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6 Free Great Tips for Marketing your Website

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There are so many businesses that launch a website and have no clue how to market it to the public. They feel that just getting a website is enough and that’s simply not true. Having an online presence is really the first step in the online space. Marketing this site and making sure that people buy or engage with it is a totally different ball game and following are 3 tips that all entrepreneurs or budding start ups should follow in order to give your website that best chance of success. By no means does this stop at 3, but this should give you a good idea of the direction to head in.

Tip # 1: Make sure the website has been designed by an agency and not some template wielding, price busting, cheap n cheerful gang of cowboys. This obviously is after the horse has bolted so to speak, but if you look at your website and have paid next to nothing for it, then I say bin it. Take the loss, move on and look for another company that can design a site that will work for you. That is a company that can make you look unique, and design all pages that are aimed at site conversion.  Nowadays, websites need to look spot on. They have to appeal to the consumer within a few seconds and draw them into the site. This is why every web page needs to be planned out and lots of preparation put into it. Having an average looking site, will not cut it anymore. You can forget about it. Might as well pack your bags and go on holiday. So the first tip here is to engage a company like us here at hopping mad designs.

Tip # 2: If you are going to launch a site and your intention is to use this as a platform to drive new business, then use a SEO company that knows its stuff. Getting ripped off at this stage is a common occurrence and many businesses fail because they do not understand SEO or the processes involved. All I can say on this matter is try to use a web company that has a solid background in SEO. Splitting the 2 disciplines is not a good idea. My theory on this is that web design and SEO are so intertwined that it’s best to keep it all under 1 roof. This way the right hand knows what the left one is doing at all times. You can have the best looking website in the world that has been 100% optimised for conversion, but if you stuff up with your SEO then the whole exercise is going to be pointless. I would say the best way to go about this is to interview a few companies before embarking on this project and make your decision based on 2 areas. Their ability to design and the techniques they will use to rank a website. Make no mistake, There are literally hundreds if not thousands of so called SEO experts out there in the market place just dying to get your business. If you fall for their lies and fake promises then you are the one that will be going to suffer, with extremely poor site rankings and zero web traffic. This is a massive recipe for a disaster waiting to happen. I see it all the time and I get phone calls from people in such a panic about their Google rankings that it’s scary.

TIP # 3: Keep adding to your website. By this I mean you should be constantly looking to add content to the website either by blogging, creating news articles or even adding pages to the site. Don’t freak out here! I know you are busy and you have got much better things to be doing than publishing blogs, but 1 or 2 per month is all you need. Why? Cause Google loves new content and if you have something interesting to say, share it with the world and Google will help you get it out there. This form of marketing, known as content marketing is now common practice so if you have never heard about it, then get your web guys to add a blog feature on your site and go for it. To get a clearer idea of this message why not browse the hopping mad blog. From here you will get a better understanding of how a blog will work and how it can promote your business. I try to blog at least once a week on anything web or SEO…read the headings and you will get my drift.

TIP # 4: Probably one of the least active components of a small business marketing strategy is how they utilise and interact with their social media. More often than not this is an area that is over looked or forgotten about, but businesses should at least have a Facebook page, LinkedIn profile or Instagram account. These are awesome marketing tools and can seriously push your brand or business message to a whole new audience and the best thing about it; IT IS TOTALLY FREE! Try it out and see the kind of results you are getting. If it doesn’t work vary the message or look at it from a different angle. There is no harm in trying this over and over again, till you hit the winning formula.

TIP # 5: Make sure your website has a data collection area. That is, collect visitors email addresses by getting them to sign up to a newsletter. This way you can stay in touch with them on a regular basis. Quarterly, half yearly, yearly, whatever, as long as you are front of mind for these people when they are looking for your product or service and a direct email campaign is just the ticket to do this.

TIP # 6: Lastly, make sure that your website works on a mobile phone. Make it super easy for the public to browse your site, no matter the screen size they are using. Known as responsive design, this will help you target a mobile audience which is really where all web content and pages are heading. This may not be overly critical now but in years to come this is going to make a huge difference to the way users interact and engage with your site.

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