Next Level Marketing Online techniques to grow your business. 2019 Hudson Digital
Your Online Presence Chances are you've already got a web site for your business. The fact is, today, every business needs one. The reality is, just having a website in today s environment is not enough. It has to be regularly updated, contain industry keywords so it s indexed by search engines, and built with all the right elements in place so that search crawlers don t take points off for mistakes. This will help ensure your site is found in search engine result pages. But you ll also want to drive traffic via other efforts like social media and email marketing. Getting found is half the story. Once you ve got visitors, you ll want to make they convert: get in touch or make a purchase. 2
Your Website Your most important online selling tool. 3
Your Main Online Asset A website is your main marketing asset online. It speaks volumes about your brand. A sloppy, dated site may not impress your prospects who are accustomed to seeing highly professional sites regularly. In fact, a recent survey by SEJ found that 81% of people think less of a business if its website is outdated. Creating regular online content for your potential online customers is good business. It also helps your site score higher with search engines. Search engines crawl your site daily checking for new updates to index your site. They also check for flaws, so you ll want to make sure your site is compliant. 4
Design Is Half The Story Many business owners become convinced that having a good web site requires no more than a good web site designer much as one might hire a graphic artist for print. This is not the case. Good design is essential, but the web is very different from print. Many designers focus too much on an original look rather than on correct architecture and creating useful and informative content in addition to good design. Try to refrain from putting up a site that has design as its main focus. There is much more to web site success to consider. 5
More Than Just a Storefront If you have a brick-and-mortar storefront, you may not want to depend purely on location for walkin traffic. Likely, you want customers to come to your store on purpose because they saw your business online. Or, buy your products on your website. 6
Ask Yourself Do you expect to spend the rest of your business career running one location, or do you hope to expand? Are your wares might suitable for shipping to people who never come to your store? Do you run a services business where customers must contact you first? Are you concerned that while your offerings are superior, your location is not your strong suit? Or are you just starting a business and struggling to find ways of publicizing it? A professionally built site is a great investment, giving you a strong online presence that could turn your business into a destination. 7
Responsive is Key In 2018, 52.2% of all website traffic was generated through mobile devices. Responsive design means the site will adapt to web, tablet, and mobile screens. One of Google s algorithms is whether or not a site is responsive. Besides responsive, your site should also be clean, uncluttered and clear about what you re trying to convey. You ll want to make a good impression and capture their attention fast. The text and images should be interesting enough that visitors will want to find out more to contact you or come to your place of business. 8
Simple is Good The best sites are simple and easy to navigate. Sites with too many pictures, colors and links tend to be unsuccessful. Pointless popups will only annoy the visitor and they may not return. The site should also load into the visitor's browser quickly (no more than a couple of seconds) and be easy to navigate. Visitors that get to the home page and then leave without doing anything else are called bounces. You will want your site built so as to keep bounces to a minimum. 9
Your Content Attract and engage customers. 10
Optimize With Content Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing display your site in lists according to the keywords typed in by someone searching for items they are interested in. They give higher rankings to larger sites that are updated frequently. A blog is a great way to grow your site and get indexed for keywords. Your blog should not be promotional. While staying industry-specific, it s where you provide advise, entertain, and delight your prospects. You should regularly share blog posts on your social channels to drive traffic to your site. 11
Why Blogging Works Blogs go a long way towards establishing you as an expert in your field and this builds trust in your brand. They re also a great way of keeping your visitors informed of events and special offers. You should use your blog to write about subjects related to your business, but you should also add announcements, updates, and seasonal items. Blog posts offer opportunities to link to promotional content on your site. Writing may not be your specialty. Hiring someone to write your blog may be a good investment. Also, a copywriter that specializes in online content will know how to incorporate SEO and conversion best-practices into the text. 12
Optimization Continuous improvement for search engines and visitors. 13
Optimizing for Search Google deploys criteria in the form of what are called algorithms (or rules), to determine which sites will rank up first in any given key word search. Some known algorithms are domain age, site size, links from authority sites, mobile-friendly site. 14
Writing for Search Engines Search engines crawl your site daily which means they look for a number of features that suggest quality and value to their customers (people searching). In order to ensure search engines are indexing your website efficiently, the focus of your copy should include keywords about what you sell, using syntax that s similar to queries. For example, if you sell furniture, focus your copy on furniture and interior design. Add keywords and syntax that mirrors search queries, but remember you re writing for people, not just search bots. 15
Beyond Keywords Backend technical elements should be implemented correctly. Google has its own specific rules they expect builders to adhere to. This is fairly technical and a good developer will know how to do it right. Many of the criteria Google looks for are available in their Search Console site. For instance, your site should include page titles that use keywords, meta tags, a sitemap, and more. You ll want enough links, both internal and external. Linking from one page to another in your site (not just via headers and menus) helps tie your site together; and search engines reward sites that do this in a careful and relevant manner. 16
More on Search Optimization Building a website requires careful planning of how it s built. For example, a site should be constructed so that no page is farther than three levels deep from the home page. Having an FAQ section (Frequently Asked Questions) with informative answers also plays double-duty: it helps visitors understand your business, and what they can expect to gain from doing business with you while helping the site rank higher for search results. Finally, strive to have as much original content on your site as possible. Search algorithms can detect when content is duplicated or has been taken from another website, and will reduce the site's rank accordingly. 17
Social Media Grow your audience and drive traffic. 18
It s Good to Network Social media Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and other social channels are great adjuncts to your digital marketing effort, but they should not be your only presence. Social media should be used to network, boost your brand and drive traffic to your website. Each social media channel has its own best-practices so you can engage potential customers. When you re promoting your brand on social, it s a good idea to mix it up organic and paid promotions work well together. 19
Remember This Social marketing is essential to driving traffic to your site where you want to convert visitors into customers. One thing to keep in mind is you do not own the content you put on your social media sites. The sites are owned by the social media companies, and often their terms of service include their ownership of anything you post. That may be okay if it's a part of your marketing plan, but is very risky if you rely on it too heavily. In a worst-case scenario, they can shut you down your account any time, for any reason, and you will have no recourse. By contrast, your web site belongs only to you and no one can take it down or force you to change it, ever. You re also creating content for another company rather than your own, losing time while your competitors might be growing their website rank. 20
Email Marketing Nurture leads and stay connected. 21
Email Marketing Email is a powerful marketing tool and is the oldest in the digital toolkit. Nonetheless it requires both finesse and persistence in order to work. The first requirement in email marketing is having a good email list. Even a list of a couple of hundred addresses can be a great place to start. There are companies that sell email lists, but having people fill out forms online is very efficient. You already know these people want to hear from you. 22
Stay Connected Depending on your business size and needs, emails should not be so frequent that recipients opt out. Likewise, they should be relevant and respectful of people s time, get to the point fast and make it short. The key to success with frequent emails is that each email must have some kind of unique offer; and to the extent you can create regular offers that will attract customers, you can be confident that they ll respond. 23
Show Them You Care Email is an inexpensive and efficient way to remind your customers about your brand, and promote new products and services. Every email should have a link to your website where you have a special offer advertised in the email, or service you re promoting. Newsletters and yearly surveys are great ways to stay connected and show your customers you care a lot about them. 24
Don t Be Shy Persistence works! Email marketing may require many emails over many months in order to be successful. Some experts say the average visitor needs at least 12 touchpoints (contact from you whether by email or web site or social) before they trust your brand enough to become a customer. Always make opt-out obvious to because they may no longer want to receive emails and flag you as spam and that will hurt your domain. 25
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