You’ve finally launched your website! It’s a great reflection of your brand, mission and services- now what? Do you wait for visitors to find your site and contact you? Wait... how will they find your site? Do you come up on Google’s first page of search results right away? Just how much is involved in getting the word out about your site?
We’ve answered all of these questions and more! Below are ten things you should get started on right away, in order to get the most return for your investment. Besides a return, don’t forget your original goal in purchasing and building a website in the first place: a channel to either draw awareness to your business or for your customers to book and purchase your products and services, directly- or BOTH! Either way, you need to drive traffic to your new website.
Execute on 1 through 10 below immediately and effectively and your site visitors should start rolling in! Some of the below are one-and-done checklist type items (like ensuring your site is mobile optimized) and others, you will want to keep up with regularly (like creating unique content).
Of course, if you have any questions on how to increase traffic to your website, you know where to reach us!
Increase Traffic to your Website
1) Get Feedback for Optimal Customer Experience
Do an intimate, ' soft-launch' of your new site, before promoting and marketing your website to the masses. This means send your new website link to close family and friends and ask them to give you candid feedback, pertaining to the site's 'look and feel' and usability. Ask them: Is the appearance of the site appealing? Does it generate certain feelings? Can they find everything easily? Does it function as they expect?
2) Ensure Mobile Optimized
At the end of 2019, mobile devices generated 52.6 percent of global website traffic Statista.com. That means over half of your website visitors (at times maybe more) are using their mobile device to look at it. If your site is hard to view or navigate on their phone or tablet, chances are those visitors will leave your site quickly.
Also, know the difference between: Mobile Friendly vs Mobile Optimized. Mobile friendly sites are developed for desktop users and are typically just a slimmed-down version of the desktop site. This is typically where it looks really tiny and you have to use two fingers to pinch and zoom in- not ideal. Whereas, a mobile-optimized website is designed and built using a ‘mobile-first approach’ and will totally reformat itself for mobile users.
✔ If your site was built with InTandem Digital, it’s mobile optimized by the way. Check that one off your list!
3) Optimize for Search Engines
Ensure Google and other search engines will find your site and when people run a specific search inquiry, that your site ranks higher in their search results. Now, coming up on Google’s first page or even ranking high at all takes time, so be realistic and patient, but also know there are some things you can do to get started.
At a very basic level, you will want to make sure your site: 1) has the appropriate and impactful keywords in each page’s title and meta-descriptions, 2) your sitemap has been submitted to Google to get indexed or found 3) and your site is ‘content-rich’ with similar keywords. Incorporating outbound and inbound links to your content and ‘alt-tags’ to your images, are an SEO best practice too.
✔ If you’ve built your site with InTandem Digital, you have received the Basic SEO Plan for your site. Your site has been connected to Google, it’s sitemap has been submitted for indexing, and all page titles and meta-descriptions, optimized.
Check out InTandem's FREE website performance tool if you are interested in getting a full, 15+ page report complete with your full website audit results and recommendations for you or any SEO expert to action on.
(To learn more about SEO or InTandem Digital Consulting’s Premium SEO Plans, feel free to reach out to us!)
4) Add the URL to all existing Marketing Collateral & Email Signature
This one is simple. Add your new web address to anything and everything! Update all of your marketing collateral- business cards, brochures, banners, etc. Also, add your URL to your email signature. These simple actions can drive a lot of traffic and potential business to your site.
5) Incorporate the URL in All Social Posting/Campaigns
Just like the previous tip, this one is easy too. You’re already promoting your business and creating awareness about your brand on social media (hopefully), now just include your website URL in all postings. You can add it as an overlay on photos for Instagram or even run a dedicated, social campaign, with the specific objective to drive traffic to your new site- “The first 30 people to visit our site and subscribe to it get a FREE pencil eraser!” - well, maybe come up with a better giveaway...
6) Include the URL on External Site Directories, Forums, Groups & Communities
The more inbound links that point to your site, the better for search engines to find it. So, submit your website URL to external directories for users to find you there and also when posting in any other site’s forums, groups or community pages.
This is also a best practice in general as a business owner on the net. When you add to conversations that already interest your audience, you elevate yourself and your brand as an authority in the subject- just don’t forget to leave your website URL as a bread crumb for your followers to find you!
7) Create Unique & Valuable Content
Again, the more ‘content-rich’ your site is, the potential for higher rankings in search, thus traffic to your site. This means not only adding words to your site, but impactful keywords in articles that your target audience will be looking for. This act is not only a value-add for your site’s Google ranking, but to potential prospects who will appreciate your knowledge, see you as an expert and possibly subscribe and share your content- completing this trifecta of awe-someness!
8) Create Engaging Email Campaigns for Subscribers
After you’ve created some awe-inspiring content and articles that have successfully brought visitors to your site and even achieved in getting them to subscribe with you, now you have a customer-base in which you can focus your direct email marketing efforts. Recent reports from Constant Contact, a major email marketing company, show that for every $1 spent on email marketing, businesses are seeing $38 in ROI, on average. So, get to work!
✔ With InTandem Digital, we’ve chosen to build our websites on a platform that is already integrated with it’s own incredible email marketing capabilities and templates- so no need to pay for an outside email marketing company.
9) OutReach Marketing: Rally up Some Influencers or Brand Ambassadors
The old adage of, ‘it’s not always what you know, but who you know’, is also very true when it comes to digital marketing. Think of it as online networking, if you will. Now more than ever, as you are building your foundation of followers, subscribers and prospects, it is critical to engage your existing network to act as your very own ‘brand ambassadors’.
Brand ambassadors can be close family and friends who you’ve had a conversation with about your goals and who’ve committed to helping you raise awareness about your site or campaigns. Executed successfully, these brand ambassadors may in turn grow this foundation organically to unknown, like-minded ‘influencers’ with shared interests. Having organic social influencers for your brand can be whimsical for your business and bottom line.
10) Familiarize & Regularly Analyze Site Analytics
Last, but definitely not least of all- track your efforts and the sources of those efforts to understand where you have been most successful and what actions are worth repeating. Ensure your website is connected to Google Analytics and that you understand and regularly analyze site traffic- upticks in visitors and the sources where they originate- search, social etc.
✔ Your site, built with InTandem Digital, has great analytics integrated right into your back-end dashboard for your convenience. If you haven’t received back-end training yet, sign-up today!
About the Author
Julia Maldonado is the Lead Designer & Founder for InTandem Digital Consulting. She has over 20 years of experience in Marketing, Advertising and Customer Experience spanning across different industries. 10+ years in website design, content writing and social media influencing.
To learn more about Julia, visit her on LinkedIn.
InTandem Digital Consulting provides various digital solutions to small and mid-size businesses. Our portfolio includes: Website Design, Social Media Management and Customer Experience Strategy. Our CX workshops are offered both in-person and virtually.
To learn more about how InTandem Digital Consulting can help you and your business, click HERE
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To learn more about InTandem Digital Consulting’s website design services, how we can help grow your business through social media or even strategize with you on some ideas to drive awareness to your brand. Visit us at www.intandemdigitalconsulting.com
