure the site is mobile friendly
The site should be user friendly with accessibility in mind (ADA)
Make absolutely sure all contact forms comply with the GDPR
There is a lot business owners can action without incurring unnecessary expense!
SOLUTIONS
1. Check your current social media channels strategy
A social media marketing strategy is more important now than ever before, so analyse your current plan and re-define a new one if necessary taking into account the shifts and trends that are taking place in the market, these are very uncertain times.
Social media marketing is the act of using social media platforms to promote a brand or product, build an audience, generate leads, and increase sales and website traffic.
A great place for inspiration is reading the Wix blog post on social media marketing small business, you'll get some great tips & tricks to get you started its both informative and intuitive.
SOLUTIONS
2. Check to see if your marketing efforts are integrated
When integrated marketing is done well, your marketing platforms and campaigns are perfectly synced, your data flows seamlessly to enrich other apps in your stack, and your customers and prospects have the most unified view of your brand and service offers. Integrate your marketing, with all your other marketing channels making sure they work in harmony to promote your products or services with an aligned brand message across all content and assets.
SOLUTIONS
3. Check your current online presence ranking on Google
As great as your website and content might be, people need to find you even before they can buy anything or contact you. The idea behind the Online Presence Audit is to establish how effective your current online presence is when people use certain search phrases. The Online Presence Audit process must be simple, intuitive and straightforward. The simplest way to go is to use simple search phrases relevant to your business you think your potential clients might use to contact or find you for info easily. Our approach is to put ourselves in your clients shoes, for example if a business is location based like "Antonio's Pizza House" High Street what are the top ten results that turn up, or if it's not a location based business we just enter the name of the business like "Olive Tree Gifts", again what top ten results does google present.
Achieving a high performing website can take time and may not produce results overnight so be patient and keep going until the desired results meet your expectations, refer to the Wix blog on SEO for more useful tips, if all else fails hire a web developer.
If you enjoyed this read and found it helpful! I've done my job so please share on social media or get in touch for a chat.....
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Acknowledgements, HubSpot Marketing, Wix.com
michaeljfoxwebdesign@gmail.com
https://www.michaeljfoxwebdesign.com/
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