7 Tips to Reach More Customers Online

When people think about reaching more customers online, they usually think about facebook or twitter first. Social media is a powerful tool, but as more and more customers look for their goods and services online, they expect to find the information they're looking for quickly, easily, and all in one place. More importantly, customers are mistrustful of companies that don't have a quality website, but instead rely solely on free platforms to promote their products.

According to this awesome infographic from minewhat.com, 81% of shoppers research online before making purchases online OR in person. Furthermore, 6 out of 10 customers said they were concerned about credit card fraud from online businesses. With customers arming themselves with more information, and growing concerns over online fraud and disreputable companies using just social media to quickly get scam businesses up and running, it's more important than ever to have a professional, high-quality website for your business.

Here are 7 ways you can reach more customers online by making the most of your company website:

1. Make your business more legitimate
Not having a website at all, or having an old, outdated website is the quickest way to make a consumer suspicious of your company, and move on to other options. Google also uses website quality as one of its ranking methods to decide which search results to show. So having a professional website for your business, and filling it with honest, quality content, is a great way to improve your search rank and make you appear more legitimate to consumers than other small businesses who rely solely on social media.

2. Control your message on your own terms
First impressions are very important. Especially for mobile users, whatever they see first is usually the only chance you get to catch their attention before they move on to the next search result. You can't control what people write about you in online reviews or on social media platforms, but if you have a high-quality website that is up to date with your company information, that will usually show up first in your search results. This lets you make sure you are in control of the first impression customers get of you, and your products.

3. Everything you need in one place
Trying to find information about small businesses that don't have a website is painstaking. Many customers won't even bother. What's your contact number? What hours are you open? Are you having any sales right now? Information posted on social media platforms may be old or outdated, and consumers tend to be turned off by having to look in more than one place to find what they want. You can avoid all of this by having your own website, and keeping it up to date with all of your current info. Social media is a companion platform, not a replacement.

4. Boost your search ranking
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is one of those terms you hear about a lot, but it's often not really explained. Essentially, this is how a business can attempt to influence how search engines (most importantly Google) determine which results to show, in which order, for any given search that's performed. Google has confirmed that quality website content is one of the top three ways to improve your company's ranking in search results, along with links and their own search algorithms. So as much as 33% of your company's ranking on Google is directly tied to your website address and the quality of its content. Companies that don't have a website at all and only use social media are therefore at a huge disadvantage over a company that has both.

5. Draw traffic in with a central landing place
Links are the 2nd of the top 3 ways to improve your search ranking that you have any control over (along with site content). We don't have any control over how Google's search algorithm works, but we control our content, and we can also influence how other sites link to our content. If you're only using a social media platform, you're losing out on drawing your customers in to a central location, and search engines won't know to point people towards you either. Instead, use your company website to provide a central hub for all of your online activities. It will be much easier to convince customers to visit you, and other related companies to recommend you to their customers, if you have a credible, professional website to direct them to instead of just a social media page. Having more links all pointing to the same location and being actively used will boost your search result rankings, too, which will drive even more organic traffic to you without any additional work from you. Free traffic? What a bargain!

6. Build loyalty and connect with your customers
It's important to have a memorable place for customers to visit, and one that they can easily share with their friends, so they can find you quickly. Social media pages are long, always include the name of the social media site before yours, and are unlikely to be memorable enough for customers to find you again without searching. If you have a memorable, simple, and descriptive domain name, you make it much easier to get customers to come back again later. Repeat visits are important for driving traffic and improving your search engine results. If you're selling products online, it's especially important to have them all listed together in a central place that customers come to. Make it easy for them to share those products or services by including links to your social media platforms - this makes a network of links and shares that greatly boosts your total activity online. You can also offer a signup for a newsletter or other incentives for customers to give you their email address, so you can contact them (with permission) for future discounts, offers, or news posts.

7. Run a blog to increase return visits and total traffic
I've said this many times before, but a great way to get customers to trust you is to provide them with value, for free. Writing a blog about topics that would interest them, or provide insight into your products and services, is a great way to prove your legitimacy and worth to potential customers. It also helps your search result rankings to have lots of quality content on your site, and it gives people a reason to come back often to check for updates. Repeat exposure to your company will greatly increase the likelihood that a customer will ultimately purchase something from you, especially if they've already grown comfortable with your voice and trust what you have to say. You don't have to blog daily - do what's right for you! It's more important to have less frequent content that is high quality, than to throw something up every day just for the sake of it. Remember - the search engines care about quality, not quantity.

So there you go! These are 7 ways that having your own website can help you reach more customers, and improve your company's ranking online.

Don't have your own website yet? Or need help improving your site's quality? Whistler IT Solutions has the knowledge and experience to help you make the most of your business online. Contact us today for a consultation.