15 Easy Moves to Make Your Website Stand Out
The worldwide web is exactly that: in the world, seriously wide, and awash with websites calling out for our attention. This is not a bad thing as never before has so much information and help been so easily available to so many people. What’s more, most of it is free! So how do you get your website to stand out and pull in more traffic without involving a team of experts?
The most reliable way is to think mostly in terms of ticking the right boxes and using a few good tools. It also involves customizing your content to appeal to your customers. Being all things to all people is the fastest route to web oblivion.
So let us help you get there. Below is our list of recommended moves. Follow it and you should soon start seeing a difference in your web traffic.
Start by separating what you can do in the backroom from what you can do in the front office.
Behind The Scenes
1– First and foremost, stay up-to-date with your SEO. You must keep updating, renewing and reviewing what is working and what isn’t. Make sure you optimize your data for search engines by using proper coding, structuring and keywords. This will help push you up the search rankings.
2– Keep it sober. Little or no use of flashing graphics is best and keep all your links up to date and relevant
3– Always put in a site map
4– Optimize your headlines. Headlines count as they play to both search engines and the short attention span of visitors.
5– Add images to your content. Visuals are always a good way to keep visitors onsite for longer; infographics in particular are popular, especially if done well, when they become eminently shareable.
6-Make sure your content is easily and speedily loadable on all current devices. These days no one is prepared to wait when they can go elsewhere.
7-Link your website to as many social media platforms as possible. We’re talking Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., this is where you can promote the valuable content you have been hard at work putting together. According to Brandwatch, there are “3.17 billion internet users of which 2.3 billion are active social media users, 91% of retail brands use 2 or more social media platforms AND 1 million new active mobile social users are added every day”!
8-Use call–to–action buttons on your website, your social media platforms and any public forms you display.
9-Finally, get yourself some inbound links. Search engines use them to build your ranking. The paid versions will help people find you but will not boost your rankings. Besides, word-of-mouth carries far more weight than paid advertising.
Out in the open
10-Write a blog. Offering useful and relevant information is probably the fastest way to attract the attention of potential customers. Filling your blog with relevant and up to date content, making sure there are no grammatical errors, is how your site can quickly become a go-to source of valuable information. Don’t let them go elsewhere by delivering what you promise, or else visitors will depart faster than the average 20 seconds they usually stay on a site. Why not explore blogging communities such as Problogger and Copyblogger where you can learn all about blogging and how to get noticed. Both have free options.
11–Engage with customers in an online brand forum where they can share their pros and cons. Industry forums are also a good place to make your mark. Submit articles to industry blog sites or invite a guest contributor to post on your website. You gain kudos by featuring them and pull in whoever they usually attract.
12-Find out what’s trending in your industry and contribute an opinion. Nothing attracts reader’s interest more than current events and you could harness that interest and bring it back to your brand. However, make sure you offer the facility for people to comment. Take the plunge and provide answers on popular free Q&A sites such as Yahoo! Offering resolutions is a good way to become a good source of reliable information. Once again though, make sure you offer links back to your website. Being a part of the global community means committing to it and that is a two-way street.
13-Emailed newsletters are still a significant factor in bringing in new interest. Global email users are predicted to reach 3 billion by 2020 and three quarters of US companies say email marketing offers great (if not excellent) ROI (The Drum, 2016). However, make sure you have the customer’s permission to contact them by offering subscription facilities on your website.
14-Sites that feature new and unexpected content like StumbleUpon is another good way to engage with the public. Exposure from them may be haphazard but if your content is successful it can bring in a deluge of visitors to your site. Many website owners also have a YouTube channel because their videos pop up in Google search results.
15-Other tactics you could go for is to get out and about more and go networking in person. Join industry conventions or other events and meet influencers in the business who might just like your brand enough to feature it on their sites. You could also try posting your brand with public information sites like Wikipedia or subscribe to a good web directory. Sometimes just being affiliated to one can lend your brand considerable gravitas.
It all comes down to one simple question. How much of your time and effort are you prepared to invest in taking your website to new levels of exposure? The more you put in the more you will get out and a realistic assessment of the time needed to perform all of the above is essential if you want to measure how successful the effort will be. On the other hand, even a limited engagement in the above options will make a difference to your visitor numbers so take the plunge a try out a few today!
Let us help you audit your website and give you all the tips you need to make it stand out.