Competition is at an all time high. Consumers may be spending more money, but they now have more options to choose from when looking for a product or service than ever before. Consumers are turning to the Internet as their number one source of commerce. More and more brick and mortar stores are becoming showrooms for consumers to research a product before they go and buy it online. Simply having a brick and mortar store in no longer enough to survive in the market place. Companies now need to invest in their online presence to be successful.
Here are five Internet marketing strategies you can use to increase brand loyalty, generate leads, and make more money from your website:
Understand Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is critical for your business to stay competitive. In today’s Internet-centered world, consumers search on Google for almost everything before making a decision. SEO can help your business gain more customers and increase brand awareness. Business that fail to use SEO lose out on potential sales and new customers, allowing their competitors to take advantage of these opportunities and increase their market share. Its essential that your website ranks for relevant, high traffic keywords so that consumers who are searching for your products or services can find your business.
Update Content Regularly. Updating the content on your website helps keep users interested in your business and what else it has to offer. Stores consistently update their displays, and a website shouldn’t be any different. Update the content on your website at least once a week, especially on your homepage. The homepage is the main point of entry for most of the traffic that comes to your website, so it should be continuously engaging users and showing them what your business has to offer. An engaging, updated homepage will also make consumers more likely to click through to your product pages and become customers.
Have a User-Friendly Design. Having a user-friendly navigation structure will help users find what they are looking for, have a positive experience with your brand, and create more sales for your business. A website should be well organized so that users can find what they want in as few clicks as possible. Navigation should be structured in logical, simple way that makes sense to users. This structure should take place on all platforms that users may access your website, such as mobile or tablet. A responsive web design can provide users with a consistent, seamless experience with your website from any platform. User friendly, responsive web designs not only help your users, but will also help your SEO. Search engines prefer websites that they can navigate and index easily and quickly, and will rank your website higher in search engine results.
Retarget Potential Customers. It is much more expensive to market to new consumers than it is to market ones that have already visited your website. Getting users to come back to your site is critical to generating more profits. You can market to these users is by using retargeting ads through a service like AdWords, or by using email. While it may seem outdated, email marketing is still a very effective way of bringing customers back to your website and creating long-term brand loyalty. Make sure you offer customers valuable content or offers through emails, and aren’t simply spamming them and being a nuisance. Offering exclusive online deals, discounts, or seasonal specials can help keep customers engaged with your brand and returning to your website.
Create Useful Content. Creating high quality, valuable content is one of the most important factors to maintaining successful website. Valuable content will help your business stand out as an industry leader to both consumers and search engines. It will help increase your website’s stickiness, encouraging users to come back to your website, and increasing the chances of converting them to customers. Engaging content is also most likely to be shared, linked to, and written about, which can improve your SEO and brand awareness. Search engines also give high quality pages priority in search engine results. A blog can be a great way to provide valuable, fresh, and interesting content. Make sure to update your blog regularly and provide industry trends or other information that views will find insightful. Valuable content is a great way to attract new consumers, engage with current consumers, and increase sales.
“Investing the time and money to develop a well designed website can take your business to a whole other level,” said financial advisor, Tom Dasher. “In addition, using the Internet marketing strategies discussed above, you can create a website that increases brand awareness, generates conversions, and increases sales to keep your business profitable and ahead of the competition.”
