In today’s digital age, having a website is essential for any small business. Not only does it provide a platform for your customers to find you, but it also plays a crucial role in brand recognition, credibility, and growth. Here are the top 10 objectives and goals every small business website should aim to achieve.
Clear Branding Explanation: A clear and consistent branding across your website can make your business more recognizable. This includes your logo, color scheme, and the general tone of your content.
Benefits: Consistency in branding can build trust with your audience. It makes your business appear more professional and establishes a solid identity in a crowded market.
User-Friendly Design Explanation: A user-friendly design ensures that visitors can easily navigate your site, find information quickly, and perform desired actions without friction.
Benefits: A well-structured and intuitive design enhances user experience. This not only ensures visitors stay longer on your site but also increases the chances of them returning.
Mobile Optimization Explanation: With a majority of users accessing websites from mobile devices, your site needs to be mobile-friendly, ensuring it looks and functions well on smartphones and tablets.
Benefits: A mobile-optimized site can boost search engine rankings, improve user experience, and widen your reach.
Engaging Content Explanation: Your content, from blog posts to product descriptions, should be valuable, relevant, and engaging.
Benefits: Engaging content can keep visitors on your site longer, establish your business as an industry leader, and encourage social sharing.
Call-to-Action (CTA) Elements Explanation: CTAs are prompts that encourage users to take a specific action, be it signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or contacting you.
Benefits: Effective CTAs can drive conversions, gather valuable customer data, and guide users smoothly through your sales funnel.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Explanation: SEO involves optimizing your site to rank higher in search engine results, making it easier for potential customers to find you.
Benefits: Improved search rankings mean more organic traffic, greater brand visibility, and a higher chance of conversions.
Fast Loading Times Explanation: In the age of instant gratification, a slow-loading website can deter visitors. Ensuring that your website loads swiftly is crucial.
Benefits: Faster loading times improve user experience, reduce bounce rates, and can positively affect SEO rankings.
Secure and Accessible Website Explanation: Security should be a top priority, ensuring that your site is safe from cyber threats. Additionally, ensuring your website is accessible to people with disabilities widens your audience and is a step towards inclusivity.
Benefits: A secure site builds trust among visitors, and being accessible can boost your reputation and customer base.
Social Media Integration Explanation: Integrating social media links or widgets on your website allows users to easily connect with your social platforms.
Benefits: This enhances customer engagement, drives traffic from social media channels, and builds a cohesive online presence.
Regular Updates and Maintenance Explanation: The digital world is always evolving. Regularly updating your website content and ensuring its smooth operation is key.
Benefits: An updated site is more relevant to visitors, showcases your business’s growth and adaptability, and can address potential security vulnerabilities.
Conclusion:
Your website is often the first interaction potential customers have with your brand. By prioritizing these 10 objectives, you can ensure that your site not only looks professional but also functions effectively, fostering growth and success for your small business. Remember, a good website is an investment that can yield significant returns when done right.
Still unsure if your website is hitting all these targets and more?
Krista approached us to help kick-start her marketing. We started by reviewing the current marketing activities against existing business goals. We then helped identify key customer demographics and the solution they required.
As part of the project, we reviewed which marketing strategies would give a greater ROI and which were short and long-term.
We currently manage their SEO marketing in-house, along with their PPC for Google Adwords. We work with their other providers such as social media marketing, video marketing, and content marketing to ensure all the 4 P’s of marketing are sending out consistent correct communications.
We meet with the CEO and Operations Manager once a month to review the effectiveness of marketing activities and make recommendations for future marketing activities, including People and Processes.
Your onsite SEO marketing is vital to improve your search rankings!
Long ago, you could just stuff your website and blog with keywords, buy links, and land on Google’s first page for a search term.
I can still remember keyword stuffing the bottom of webpages and making the font and the background the same colour so only Google would read them, hated doing it, but back then it was what was needed to achieve a high ranking position, thankfully those days are over and website content has moved forward.
If you tried to repeat those tactics today, you would probably get some form of Google slap or even have your website removed from their search results, a disaster for any business.
SEO has evolved and thankfully Google’s algorithm has become better at understanding page content, domain ranking, visitor dwell time and satisfaction. The later of those is now more important than ever, with google measuring in some form or other where visitor go and how long they stay on a website. Basic theory the longer they stay, the more Google thinks it gave them the right search results. Adding value for your audience is paramount, the days of click baiting are over.
Some things about SEO have not changed just the way they are implemented has; the majority of SEO begins with On-Page Optimization. To be able to rank high in search engine results, every aspect of your digital marketing from email marketing to social networking to content creation must provide added value for your audience. Indeed, adopting an integrated approach to these will have a tremendous impact on your website rankings.
The algorithms that search engines now employ means that is it very difficult to trick them into ranking you higher. SEO marketing in principle is quite simple, more quality traffic will result in the search engine ranking you higher, add a few other formulas such as domain ranking and page authority and you have the foundations of SEO marketing. In principle is sounds very simple, in reality, it takes planning and consistency, which takes time and knowledge.
