If you have an online business presence, no matter how popular your company is, you need to implement successful website marketing practices to attract new customers and keep your current ones. While the practices don't typically vary between businesses, the strategies often do. Some companies employ aggressive marketing tactics while others create their website in such a way that it does most of the work for them.Whether you're new to internet marketing or an expert, there's always something new to learn, which is the beauty of having an online presence. Times change and so do trends. Let's take a deeper dive into website marketing and how Ampry makes the most of your marketing budget.
How Do You Get Started With Website Marketing?
A website marketing strategy is like any other aspect of your business. It requires in-depth research before you employ any methods. Otherwise, it's easy to overwhelm yourself and if you try to do too much, it'll have the opposite effect. Instead, take inventory of your business, determine where your weaknesses are. To do this, you need a thorough website analysis. Here's where having special software helps you avoid doing all the legwork, which can take precious time away from where you need it most - growing your small business.
User Behavior
One of the most telltale signs of how your customers perceive your company is through their user behavior.
- How often do people visit your website?
- What drives them there (social media posts, Google search engine, etc)?
- How long do they stay on the pages and what pages do they navigate to the most?
- Do they regularly abandon shopping carts if you're a goods-based business?
Looking at these unique behaviors tells you a lot about not just your potential customers, but your website as well. The longer someone stays on your site, the more they're likely to do business with you. But evaluating these behaviors can be tricky, especially if you don't know how to find or read the analytics. When you set up your website, make sure you implement this type of software. Google Analytics works in a pinch, and it will give you some valuable information, but it won't give you the in-depth nuances of your visitors, which is imperative to understanding your clientele.From this knowledge, you can gain an intrinsic look at what's beneficial about your website and what still needs work - and something will always need work, it's just the nature of the internet.
How Do I Know What Customers Want From My Website?
The best way to determine what customers want from your website is to be crystal clear about what you offer. Are you a knowledge-based website earning revenue from ads and views? Do you sell goods, like a children's boutique, wedding supply shop, or raw goods? Perhaps you sell services and offer virtual assistants, social media managers, and others. The way you structure your website should depend on the type of business, but it should also be easy to navigate, without excessive design features such as bold, bright colors or flashing images that can distract a user. By using the aforementioned analysis, you can see what pages of your website users visit the most and that can help you gain insight into their primary purpose.
How Do I Narrow Down My Target Audience?
When people start a small business, it's not unusual to want to be everything, to everyone. Unfortunately, it's just not possible to do that and make a profit, because your attention will be everywhere and it'll be near impossible to focus. In order to make a living, you have to have a niche and every niche has a target audience. Let's take a look at the example of a wedding supply business. Your niche here is going to be engaged couples, mostly brides and family of the bride - think mothers, sisters, bridesmaids. You're not going to want to waste time trying to cater to groomsmen or grooms because, in most instances, the bulk of the work falls on the bride and her family. Now, you've narrowed it down to a broader target audience. But, what kind of supplies do you offer? Let's say the products are luxury wedding invitations and stationery. Your price points are going to be higher, and thus, you won't want to target every bride, because you'll waste money on your efforts. Instead, you'll want to focus on those within a specific income bracket. This becomes your narrowed-down target audience and the area where to focus the majority of your marketing efforts. Once you understand what your potential customers want and are looking for, you can develop an effective marketing strategy. Here's how.
1. Use Web Crawlers
A web crawler has many benefits and can help you identify problem areas, but it's also useful in ways many people don't think about. For example, web crawlers can actually scan competitor websites and collect information that would take you months, if not years, of work to do - and really, who has that kind of spare time?Things a web crawler can pick up by scanning competitor websites include their:
- Pricing
- Products
- Deals and discounts
- Target audiences
- Content analysis
Many businesses also use web crawlers to scan forums and review websites, so you can read honest feedback about your company and its products or services. Web crawlers are also valuable tools in that you can have one do a thorough evaluation on your website to determine its SEO value and determine where you can make improvements.
2. Employ Social Media
In today's era, social media is a must. But you can't go into it blindly. Most people think they can create a post, put in a random hashtag, and call it a day. The fact is social media marketing takes time - a lot of it. In many cases, people hire social media managers to create, control, and distribute their content and run their campaigns. Managers also respond to users and help them, or head off a potentially angry customer by resolving issues that arise. It's a dedicated job in itself. Then, there are the trends. Today, TikTok is hot, but tomorrow it might be some other social media site that's rising in the ranks. Stay in the know. Twitter isn't as useful as it once was, but it shouldn't be discounted - just plan on spending less there than you would on Facebook or TikTok. Having a YouTube channel is also beneficial, particularly if you do product walkthroughs or show how your goods can be used. If you have the budget for it, consider influencer marketing. These are people on social media sites that have a high number of quality followers - not bots, for example - who can showcase your product or boost your service at a cost. Influencer marketing generates brand awareness and improves website traffic through search results and social media platforms' feeds.
3. Create Stellar Engaging Content
All of the content on your site should be top-notch and relevant. Market research comes in handy here, because it tells you what terms people are searching for and how much competition there is for those specific terms. Then you'll want to use something like Google Adwords as part of your website marketing strategy. You'll create and pay for ads using targeted keywords - just remember the more popular the keyword, the more you'll spend, so it's a good idea to try to pick those that fall in the medium rangeThe key, though, as with any content is that if you inject keywords - and you should - that they should fit organically, or naturally, within the content. They shouldn't stand out like a sore thumb. If they do, you're likely to be flagged by Google and will suffer lower rankings on search pages because of it. So what kind of content should you have?Content marketing depends on the goods or services you offer. If you sell tangible or even digital goods, an excellent product description is a must. Don't just write "wine glass" for example. Discuss the type of wine glass, is it for drinking red or white? Is it stemless? What kind of glass is it made from and how many ounces does it hold? These will all help not only fulfill the customer's curiosity but also help with search engine optimization. The more relevant information you provide, the better your chances of driving traffic to your pages.Another good content marketing strategy is to regularly publish blog posts. Fill your blog with helpful hints tailored to suit your prospective clients. A wedding supply business, like we discussed before, can cover a ton of different topics from dress shopping to invitation etiquette. A service-based business would pick issues that clients would seek answers to and address them in a series of blogs. Anything that number one, shows off your expertise, and number two, keeps your visitors on the page, is a win.Some people outsource content for two reasons:
- They can't do it themselves because they lack the time or know-how
- They're simply no good at it
Outsourcing is a very good way to put your marketing budget to good use. Just make sure you find a writer who knows or is willing to learn the ins and outs of your business. Blogs and articles should sound like they come from an expert.Make sure you have a subscriber option, so you can employ email marketing in the form of a newsletter or hot tip of the week. This will keep your customers engaged and they'll return to your page often. Now that you know how to turn your marketing efforts into dollars, it's time to put these practices to work. Give us a call today and start making the most of your ad spend.