It’s becoming more important than ever to ensure that our websites are the powerhouses driving our businesses. In these challenging global times, more and more commerce and transactions are taking place entirely in the digital world, and your company website, far from being a nice to have add-on, has become the first port of call for customers, suppliers, business partners and potential investors. For many businesses, it is their sole shop window to the world. So in times of great uncertainty, what can you do to make sure that your website is as strong and clear as it can possibly be?
Make Your Information Easy To Find
Just having a website with your information and offers on it isn’t enough. You may think that everything is perfectly accessible and obvious, but you’re only coming at it from one perspective – that of someone who already knows the site well. The importance of a proper UX design process and extensive customer testing cannot be underestimated. The only way to work out if you are delivering on the needs of clients is by testing with them, using processes such as eye tracking studies to see how they really use your site. This process will give you lots of actionable insights to make sure that you stay on track.
Get Your Communications Process Sorted
It’s important that you work to push communications out through your website effectively. Your site should serve both as the hub to house the news that people are seeking and also as a device that coordinates and pushes out content as needed. Do some research to determine which channels you should be using, so that you can be sure to be where your audience needs you. Then work on developing a messaging matrix which will be the backbone of your communications.
Sort Your On Page SEO
The way that search engines work to make your website more discoverable has been increasingly focused on great quality content over the past few years, and determining the relevance of what you have to say to your potential audience. This means that paying attention to the SEO score of each of your pages is hugely important. There is a lot you can do with simple techniques, such as ensure all your images feature alt-text, that you provide internal linking on your pages, and that you’re writing meta-descriptions for each page. These steps will ensure that your site sends a signal to the search engine bots that it’s a good and truthful information source, which will work to boost your organic rankings.
Get Long Tail With Your Keywords
If you work in a sector with very high competition for keywords – something like cosmetics for examples – then it can be very tough to see how you’re going to get noticed.The answer lies in going deep on the long-tail keywords – these may generate a lower overall volume of traffic, but the leads that they do bring in are significantly more likely to convert. Long tail keywords actually account for the majority of web searches over all, so it only makes sense to ensure that they are a key part of your strategy, alongside popular keywords in your sector and high-intent keywords too. Don’t miss out on this valuable traffic stream, especially in uncertain times. Working with a quality PPC company will mean that your business benefits from a carefully planned strategy which will help you to ride out the storms, respond flexibly to challenges and spot the opportunities that await.
Get Reciprocal With Guests
No business is an island – instead, we exist in an ecosystem of promise, delivery and collaboration – and you can use this to boost your website and therefore your company. Now more than ever it’s about the connections that you have made, and being able to add value in new ways. Think about your network, and who you could partner with in order to introduce your brand to a new audience or approach a problem from a different perspective. Creating collaborative content is a hugely exciting area that you could do very well to capitalize on. It can help to give you a greater share of voice and gain more traffic, as well as bringing new life to your brand. It’s very important to get the approach right. Too many direct selling messages will come across as forced, inappropriate and tone deaf.You need to approach it from a relationship building angle instead, and consider how you can actively contribute. Leads will surely follow, but hold off from being pushy – think about giving, and you’re likely to get back. Similarly, inviting non-competing business contacts in front of your audience can be invaluable. If customers get more from your services, they are likely to remain and to become brand advocates. Creating very high-quality, original content is key.
Position For Thought Leadership
Positioning your business as the go-to thought leader on a particular niche is a great place to be – not only does it win share of voice in a crowded marketplace, but can make you some great connections. LinkedIn Groups are a great forum to publish content that can connect with decision makers and potential clients, as well as allowing you to unofficially canvas opinion.You can also decide to interview other leading figures in your industry, to give you and your audience great insight. Send out interview request emails to prominent people and publish the content via your company blog or even make your own podcast, then link off to it from social media articles. The name recognition will give your website a boost in quality perception, while you also get to create rich content that will draw traffic and benefit your page rankings. You can also use this content as an inbound marketing strategy, perhaps offering some of it as a webinar and then following up with a gated white paper that gives more useful information. You can also benefit from the audience that your interviewee has, and this is a really great tactic for getting the name of a small business more widely known.
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