It is all about adding value to your audience and a means of encouraging your audience to visit and explore your website. Well thought out content can make or break a website. Consider how many websites you have visited for less than 10-20 seconds?
The quality of your copywriting and how you optimize it determines whether your post ranks first for a search term. Or hundredth. The percentages diminish dramatically from position 1 to position 10, any good marketeer or SEO expert will tell you, if you are not on page one then no point.
Gone are the days of keyword stuffing and buying thousands of irrelevant links, Google has made SEO majorly about quality content and visitor satisfaction. Yes, you may need some additional SEO work to get your content in front of an audience but if it holds no value to them, any other SEO marketing budget would be a waste.
The most important SEO advice I could give provide the best value for your readers, then get it seen.
Here are some top tips to improve your onsite SEO.
Optimize your page title with the right keyword for effective SEO content
Use short sentences and thoughts to optimize content for mobile
Use active voice to write your landing page copy and increase Time on Site
Consider writing more about problems and solutions and less about the features of your business.
Link out to trusted websites to provide a richer user experience
Craft meta descriptions by asking questions that challenge users
Use deep linking to create a flow and aid Google spider in crawling your website
Use the “Inverted Pyramid” to reduce website bounce rate
Create long-form comprehensive content to outrank your competitors
If you are unsure on any of these or the topic of SEO in general, then please get in touch so we can empower you to sustainably grow your business through education.
I have noticed that a couple of my clients have had some of their google reviews disappear, it has never happened to any of my clients previously.
Have you recently had some Google Reviews disappear? I bet you are struggling to get any sense from google or even a reply?
Google did announce at the end of July that a bug did occur with Google My Business reviews.
Although many people speculate about how the Google algorithm works, very few have in depth knowledge.
I took time to dig around numerous articles, some are from google partners, I have compiled a list of reasons why your review may have been removed.
While Google doesn’t outline every aspect of their spam detection algorithm, they do provide specific Google review content guidelines. If you clicked on the link you will see how easy it is for a customer to leave a review that may then get removed.
How does Google manage all the reviews being posted, it applies a review filter. You want to know how the filter works? It appears that the filter runs periodically and takes down reviews that they deem illegitimate. The filter does not run in real time which means you could have a review stick to your listing for months and then vanish at the same time as several other reviews.
I would recommend regularly monitoring your reviews against the following and act accordingly:
A URL in the review?
If there is a URL in the review, the review filter will more than likely consider it spam and remove the google review. It seems google believes there is no need for a URL in any review.
Was there a phone number in the review?
There is no need for a phone number in any review, so the filter classes it as spam and removes it.
Frequency of reviews?
It is wonderful that you are getting customers to leave reviews, however, if you are too good at this and they are all leave a review in a short space of time then the filter might consider that you are using fake reviews.
Do you have reviews in other places online?
Many of us ask customers to leave Google reviews to help with Google My Business ranking. If you have loads of reviews on Google My Business, but none on Yelp, Facebook, etc., this could be a cause for the deleted reviews. Google considers this a good indicator of spam – or maybe your over-coach your customers about how to leave a review for your business. Instead, mix it up – ask for a review of your business on Facebook and other sites from time to time.
Did the review appear elsewhere on the internet?
Spread your reviews across several online platforms. If a customer is happy to leave reviews on numerous platforms, ask that they do not copy and paste the same review. If you have testimonials on your website paraphrase the reviews. Make sure customers are not copying and pasting previous reviews and write their own.
Is the reviewer a manager of your Google My Business account or Google+ page?
Never write your own review or anybody who has access to your GMB page
Is the reviewer your employee?
Never have employees leave a review.
Conflicts with the IP address.
A huge majority of the time reviews get filtered due to issues with the IP address of the person who left you the review. This is difficult to manage as most do not know where their IP address originates from nor can they control it. We have had incidents where local people have left a review, but their IP address has been in a different part of the world.
Are you asking customers to leave a review whilst at your business?
If they are using your wifi, they could all be using the same IP address. Far better to give them your Google review URL.
Was your review written from a location that is TOO far away from your business location?
Make sure your GMB is correctly configured to allow international or long distance reviews.
Were there multiple attempts to post the same review?
If a review was flagged and deleted by Google, then the customer adds the same review again – it will be removed again.
Do many of your reviews originate from the same online location?
Yes, it is nice to send clients to your testimonial page to encourage them to then click on a link and leave a review. However, it is possible that Google records the referring URL and sees that all of your reviews are coming from a website. Far better to send your customers the GMB review url.
Do you have multiple business locations?
Do you have multiple locations and multiple Google My Business pages? Customers are great! They love your service and products and they want to tell the world about you. They love you so much that they visit the Google My Business page for every location your business has in the metro area, eager to leave their review. Unfortunately, if the reviewer left the same review on multiple business locations, the duplicates (or all) will likely be removed. It seems the same if only one of your locations is getting reviews.
Do you have an abnormally large amount of reviews on your Google My Business page?
