Google supports a shocking 3.5 Billion searches everyday! Staying relevant in the 21st century means a having an online presence via a website, social media, blogs, and even review sites like yelp! If you’re not partaking in online marketing you are already falling behind your competitors, even at the local level. But what if you already have an online presence, how do you know if your online marketing is effective? Here are some tips to help you improve.
1: Don’t Ignore Your Data
We understand, the average person doesn’t want to analyze data, but one of the biggest advantages that online marketing can provide is the opportunity to track and identify potential customers. Did you know Google Analytics is a free resource that allows you to place a simple code on your website letting you receive reports of where your traffic is coming from, how long visitors stay, which pages they visit, and more? Even social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram offer free analytics tools that are simple understand and extremely useful.
2: Stay On Top Of Your Online Reputation
Have you ever done an online search of your own business? You should, and on a consistent basis! Searches can show you what others are saying about your business online; positive and negative. Reviews from past clients will help you understand your strengths and weaknesses and also show you what potential clients are seeing when they search your business. Having no comments or reviews online can as damaging as bad ones, so make sure to ask your loyal customers to go online and share their experiences! Trust and credibility are important to new customers.
3: Make Your Website Easy for Mobile Users
One great reason to have a mobile friendly site is that it will show up better in Google search results. Plus, you know how frustrating it can be if you’ve ever tried to look a non-mobile friendly site on a smart phone…zoom in, zoom out, flip screen rotation, wait for long load times, read tiny text, scroll side to side and worst of all trying to click links that weren’t meant for fingers. Now might be a good time to take out your smart phone and look at your website, would it meet your needs as a customer or could it use a mobile-responsive refresh?
4: Help Search Engines Find Your Website
Do you have a great looking website but you notice your traffic is less than stellar? Chances are it’s not optimized for search engines to find you. You can never have too much relavant content; add blogs, use keywords (think like a customer ), geo-targeting, add meta tags, attention grabbing titles, have detailed descriptions, and don’t forget to check for broken links or irrelevant pages.
5: Get Social
some of the most widely accepted networks are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ and LinkedIn, but you don’t have to limit yourself to just these few….there are endless possibilities depending on your audience! Find out where your customers spend their time online and develop an appropriate strategy to reach them which includes updating your profiles regularly!Your customers are using social media and if you want to reach them you need to be too!
Keeping up in the online world requires constant adaptation. If you need some help developing and maintaining an optimal online presence reviewing these tips is a great place to start but you don’t have to stop there.
