HOW TO BE FOUND ONLINE AND RAMP UP WEBSITE VISITS

How to be found online is a question we are very familiar with! When we started our online business we built our website and waited for sales to happen. We waited and waited and waited, until we learned to develop a clear message, how to leverage social media into our favor, maximize our websites and SEO, amongst other things.

It’s the same for almost every client we’ve met through our digital agency – they have a website that doesn’t rank and has no traffic OR they want to build a website and think that alone will generate leads for their businesses. Well, being found online isn’t as easy as it may seem!

​Now more than ever in our time, your website should be your most important source of business. Customers of all age groups are interacting more with businesses today than they were a year ago and. The average monthly website traffic has increased by 13% in the month of March, compared to February, reports Hubspot. ​

Average monthly website traffic has increased in March compared to February

​Despite the surge in website traffic and marketing and sales team engagement with the public, the Hubspot report shows there was a lower response to those efforts. “Average marketing email volume increased 29% the week of March 16, while open rates increased by 53% the same week. Across the month, the open rate increased by 21% overall”.

Even though businesses are facing many challenges now, there are also lots of opportunities to boost your business’ digital performance and get you to actually be found online, which is the first step in creating a profitable business.

If on one side potential clients are wary of spending their money at this time, on the other, they are spending more time online and prospecting, exploring their options, looking to connect with the businesses they may eventually buy from. That is a great opportunity to educate your potential clients on your products or services. Offer free content, engage with your audience on your social media channels, and build the connections that will hopefully convert into sales in the future.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR BUSINESSES AND HOW CAN YOU TURN THESE PIECES OF INFORMATION INTO ACTIONABLE STEPS TO BE FOUND ONLINE?

1. MAKE YOUR MESSAGE CRYSTAL CLEAR

Is your message clear? Is it intentional? Having these attributes is key to be found online and standing out from the pack. You can easily do that by narrowing down the scope of the information you put out there! Do this by defining your customer avatar or buyer persona. If you don’t already have a template you can use Hubspot’s free “Make my Persona” tool!

Organizing your potential client’s information with the prompts below will help you quickly build your customer avatar and maximize your chances of making your message clear to your target audience!

• Define your product/service from the client’s point of view (what does your product/service do for your customer? What kind of problem does it solve?);
• Know your client’s location (where do they live and where are they when they make the decision to purchase from you); and
• Know when your client makes their decision to buy (think about the time of the year/month/day).

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2. BE STRATEGIC WITH YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

Social media can be overwhelming if you don’t have a clear strategy to integrate your message across all the channels you use. Asking questions like “Am I promoting a brand, a product, myself?” or “Am I interested I building a community of like-minded people or potential clients” will help you decide which platforms best suit your strategy to be found online. Consider these steps in order to craft a clear strategy:
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• When you decide which platforms you’ll use, make sure your profile is complete! Check out these tips for ways to build a magnetic social media bio!;
• Don’t forget to have your customer avatar ALWAYS in mind when writing your content;
• Plan ahead – How much time can you devote to engaging with current and potential clients? Do you have resources for creating graphics or taking professional pictures? Will you need the support of a partner/staff or VA? What are each platform's best practices for maximum exposure and engagement? Those are some of the aspects you’ll want to think through when creating your social media; and
• Know the tools available to support your social media managing and planning like Canva, CoSchedule, TweetDeck, and Hootsuite.

Tools available to support your social media managing and planning

​3. HAVE A KILLER WEBSITE

As we said before, having a website is no guarantee to be found online! You need to make sure your website is maximized for optimal navigation – you don’t want your visitors to get frustrated because they can’t find what they are looking for! The most important elements for a successful website are:
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• A clear and easy way for clients to contact you (an action call button at the top of the page is key!);
• A quickly accessible Product or Service page;
• Have at least the following pages: HOME; ABOUT; SERVICES/PRODUCTS; TESTIMONIALS; CONTACT; and BLOG;
• Compelling content (copywriting); and
• Professional branding, pictures, and graphics.

Optimal navigation structure for a website

​4. MAKE SEO A PRIORITY

The most important attribute of a website is its capacity to be found online! We see a lot of websites that are great portfolios but are far from being the cash machine any website should potentially be. By making SEO a priority you’re giving your website the best chance it can get to not only be found but to bring in sales! Building your Google ranking through SEO takes time and this is why it’s important to start working on it now!

Google has over 200 ranking factors but some of the most important are:
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• GMB (Google My Business) – make sure your details are always up to date on Google’s public business profile. You should also answer customers reviews, update photos and events and respond to comments;
• Use specific keywords relevant to your service/product throughout your website to add relevancy to your content;
• Have professionally taken photos and videos and carefully name them with a description that will make them pop up when someone searches for those words; and
• Consider having a blog – this is content that will not only populate Google but also potentially reach people who are searching for the services/products you sell. It’s also a great way to share free information and knowledge with potential clients that aren’t yet ready to buy and, ultimately, it can help convert the ones who know what they want and may identify with you through your writing.

SEO should be a priority in your strategy

​We hope these actionable steps will help you to be found online and with wok and dedication ramp up your website visits and conversion rates!

Author

Written by Dani Rodrigues @ Ingols Digital Small Business Listener! Partner at Ingols Digital @ingolsdigital and Ingols Imports.