At a recent Laptop Monday event, I got to talk all things websites with Michelle Symonds, an SEO expert from Ditto Digital. Michelle has some clear thoughts on how the best websites are designed and marketed to attract more sales and leads, which is worth sharing.
“Many small businesses are missing a trick when it comes to online marketing and especially SEO (search engine optimisation), rarely committing for long enough to an SEO campaign to reap the rewards” Michelle explained.
“SEO will never be a quick solution to driving visitors to a website and converting them to customers, but as a long-term strategy it delivers a better return on investment than pay-per-click (PPC) advertising while, at the same time, building an asset in the form of a website and content that will go on delivering potential customers for years to come. Something you can’t say about PPC – turn off the cash and guess what happens? No more visitors!
SEO also gives greater insights into what constitutes popular content and, more importantly regular competitor analysis reveals the techniques and strategies competitors are using.”
Even if your company isn’t yet ready for a digital marketing campaign, here are 3 essential factors Michelle shared that will help your website stay in good shape for when that time comes:
- Technical Web Audit. Orphan pages, missing pages generating 404 errors, mixed http/https issues, duplicate or missing page titles? Any or all of these will be detrimental to your site. All too often websites are built and then left untouched – sometimes for years. By auditing regularly and correcting errors as they occur Google will recognise (and reward) the quality of your site.
- Add new, unique content as often as possible. Blog posts, articles and news items can all be used to attract potential customers seeking solutions to problems long before they are ready to buy. Build trust and build your brand with evergreen content that remains useful year after year.
- Speed on mobile devices. Since late 2018 Google has placed more emphasis on site speed in terms of how a website is built – not just how fast your hosting is. Ensure images are compressed, that content “above-the-fold” is prioritised, unused CSS removed and Javascript execution time been minimised. Try out the free Google Page Speed Insights tool to see how your website compares with the best.
Of course, a business can be successful without any digital marketing at all but it depends how you measure success and what level of success you are aiming to achieve. It’s not unusual for digital marketing campaigns to increase traffic by 500% or more. Where could your business go with a 500% increase in traffic to your website? Food for thought, thank you Michelle!
Finding the right pieces for your IT jigsaw is difficult, and keeping Google happy is just one consideration. When the IT pieces you have aren’t fitting together as they should, everyone gets frustrated and you spend too much time just trying to make things work.
If you need help to start to piece together your IT jigsaw, book a free review call and we’ll set you off on the right track.
