One thing we come across with clients who have little or no knowledge of digital marketing, is how a search engine works (or should work) for them. A website is a living breathing tool that needs regular updating with lots of great content to help it perform well – SEO is much more than paying attention to keywords.
Here at DDPR, we know there are lots of other ways to make your site more visible, so we thought we’d share a few with you.
Driving traffic to your website
Use whatever means you can to physically get people (especially new visitors) to browse your site. Google logs every ‘hit’ and the more you get, the more important it sees your site as being. Ways to do this include:
- Ensure that all your communications have all your details on them. From your emails, through to cards, brochures, posters etc. An email address and phone number is not enough.
- Another clever way is to include all your social media details on your cards and posters, but LEAVE OFF your phone number. That way, people are forced to look you up online to find the number if they want to speak to you.
- Make use of all the free facilities out there. Register your business on free listings website (like Freeindex.co.uk). Update and keep updated your Linked In profile. Advertise your events on ‘What’s On’ sites for your area.
- Content is king. Add news, advice, case studies, client testimonials, newsletters on a regular basis. Keep it relevant and original for best results. This not only helps you get found but makes your site more appealing and useful to visitors.
- Keywords still have a place–get familiar with the concept of ‘long tail’ keywords. Long tail keywords are designed to catch people further on in their buying cycle, so convert more frequently to sales, rather than browsers. For example, someone searching for ‘shoes’ is just browsing. On the other hand, someone typing ‘best prices for size 5 Christian Laboutin’ is definitely looking to buy. If you’d like to read more – simply type ‘Keyword coding’ into a search engine – and see what comes up!
- Get social! If you’ve produced great content people aren’t going to know unless you let them know – it’s about being proactive. Use Twitter for anything short and snappy and genuinely tempting. Google+ promotions will highlight your site if someone is doing a personalised search. And Instagram and Pinterest are good sites for B2C companies.
It’s all about spending time and application getting it right. Results won’t happen immediately, but if you apply a whole raft of ideas on a regular basis, you’ll be heads and shoulders above your competition!
