Your Website Is Built, Now What?
Congratulations on launching your website – it’s a huge accomplishment and something to be proud of! You’ve taken the first step in helping people to learn about your business. But your work isn’t done. There are additional steps you’ll need to take if you really want it to be a success and maximize your investment.
Consider how people will find your website – have you paid attention to your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and keywords? Put simply, SEO is behind-the-scenes language that helps your website appear in search engines like Google, Bing and others. Having the right keywords built into your site can mean the difference between your business being listed first in the search results (where it’s most likely to get clicked by a potential customer), or on page 5 of the search results where it’s not likely to be seen at all. How do you improve your SEO?
Include the right keywords throughout your text on the site and/or page. Think about what your customer might be searching for and include those phrases.
Publish new content regularly. This tells the search engines that you’re relevant, so they’re more likely to boost your site to the top of the list.
Add metadata. In the back end of your website, there are opportunities to include descriptions of your content, goals and offerings. Think of it as a summary that search engines regularly reference to make sure their visitors are finding the most up-to-date content.
Describe any external links that you’re sharing by including the name of the organization you’re linking to.
Develop and implement a simple marketing plan that defines how you’ll continue to bring new people to your site and encourage them to keep up with what you have to say. Your approach will likely depend on your target audience but normally, this can include a combination of e-newsletters, social media postings, advertisements or leave-behind information. Some questions you’ll want to ask yourself include:
Who is your ideal customer?
Where do they spend their time?
How do they generally find out about new things?
What’s important to them?
How much time can you devote to this effort each week?
Give people a reason to come back to your site – publish fresh content. When you successfully engage your audience, you’re creating a direct pipeline from your mouth to their ear. They become your loyal fans and are excited to hear what you have to say — not just now, but on an ongoing basis. (New content on a consistent basis also helps to maintain your SEO and ranking in search results!)
Monitor your site’s traffic patterns – to identify which content is connecting with your audience, what’s missing and what’s not important. If there’s a web page that gets almost no traffic, consider how critical it is to helping people understand the services or products you offer. If it’s central to accomplishing your goals, take a closer look at the content. Maybe people just aren’t identifying with it, or the information isn’t relevant or clear?
Now is the perfect time to learn about what people do when they come to your pages and how you can view your analytics depends on how and where your website is built. Generally, online website builders like Squarespace and Wix contain built-in tools. Google Analytics is another popular and handy site to reference.
Adjust and engage. If your audience isn’t connecting with your website content, change it up! Try a different tone, or even post about different topics. Listen to what they want to hear and react to what they want to know. Simply making your website ‘live’ isn’t the end of your obligation to engage with your potential customers or get the word out about your business. Think of it as a living, breathing thing – it needs attention to survive!
Don’t forget to have fun and get creative with your new website! By helping visitors find your site and engaging them once they’ve arrived, you’ll build a loyal following in no time.
Unsure which steps are right for your site, or looking for more personalized recommendations? The Enrich team can help.
