There are several different paths that you can take when looking at building a website for your business or company, from having a go at building it yourself to outsourcing to a digital marketing agency. At Digidol, we have put together our top 3 tips on how to get the highest return out of what you put into your website, be it your own time or financial investment.
You get out what you put in
When it comes to building a great website you really do reap what you sow. Whatever the commodity you invest whether it’s your own time or money, skimping and cutting corners will ultimately lead to a lower return on investment.
For example, creating a small 1-5 page website that outlines your services with an ‘about us’ and ‘contact’ section is the equivalent to putting up a display board outside your business.
By this, we mean that it gives people important information about your business, but only if they know exactly where to look. If you are massively successful in what you do and you don’t have the capacity for more clients, then this can be great. On the other hand, if you want a website that is going to bring you more customers then you will need to be in the places that they are looking.
Imagine you are a local baker, you have built a steady business and have regular customers that visit your shop with a growing list of pre-orders. You decide that you want to scale your business so you invest in marketing materials to promote the shop. Would you place these in your shop window just because it’s free? Or would you spend that little extra to place it in an area where there is local footfall, such as a bus/train station or outside a local supermarket?
Having a well structured and optimised website takes time and effort, there are no shortcuts. But the difference is that you will be out there in the face of customers that are searching for keywords that relate to your business and services – the key to exponentially growing your client base.
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Spending Money in The Wrong Places
Growing up we all remember the iconic Yellow Pages brochures being delivered to the house, even if their primary use was as a doorstop the majority of the time. For Yellow Pages, the business model was simple: provide advertising space to local businesses for a set cost, with the promise to deliver a printed brochure with their advert into every home in the UK.
Now, these companies have advanced into online platforms with similar business models, whereby you pay ‘x’ amount for advertising or primary listing positions on their website. In theory, there is value there for small businesses to feature in paid listings if that’s where their potential customers are looking.
However, due to users now becoming more confident online, the use of directories is slowly decreasing and the value received from these ‘priority listings’ is diminishing. For example, one client we did a free consultation for was spending £140 annually with one of the most popular directories. In over 3 years of paying, they received a grand total of 0 calls, let alone a project or job.
At Digidol, we are not saying to avoid online directories as they can be a great source for link building and increasing your digital presence. There are several directories with free options that will provide DoFollow links to your website and help build the trust of your website with Google. Our advice is to ensure that there is value in the advertising space that you purchase or rent, making sure it is getting the right traffic for you.
One-Time Wonders
This is one of the main things that really grinds our gears at Digidol. When browsing through the websites of local businesses, we see a lot of websites that were built a few years ago (most likely for a reasonable expense) that are left to drift into obscurity. It is not only us that can get wound up by this, as users can be frustrated by outdated content that is no longer correct or broken links that send them in circles.
Below you can see some examples of what happens to a website’s traffic if it is not updated regularly. Google and other search engines love new content and if you are regularly updating your website with quality content, they will reward you with higher rankings on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). In the same breath, this means that stale websites that are never updated slowly get pushed lower and lower down the rankings, and lower rankings mean less traffic.
Continuing to post engaging quality content on your website is also great to engage with your existing customer base and provides you with fresh posts to use across social media channels.
Key POINTS
- Investing more time or money to create a professional well-optimised website (rather than a cheap template) is much more likely to provide value and return on investment.
- Online directories and advertising space can be expensive and inconsistent. If you are paying for online advertising space, ensure that you are not only receiving traffic, but also the right traffic for your business.
- Neglected websites can be detrimental to your brand image and search engine rankings. Fresh content is great not only for search engines to crawl through but also to post on your socials and engage with your client base.
If you are interested in finding out more about the digital presence of your business and how it can be improved, get in touch with us at Digidol for a FREE 1-Hour Consultation!
