It’s a common misconception among small business owners: All I need is a website and my business is good to go when it comes to the Internet.
Unfortunately this isn’t the case at all. While you’re website acts as a hub for all your online traffic, it certainly isn’t the only source, nor should it be viewed as that. In fact, there are a number of other places online and things your business should be doing which you probably don’t even know about. These range from everything to making sure your business has a presence on Facebook to ensuring it has a listing on the important directories like Yelp. The important thing is to understand which of these traffic avenues are more important than others.
Here are five absolute musts when it comes to getting more traffic to your website, and more importantly, converting that traffic to more profit.
Social Media: Give Them Something to Talk About
Sure, a lot of businesses might already be on Facebook, but it doesn’t mean they’re doing it correctly. The first thing to realize when it comes to social media is every business is different. While one business may be more successful with a particular form of social media, others may not. It’s important to try some things out first – essentially test the waters. But how do you that you ask? It’s actually quite simple – create a profile on all of them or at least the big 5 – Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Instagram, (Check out how Instagram can help your business) and Pinterest.
Now, just because you have a profile created for these three doesn’t necessarily mean you have to actively be engaging your customers on them. In fact, it’s best to only focus on one or two of these from the start. You’ll quickly begin to see what the quickest way to reach your customers is. Maybe it’s Facebook. Maybe it’s Twitter. Regardless, these are the Big 5 when it comes to users, thus it’s going to be the easiest to gain traffic from them.
(*Note: Regular posts should be made to your Google + profile, at the very least on a weekly basis. The greater the frequency of posting to Google +, in related to activity on those posts, directly correlates with your search engine rankings.)
Is Your Business Listing Setup on all the Right Websites? Is it verified on them?
Did you know there are literally hundreds of relevant online directories your site should be on? Did you know three of them are absolutely vital to helping customers find your business online?
I can not for the life of me figure out why some business owners will spend tons of money with Yellow Book or the newspaper, yet not even make sure their business listing is showing up on Google. Think about it. When you go to search for a product or business in your town, most of you likely use your SmartPhone.
Do you go to Yellow Pages website or just do a search with your default browser? Odds are if it’s your SmartPhone’s default browser it’s Safari for iOS devices or Chrome for Android devices. This is likely the same way most of your own customers find you. With that said, it should be easy to see the importance of making sure your business listing is set up on the main three search engines: Google, Yahoo and Bing.
Also, when you create a listing on the main three search engines in allows your business to show up on page 1 automatically for local search. This is huge! That’s prime time real-estate smack dab in front of the eyes of your customers doing online searches for products and services related to your business.
Is Your Site Optimized for the Search Engines?
Let me make one statement before going on about why this is important: It doesn’t matter how flashy your website is if the search engines can’t find it.
It’s simple. If you’re business doesn’t show up in search results on the main three search engines when customers perform a search for products or services related to your business, then you’re losing out and in a big way. It’s called ranking organically on Google. Sure, you can pay for placement but why do that if you can rank on page 1 for free, simply by doing the right things?
The first and most basic fundamental when it comes to showing up in search results is to make sure your website is fully optimized for the appropriate keywords. For example, if you’re a pizza restaurant in Piqua, Ohio then you’re going to want to make sure the keywords on your site target the appropriate search terms – pizza restaurants in Piqua, Ohio, restaurants in Piqua, Ohio, etc. Likewise, if you’re a local clothing store which sells woman’s shoes, then you’re going to want to target similar terms such as woman shoe stores in Piqua, Ohio, shoe stores in Piqua, Ohio, etc.
While making sure your site optimized for search engines is very important, it should be noted simply doing this and this alone does not equate to higher search results for those terms. Again, they only help lay the foundation.
The Wrap Up
The key to having a successful website is to not put all of your eggs in one basket. And again, it seems like the only place most business owners want to put their funds into is a website when it’s only the beginning.
Interested in learning more about how Michael Web Solutions can help your business grow online? No problem. Click here!