You have taken the plunge and just finished your new website. The text and pictures are finally perfect so publish…and now what?
Getting a website designed can be a daunting task and you no doubt feel a sense of relief now that your site is live. In reality you have just taken the first step in a long journey of building your online business. This post identifies the most important steps you need to take to make your site successful.
Get Local
Local business listings are extremely important to ensure your business is found. Be sure to sign up or claim your Google business listing.
We also recommend submitting your business information to Bing, Yahoo!, Yelp to increase your visibility.
Get Social
Social media is all the rave these days. You might not tweet or update your wall, but you should at a minimum protect your brand by registering accounts at the major social media sites. Twitter and Facebook also are easy ways to build a customer list allowing you to easily remarket to your customers in the future.
Get Traffic
If you build it, they will come. Right? A few weeks after your site is launched you will begin to realize this statement really doesn’t apply to web pages. Google’s AdWords is the solution for getting immediate traffic to your website.
Another great option is AdWords Express which allows you to show your local business as a sponsored listing within Google’s maps.
AdWords and Express are great solutions for immediate traffic but are expensive as your pay for each visitor. Good management and optimization of these campaigns are essential to ensure that your money isn’t wasted.
Get Organic
Paying for traffic is a reliable method of generating business but it helps to expand into the “natural” search results. Search engines look at hundreds of factors to determine which pages are the best to show at the top.
Get Exposure
First you can increase the visibility of your local business listing by creating citations. Citations are mentions of your business name, address, and phone number at other local directory websites. Make sure that your frequently identifying local business directories and submitting your information. Increasing how often your business is mentioned will increase your site exposure.
Seem like a lot of work? Contact us today for a quote for our comprehensive marketing plans.