How to best utilise your site to promote your business

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Dec 14, 2018 / by
How to best utilise your site to promote your business

Even with the ubiquity of social media, you really can’t underestimate the value of a well-designed and properly utilised web site. If you own and manage your own business, chances are you already have a site, but you may have been spending so much time on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook recently that you’ve been neglecting your own address.

It’s true that social networking is fantastic for spreading the word but there’s very little flexibility within a social networking page. With your own bespoke web site, the potential is practically limitless and getting your site up to scratch yourself will almost certainly be worthwhile.

Below we’ll examine a few things you might want to consider if you’re looking to expand your site’s reach and expand your business’ potential user base.

Social Media

Although we wouldn’t recommend using social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram as solitary tools for business growth, they can be inordinately powerful when used in tandem with your business’ web site.

As the vast majority of social media platforms are free to sign up to (and free to use), it will cost you nothing but time to sign up and create a profile to promote your website and your business. These platforms offer a way to connect directly with your customers and fans.

Be creative with your social media marketing. Make sure your Instagram, Twitter and Facebook properties are operating as separate entities, as they all excel at different things. Consider running a photo competition on Instagram to inspire your followers and use Twitter to keep customers informed of ongoing operations. Facebook, meanwhile, provides an opportunity to get to know your fans.

Search Engines and SEO

It’s vital to maintain a publishing schedule. However, there’s much more you could and should be doing to expand your site’s reach. SEO is a powerful tool that has evolved steadily alongside Google. The Internet giant’s algorithm rewards a number of variables, and the use of keywords on your site is one of the most important.

Laptop with analyticsUsing the Google Ads keyword planner is always a good start. This will help you ascertain the most powerful keywords to use in your niche. In modern SEO, long-tail keywords are king, as more generic keywords will struggle to rank. Look for long-tail keywords with a reasonable search volume and little competition. Obviously, this will prove easier or more difficult depending on your niche, but once you’ve found the right keywords, create engaging blog posts centred around them.

There are many more intricacies related to SEO, but it remains one of the most powerful ways to draw organic traffic to your site with measurable results. There are also countless companies online that specialise in helping with your SEO needs too, so outsourcing SEO is not only common but recommended if you want to experience its full potential.

PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

A remarkably powerful tool that has in many ways levelled the playing field when it comes to small and large businesses fighting for the same space. Pay-Per-Click marketing is a tool that can be used alongside SEO to provide measurable results. What makes it so valuable is that advertisers only pay a fee when their ads have actually been clicked. This means you’re only paying for the ads that actually work.

Of course, clicks don’t always mean conversions. Of all the major PPC systems, Google’s AdWords is created primarily to generate revenue for the search engine, not you. This is why lazy PPC can be quite damaging, yet why smart PPC is so effective. As with SEO, there are many qualified companies that know AdWords inside and out and specialise in making sure your clicks actually mean something.

Quality Over Quantity

There are other tips to consider, such as having other trusted sites link to your site (reciprocal linking) and spending time on branding, but the meat and potatoes of your site promotion should be in the content itself. Resist the temptation to succumb to Black Hat SEO practices with regards your content. It’s not just a moral concern; flooding your page with cynical keywords that have no relation to your content will hurt you in the long run.

Focus on quality content that people actually want to engage with and your site’s reach should grow organically. It may take a little while to rise up the rankings, but the benefits of doing things the right way are enormously valuable.

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