You can be penalised and be a victim of your own review success. If your business has way more reviews than other businesses in your industry and city/area, this could be cause for concern. Consider this your business has a catchment of 20,000 people but you have 2000 reviews, don’t be shocked when many of them get removed. Especially if no other business in your area has the same level of reviews.
Did the reviewer remove their review?
A customer might be a repeat customer and have a different experience and choose to remove their review rather than change it. On behalf of a couple of clients I have contacted their customers to see if they would redo a review and they mentioned they took it down. Silver lining it gave my client a chance to fix a misunderstanding and the review is now back up.
Does the reviewer have a blank Google account?
Fake profiles commonly do not contain a name, photo, or other information. Real accounts are never completely blank. When a business gets numerous reviews from empty accounts, this is a trigger that the reviews were created by bots and are fake or paid.
Did the reviewer delete their Google account?
A user must have a Google account to leave a review. When a Google account is deleted, the associated reviews are deleted as well.
Have you been active on Google My Business lately?
Your Google My Business profile needs to be an integral part of you digital marketing strategy. Ensure you are on there at least once a week. You do not want to have an unverified account.
Do all of your reviews look and sound the same?
Ironically if the reviews are too perfect and appear to be mass produced, there’s a very good chance you will trigger the review filter to remove some of your reviews. Ask for a Google review but don’t coach your customers on the writing of any reviews.
Was the review “clean?”
Profanity, hate speech, offensive language and personal attacks are not allowed in reviews. This type of content will definitely trigger the filters and the review will be removed. If there are reviews on your Google My Business page that contains any of this type of language, you should request to have the Google review removed ASAP.
Are you offering incentives for customers?
If Google finds out and it is amazing how they do, that you are offering discounts, coupons or free products to entice customers to leave you a review, not only will your reviews be removed you may have your profile suspended.
Is your Google My Business Review missing because of a Google Error?
These are situations that can happen but are rare occurrences. If you’re missing reviews on your Google My Business page, one of the reasons above is much more likely to be the reason for your missing Google reviews. If this is the case it is very hard to get it back.
There you have it, my findings on potential reasons why any Google reviews may disappear. Of course you also want to know is it possible to retrieve any missing reviews. The quick answer is it appears not, personally never had any success.
If you have had success would love to hear your process.
Plan of action moving forward. I would recommend creating a file if you do not have a CRM system and copy your reviews. Set a regular time to copy the review and the name of the customer who wrote it. If you are getting into hundreds of reviews, then you need to work out the ROI of review management.
To finalise, yes, it is a pain to work hard to provide excellence only for the review to disappear. I would focus on continuing to provide excellence and getting more reviews.
Despite all the hype still associated with Social Media, email marketing when done correctly will drive sales. However, get your email marketing wrong and all that hard work to increase your database will be wasted.
For any email marketing campaign to be effective it needs to written and targeted for a specific segment of your audience and add value. Very few emails will cover the needs of all your audience. Consider the journey of your audience where do they start when receiving an email from you?
You want your email to stand out and be read, think about how many emails your audience are receiving, yours needs to be special to stand out and have something of interest for them to open. Here are a few things your next email campaign should have.
From, Subject and snippet.
Depending on your email delivery system you can change the from so that your audience is confident that it is coming from someone they trust and will open the email. Subject this is like the News headlines of a paper or online article, you need to grab their attention, however, do not lie about what is inside the email. Snippet using the same analogy as before this is the subheadlines and extends from the headlines and further convinces your audience that inside this email is something of benefit to them.
Personalization and Imagery
Where possible Marketing emails need to be personalized to the reader and filled with interesting graphics. Who wants to obtain an email that is addressed “Dear Sir/Madam” what message is that sending to your audience. As humans we are extremely visual and busy, nobody wants to read a wall of text, remember a picture speaks a thousand words. If you must use a thousand words, drive them to a blog, use the email to entice and raise their interest. Great visuals always help your recipients quickly understand what you are trying to convey.
Responsive Design If you are using a mass email provider like Mailchimp or constant contact, they all have the facility to preview what your email will look like on a mobile device. Most of your audience will vet your email on their phone, and then either open it via their phone or wait until in front of a PC. On average 67% of your audience will read your email on their phone. Consider this when designing the content of your email and the subsequent length of it on a mobile device.
An Appropriate Call-to-Action to achieve your objective.
You have managed to gain the interest of your audience to open your email. Why did you want them to open it and what do you want them to do now that they have opened it?
It is paramount that you have a meaningful call to action that gives the reader a benefit. What do you want them to do? Read more and send traffic to your website. Feedback on a product? Etc.
In summary combining all the above takes skill, knowledge and understanding of your audience. You may find that you need to segment your audience and send a series of emails during one campaign.
At this point we have not discussed the follow up emails to those that open but don’t click, those that don’t open and those that open and click on certain call to actions. As this is very dependant on each business and difficult to have a general discussion. However, these points should be ready and prepared as part of any email marketing campaign.
If you would like support with your next email marketing campaign please do not hesitate to get in touch.
