When it comes to increasing the visibility of your website – the type and amount of attention you need varies. In fact, it’s based on the maturity of your business or brand and the nature of your product or services. It is also dependent on your capacity to fulfill demand. But once you’ve handled the basics of SEO, it can be a challenge to figure out exactly what you need to do next. Unfortunately, most small brands that run a website don’t know how to optimize their content and overall visibility online. Thankfully there are several easy ways you can up your website’s game.
1. SET GOALS FOR YOUR WEBSITE THAT ALIGN WITH WHAT YOUR BRAND NEEDS
It’s important to ask some serious questions before you dive in. Like, what is the main goal of your business? Do you want to grow your revenue? Enter a new niche? Or increase your subscriber base? The purpose of your website is to support all your goals – no matter what they are. Sure, the huge amount of traffic to your website can be impressive, but if it’s not the right kind of traffic it essentially means nothing. Your visitors need to actually CARE about what you have to offer. You also get bonus points for if they’re actually ready to take action.
It doesn’t hurt to set specific goals for your website. But what type of goals do they need to be? They should be measurable, goals that will actually get you closer to your end game. For example, let’s say that you sell supplies for professional artists and your business goal is to double your revenue. That is a goal that you can properly measure. Or your goal might be to increase your referral traffic from websites that also cater to professional artists within a certain time frame. Since you share a target audience with these sites, you can expect a much higher conversion rate from their referrals. In this case, you would track the sessions and/or visitors referred by each site and the number of conversions that occur as a result. Again, it’s a highly measurable goal.
Or maybe you want to establish yourself as an expert in vegan desserts. A good website goal would be to create, publish, and promote a comprehensive guide. It’s also a good idea to create supporting blog posts which address your specific topic over the course of a year. You could even set benchmarks and measure the impact of the content on your traffic. It doesn’t hurt to use inbound links either. It’s also a good idea to mention your brand in relation to vegan desserts.
The takeaway is this: vague goals like “increasing traffic to your site by 100%” leads to vague results. This is why it’s a much better idea to be more specific with the goals you create. As a result, it will be a lot easier to track your progress and discover what does and doesn’t work for your brand in the long run.
2. Audit Your Website AND Content
It’s pretty common for a brand to build a website and create content with absolutely no intent to track what they’ve created, how it performed, or what to do next. What tends to happen is that they’ll add pages and resources on an “as needed” basis. This leads to is a massive collection of content and a complicated website that’s far too difficult to navigate. All of this can spell disaster, with high bounce rates and low conversion stats.
This is why it’s really important to audit your website from the perspective of a first-time visitor and make it a point to fix any problems you come across. When you scrutinize the user experience (from the first visit all the way through conversion) you’ll come across ways to make it easier AND more intuitive. Just remember that your website is the foundation for ALL of your online marketing. There’s no point in attracting traffic if your visitors can’t even figure out what to do when they get to your site.
Once your website is in order, it’s a good idea to create an inventory of your content. One that includes performance metrics. The first time can be a little challenging, but it’s a great way to establish a repeatable system. You’ll also end up with an incredible resource that will benefit your website in the long run.
Whenever your inventory is complete, you can audit your content as a way to gain insight into its performance. This can help you identify content that worked (or failed miserably) with your target audience. As a result, you can build an even more effective editorial calendar.
3. Build Relationships With Content Creators
Relationships are important, especially when it comes to business. However, most of the time people forget that your website needs a social life too. I know that sounds weird, but let me explain. Websites NEED attention in order to thrive. They also need fresh content and a little love from other websites, ie. links, shares, and mentions.
In order to build relationships with content creators you first need to identify other websites within your niche. Take the time to build relationships with the people who create the site’s content and you’re on the right track. While you may occasionally get snubbed, most of the time the content creators will be more than happy to engage with you.
Don’t forget that the normal, relationship rules still apply. If you introduce yourself and automatically ask for a favor, you probably won’t get the results you want. This is why it’s better to choose websites and people that you are genuinely interested in. It’s better to build connections without the expectation of getting anything in return.
And if you’re lucky, your efforts will result in a symbiotic relationship that will help you achieve better visibility for your site. Other times, you’ll gain a contact with similar interests. Either way, it’s a good move.
4. Experiment with A New Technique
We get it, the world of online marketing can be incredibly noisy. Every day there’s a new tool, trick, or technique that’s the ‘best thing since sliced bread’. If you’re the focused type, you probably ignore most of the new stuff that pops up. But if you need to breathe some new life into a website, it might be time to step out of your comfort zone and try something new.
Go ahead and choose one thing to challenge yourself with. You can even try something that will expose your website to a whole new audience. This could be as simple as a different social media channel, a new tool, or format for your content. Try it for a little while and examine your results. They might just surprise you!
The best case scenario is that you will gain a new wave of visitors to your website. Worst case – you get to check that thing off your list and move on to something else.
Increasing website visibility can be hard. And it’s so easy to let yourself get overwhelmed by all of the possible solutions. But if you focus on your goals, build relationships and create a little time for creative risk-taking, you just might get ahead of the game. What are some of the ways that you’ll try to increase your website’s visibility? Let us know in the comments below, so we can discuss.
