In today’s business climate, a professional website is no longer enough to set you apart from the competition. As essential as a website is for attracting and retaining customers, that’s just one component of building a relationship with prospects and customers.
One of the biggest misconceptions of launching a professional business website is that you’ll immediately begin attracting new leads and improve your visibility from the get-go. This may be true for well-established websites that redesign for higher conversions, but not when you’re just trying to build traffic to begin with.
Websites aren’t something you can set, forget and watch the rewards roll in. To get the most of your investment, you’ll need to leverage digital marketing techniques to amplify your messaging and extend the reach of your business across the web. You need to develop a website content strategy and marketing plan.
What Is Website Marketing?
Website marketing is, simply put, anything you do to drive traffic to your site and then convert that traffic into a growing customer base. It involves strategies and tactics that you implement both on and off your website, from promoting your blog on social media to how you design your product pages.
Website marketing strategies are developed on a case-by-case basis and should be tailored to fit your business’s unique needs. That being said, there are a few marketing techniques that stand out, such as search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing and content marketing.
These marketing techniques are proven to be effective:
- 64% of marketers invest in search engine optimization (SEO).
- 81% of B2B marketers say that email newsletters are their most-used form of content marketing.
- 92% of marketers produce blog posts to drive traffic, boost sales and educate their audience.
Given the number of businesses that are leveraging website marketing strategies, you can’t afford to sit idly by, waiting for customers to learn about your business. You’ve got to figure out to put these strategies into play today.
How to Take Your Website Marketing Strategy to the Next Level
Now that we’ve covered the importance of having a website SEO marketing and content strategy, let’s discuss a few tips you can leverage to develop an effective website marketing strategy.
Collect Key Data
Data will be critical in your efforts to evaluate your website marketing decisions (more on that below), so a system for collecting and analyzing that data is foundational to your entire strategy.
To gather the information needed to make informed, data-driven decisions to shape your marketing efforts, you can use marketing automation software or website analytics solutions such as Google Analytics. Many businesses, along with web design and marketing agencies, use the conversion tracking functionality within Google Analytics to measure campaign effectiveness.
By using conversion tracking with website SEO marketing techniques, you can measure the number of visitors that take a desired action — whether that’s requesting a consultation after finding your company through Google or making a purchase in your online store.
To make the most of this information, it’s important to review your website SEO marketing data weekly. By evaluating data on a week-by-week basis, you’ll allow enough time for campaigns to run while still maintaining the ability to make adjustments for future iterations.
Invest in SEO
As we mentioned above, successful businesses tout each of these remaining tools as essential for their website marketing efforts. First and foremost among them is SEO. An investment here is the best way to drive organic traffic to your site.
Simply put, most people will never find your site. Even worse, most people who want in finding your site won’t find it, and that’s because you’re not helping them do it. Google’s search algorithms are programmed (and constantly refined) to find certain kinds of content. They look for pages that are well organized, where it’s clear what the content is about and where it fits on the site. They analyze links and information to analyze the reliability of a site and its sources. They look for keywords but filter them out if they’re obviously stuffed on the page.
These are just a few examples, and there are many more. It will take time and resources to invest in SEO, but an average return for that investment is $2.75 for every dollar — sometimes much higher.
Create Great Content
It’s not enough to simply roll out a beautifully designed site and expect that to win visitors over. Great design is essential but not sufficient. You need stellar content, and that’s where a blog can boost your marketing efforts in a big way.
Your blog isn’t primarily for sales content, either. It’s an opportunity to engage your visitors with helpful content that informs, educates and inspires. Post insightful, well-written, engaging articles that connect with your audience’s interests. This is a great way to foster an ongoing conversation with your customers and build trust.
Make Email a Priority
You may be tempted to think email is a dinosaur of the internet’s early days. It may be, but when it comes to marketing return on investment (ROI), email is the T-Rex of the digital marketing kingdom. In fact, it’s been widely shown to deliver astonishing returns as high as $42 for every $1 spent. If you’re not prioritizing email, you’re missing out. It’s that simple.
Your email marketing efforts go hand in hand with your website, and there should be a natural interplay between them. Email drives traffic to your site, and your site can be built to make the most of that traffic. Never work on one without the other.
Evaluating Your Website Marketing Efforts
As you implement these new strategies, don’t neglect to assess your results. By using a data-driven website marketing strategy, you can determine the return on your marketing dollars. Taking the time to analyze the data will drive home all the efforts we’ve already discussed. Without that necessary final step, you won’t really know what’s happening because of your marketing moves and what’s just happening organically.
Since every business is unique, there’s no single metric that indicates a successful ROI for your marketing campaigns. What’s more important is quantifying success as it specifically relates to your sales pipeline. In other words, how effective is your marketing at moving your prospects through to a sale? That’s a question you and your team need to ask constantly.
Partner With a Digital Marketing Expert
While it’s possible for businesses to DIY some parts of their digital marketing and website strategies, it’s often beneficial to work with an external digital marketing and web development agency that’s able to deliver a fresh perspective on the best way to position your business.
The team at Orpheus is experienced with all the ins and outs of website marketing, and we can help you take your efforts to the next level. Contact us to get started growing your business online today.