How to bring in more business online
We all know that we need an online presence in today’s modern world in order to attract customers and reassure them of our professionalism. The first thing a lot of people do when they hear about your company is Google it.
You have the perfect opportunity to make sure that your website is powerful enough to not only attract and reassure but also convert into sales.
The key areas to focus on in order to generate more sales through your website are: Content, Design, Functionality and Marketing. Let’s look at each of those areas in a bit more detail.
Content
Ever heard of the phrase Content is King? It’s true. Your content needs to be easily readable and digestible. This is not only important for visitors to your site, who want to get to the relevant information they need as quickly as possible, but also because Google values good quality, well written content. If you have spammy or long-winded text it won’t get read, and worse it might put people off your proposition altogether.
The key things to focus on content-wise are your:
– Headline – what do you do?
– Benefits – why should people do business with you?
– Guarantee – what are you promising them?
– Call to action – what do you want them to do?
Design
First impressions count. When someone hits your website the first thing they will notice is the design and how pleasing it is to the eye. A well designed website will draw the eye to the key message you’re trying to get across and guide them to your call to action.
Eye tracking studies have show that people skim websites in an ‘F’ pattern. This is why most websites have the logo in the top left and a horizontal or left-aligned menu.
It’s also why you should have your key headline ‘above the fold’. The fold is the bottom of the page, where visitors have to scroll in order to access more information. Although most people are used to scrolling and don’t have a problem doing so, it’s good practise to include and arrow to guide people further down the page. Studies have shown that the bottom of the homepage gets good traffic too, so make sure you include important information down there too and don’t neglect it!
Functionality
It should take less than three clicks for a visitor to your site to get to your call to action, whether that’s to call, email, fill in a contact form or physically buy a product if yours is an ecommerce site.
How well your site functions is key to this process. You need a smooth process where they aren’t wading through information that they don’t want to see in order to get to the end goal. Google analytics is a good tool to see how many people are visiting your site, where they’re landing, what they’re clicking on and where they’re leaving. Once you have this information you can adapt your website accordingly.
There are lots of clever ways that web developers can improve the functionality of your website. They should work with you to find the best solution for your business.
Marketing
Once your website is looking good and working well you need to drive traffic to the site. There are lots of ways of doing this including:
Search Engine Marketing – A quick way of driving traffic to your site is Pay Per Click (PPC). Google Adwords is one form of PPC and we’re talking about the listings that appear at the top (or bottom) of the page with the word ‘ad’ next to them. How it works is you bid for specific keywords and if you’re the highest bidder every time someone clicks on your link you pay the amount you bid. It doesn’t work for everyone but for high value or competitive businesses it can be a useful tool. They have a handy keyword planner which helps you to determine what the best search terms are for your business.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – This is a way of climbing Google rankings organically and involves carrying out on-site and off-site optimisation. There are no guarantees that you will get to or stay at the top of Google and you have to keep working on it by providing fresh content on your website, interacting on social media and getting backlinks to your site but if you keep at it then it’s a great way of driving traffic to your site.
Social Media – Social media is a great way of sharing content, interacting with your audience and driving traffic to your site. It can be hard to stay on top of at times, but spending a few minutes updating your Twitter, Facebook or Linked In has the added benefit of helping your SEO so it’s well worth your time. You can also do some very targeted advertising on Facebook and Instagram, pinpointing your key audience and tailoring the message to suit them for relatively little cost.
Email marketing – It can take up to seven points of contact to make a sale, so make sure you’re using email to follow up with potential customers and enticing them back to you site. There’s a fine line between being informative and helpful and annoying, so make sure you’re not contacting them too frequently and that the content your sending them is useful e.g. a special offer or report they might be interested in.
Blogging – You can share your expertise in a non-salesy way and reach a new audience with a blog.
The blog can either be shared on your website or you can give it to another website – both are great for SEO. Remember to link to the blog from social media, and tag other people who may then hopefully share it with their followers too.
Summary
If you implement the points above you should see a big impact in your sales.
Remember that bringing in more business through your website is a process, and it takes time to get it right. It’s important to keep refining and tweaking things if they are not working, using tools like Google Analytics to help you.
Good luck! If you want to discuss how we can help your business get more business online, get in touch.
