In today’s digital world, most businesses understand the importance of having their own website and digital presence. If you don’t have a presence on the web, you will get eaten alive by your competitors, whether you have a brick-and-mortar store, an online operation, own a digital agency, or have a corporate website. Depending on the type of business you have, the tools to manage your digital presence vary widely. However, there are some common threads that work for all businesses. Here are the top six strategies to optimize your online potential.
Manage your online reputation
It’s critical that you respond to reviews on your site and the top platforms, especially if you’re a brick-and-mortar store, or online store. Managing negative reviews and responding to positive ones are how you build a long-term following. Surround your brand with as many digital assets as possible by using social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or writing guest blogs. The impact of a negative online reputation could be the single greatest killer to your online business. Don’t think it’s worth your time? Consider that it can cost companies anywhere from $10k to $50k-plus to fix their online reputation, if less than ideal results are being shown in the major search engines. Using a tool such as Google alerts to actively monitor your brand is a step in the right direction.
Create a memorable domain
The simpler the domain and the more recognizable the domain extension—think.com, for example—the easier it is for customers to recall your brand. Dot coms are still king, and the most trustworthy, followed by dot nets. Keep your domain simple. Ideally, your domain name is one word—two words max—and it’s best to avoid any kind of symbols.
Get a clue
Know what your competitors are doing online. As a business owner, I know how easy it is to get myopic and only focus on what’s on your daily to-do list. However, understanding what your competitors are doing at a high level can speed up scale in your existing business. My favorite tool for doing this is SpyFu. It allows you to see the marketing campaigns that your competitors have run over the last few years. Not only that, you can see how long they’ve been running their campaigns. For example, if your competitor has 10 Google AdWords campaigns in the last three years, and has been using the same campaign and messaging for the last year, most likely it’s resonating with the audience.
Use the right email service
Many companies think all email services are created equally. They may have some sort of plug-in, sending automated notifications to customers that make purchases, fill out a lead form or some other action. However, sending high amounts of notifications from your company server can often send notification emails and marketing emails to the junk or marketing folder. To remedy this issue, I recommend using a transactional delivery service such as Mail Chimp’s Mandrill. You don’t need a Mail Chimp account to use it, and it provides a high rate of deliverability for transactional related emails. This service also keeps your important marketing emails out of the penalty box.
Monitor website speed
The speed at which your website loads is integral to the success of your digital business. Whether someone is trying to submit a form for more information, or buying a sweater, businesses today have only seconds to capture and keep the customers attention. On average, going from a two-second load time to a four-second load time per page, doubles the rates at which your visitor leaves your site without performing the desired action. Going from a two-second load time to a six-second load time, increases the same rate by 300 percent. To monitor and assess your current page-load times I recommend using the Google Page Speed Tool, or webpagetest.org to diagnose slow pages.
Pay attention to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Most businesses—95 percent—with any kind of online presence have heard of SEO. These are the rules you should follow to be found by customers looking for your product or service. Adding title tags, descriptions and creating rich, engaging content are something that every business should be doing. However, to stand out, semantic markup, schema markup, link building and keyword research are strategies that many companies should undertake. Taking the extra effort on these fronts can pay dividends in the best web traffic on the planet: Organic web traffic. This is traffic you don’t have to pay for, and if you do it right, it’s extremely consistent. Expect to see results six to 12 months from the start of your SEO efforts.
Focusing on these six strategies—or even just a few—helps optimize your online business, but scheduling time for it is the key. Make sure to add them to your to-do list because following these strategies will drive more visitors to your website, and ensure they keep coming back.
Bryce Young is a founding partner at BB Interwebs, a performance-based marketing company located in Petaluma, focused on lead generation, audience acquisition, process automation and consultation. For more information, visit bbinterwebs.com. Or, you can contact him at bryce@bbinterwebs.com.
