By Paige Johnsen
Whether someone at your business manages your website or you outsource the work, it’s critical that you keep your website fresh and up to date.
Most of the websites that I see were created with a thoughtful design, however once it was built, it was never touched again. This is one of the most common mistakes that businesses make with their websites.
You need to continue to update your website with fresh content and resources in the form of videos, guides, blogs, promotions and testimonials in order continue to give visitors a reason to come back to your website.
What are you doing differentiate your business from your competition?
8 Marketing Strategies to Optimize Your Website
1. Confirm Your Website is ADA Compliant
The Americans with Disabilities Act ensures people with disabilities must have equal access to buildings, public restrooms and restaurants.
This doesn't include websites (yet). However, if you have a client with a visual impairment, images on your website need to include appropriate tags and data that speaks to what those images look like.
I’ve had the opportunity to attend one of Jerry Gitchel’s, presentations on Web Accessibility Standards for Businesses. I encourage every business owner or manager to meet with him to learn the importance of designing and operating a website that is accessible to people with hearing or visual impairments.
2. Mobile Responsive
Many people visiting your website are finding you from their mobile device.
A responsive website is one that responds, or changes based on the needs of the users and the device that they are viewing it on. Basically, if you’re looking at your website from an iPhone, Android or a tablet, it should appear to look the same as seen on a desktop.
Here’s how you can test the mobile responsiveness of a website:
If you are on a computer, you can tell if a site is responsive by minimizing your browser’s window size. If the appearance of the text, images and menu change as it becomes smaller, the site is responsive.
3. Special Offers
Special offers, discounts, promotions – however you want to reference it – giving your website visitors an incentive can help you schedule consultations and keep meetings.
A few of my favorite promotional ideas are: designing your special offers around holidays in order to create a sense of urgency.
Another idea is a referral program to reward your existing clients whenever they refer a new client to you. Say thank you with a discounted service or gift card.
4. Video
An “About Us” or “Meet the Team” page on your website is a great way for your clients and prospects to get to know you. Individualize your brand with a 1-2 minute video showing your office space, team events or your community involvement.
Video is a great format to share educational content, new services or a product launch.
If you have a hard time coming up with new content, I highly suggest developing a content audit to take inventory of all your content that you’ve already produced. Re-purposing old blogs into videos is an innovative way to engage your visitors.
5. Testimonials
Let your clients be your biggest advocates!
Why do your clients trust you?
Do you have any well-known clients who are respected members of our Jacksonville community?
Ask them for a testimonial and to feature their photo, give them an incentive by sharing their company name and a back link to their business page.
If you are a client of theirs, then offer to write a testimonial for their website and ask for them to include a link back to your website.
6. Strong Call-to-Action Buttons
There are at least seven different types of call to action (CTA) buttons that you can integrate into your website, but let’s just get started with the two most important buttons.
So far, I’ve talked about optimizing your website with content to engage and delight your readers, but let’s get real. Your website exists to convert your website visitors into leads, which will hopefully turn into clients. The most important CTA buttons on your website are Lead Generating Buttons.
Lead Generation buttons should be simple and effective. For example:
• Sign Up
• Schedule a Consultation
The second critical CTA button is for Form Submissions. For example:
• Get our Guide
• Download the E-book
If a visitor isn’t ready to schedule a consultation or sign up for your service yet, you still want the opportunity to connect with them until they are ready to take the next step.
Offering your visitors educational content related to your industry will help you stay at the top of their mind when they are ready to make an informed buying decision. They will also see you as thought leaders in your industry. Providing the option for your visitors to download a guide, case study, or e-book is the first step to winning their hearts.
I also recommend that your call to action buttons include a Click to Call feature on every single page in the same location of your website. Re-evaluate your Contact Forms to make sure they do not overwhelm your visitors by asking too many questions. A best practice is to include less than seven contact fields.
By optimizing your contact forms, you can begin to build a contact profile by requesting their name, company name, phone number, email address, best time to call, etc., in the form fields.
Don’t forget to include an email opt-in option, so visitors can subscribe to your email newsletter.
7. Links to Social Media Pages
Social media is a great way to show what your business is doing in the community and behind the scenes. It’s about attracting your audience to engage with your social media business pages and creative ways for them to share your posts or convert to your website.
Sharing a blog post or press release link from your website is a great way to reinforce your business as an industry thought leader.
Today, people feel bombarded with the oversaturated use of paid and retargeting ads on social media. At some point, we are all going to become numb to it if advertisers don’t find a more creative way to target their prospects.
I’m not stating this form of advertising should be thrown out the window, however I think businesses should be strategic with the way they choose do this. I also believe that it’s not the right choice for every business and you should carefully consider where you spend your marketing budget.
8. Content is King
The last, but certainly not least, strategy we need to focus on is content.
This is the most important piece of the puzzle.
Producing content keeps your website fresh in search results.
Here are a few content strategy ideas to help get you started:
• Content Pillar Pages
• Blogs and Guest Blogs
• Press Releases
• Guides and E-books
• Video Tutorials
• Client Testimonials
• Special Offers
• Surveys or Quizzes
• Event Announcements
Google rankings and paid search engines love fresh content and so do website visitors.
I hope that you found this blog post helpful. These are just a few key marketing strategies to optimize your website. Thank you for the opportunity to share my ideas and I look forward to read what other people from our Jacksonville community have implemented.