The Next Steps You Should Take After Your Website Goes Live
First things first, congratulations on your new website! You’re now on your way to increasing awareness for your brand and growing your business. And while your website is now out there for the world to see, it’s important to remember that your site is a living, breathing part of your marketing strategy. It’s something that needs nurturing, promotion and ongoing support.
For now, there are a handful of steps to take to move your site forward and to gain more traction in those search engines. They involve updating, creating, testing, and monitoring elements on your website and within your marketing strategy to enhance your reach.
Now is the best time to update other important pieces of your digital marketing strategy to reflect your website. It’s also a great idea to notify your personal network and your community to help spread the word. You’ll also want to prepare Google to work with your website, boosting your SEO efforts even further.
For your future customers to find your content, your site must be indexed properly on Google. Using Google Search Console, make sure your website is verified, can be indexed and that your settings aren’t set to no-index. Make sure your sitemaps are working and uploaded, and that the correct geo-targeting is in place.
It’s time to let your followers know your website exists. First, take stock of the social media profiles you have to ensure you don’t miss a platform. Then, it’s time to update.
Continue to update your social media profiles such as Instagram and Pinterest with additional updates, such as a new email address branded to your website domain.
Do you use print materials for marketing purposes? This will include business cards, sales sheets, lead magnets, brochures and more. Update these materials to reflect your new web address as soon as possible.
Your business is an important part of your community. Attend Chamber of Commerce events, BNI groups, or other community events such as parades and concerts to spread the word about your business. Take along new print materials with your new website listed for added exposure.
You’ll want to log in to your Google Analytics account and ensure Google is tracking your website visitors. To make the most out of your website traffic, you should track website performance and metrics such as bounce rates, page views, average time spent on your website and more.
Use Google Analytics to help create goals that track conversions on your website. Sample conversions include submissions. This data can help you understand how well your website is performing and what you might be able to improve in the future.
Google My Business is a tool you can use to manage your business’s presence across Google. Log in to confirm that your info is correct and complete. Also, upload a crisp, clean version of your logo.
In the future, you’ll want to continue to add photos and update your Google My Business account as new features become available. You’ll also want to post updates such as business promotions, as well as request testimonials from your customers to boost your performance across Google.
Online directories such as Yelp, the BBB, Angie’s List and more are great tools for furthering your reach. They only help if you take time to ensure information is accurate. Update whenever anything changes, such as after a website launch or an office move.
Notify your personal network, including friends and family, when your new site launches! This can help spread the word of your new website well beyond your own reach. Share your website on your personal Facebook profile or other social media platforms to gain additional exposure.
Even though your website is live, there’s more to create to help market your business, increase customer engagement and boost your ranking on Google.
Creating new content often will help you:
New content can come in the form of website pages dedicated to specific services, lead magnets, blog content, regional pages to target cities around your business, and more.
Even as you create new content, it’s important to update your current content continually, preventing it from growing tired and dull. Plus, SEO methods and website trends change often. It’s important to stay abreast to these changes and update accordingly.
A landing page is a website page that stands alone, created specifically for an advertising or marketing campaign. When a customer clicks on an ad, a landing page is where that adtakes them. When you have specific business promotions, special events or you perform paid advertising programs, you should create website landing pages complete with a call to action. Landing pages improve conversions by being hyper-focused and conversion-oriented.
How do you know your website is working? How do you know your promotions are converting? Believe it or not, receiving a sale doesn’t necessarily mean your marketing is working as it should. In fact, an improvement here or there could take that sale and multiply it. Testing your website and marketing promotions can help you find what truly motivates your target audience.
The current messaging on your website, as well as the messaging in your promotions, are not set in stone. In fact, you should use A/B conversion testing to experiment and find what works best for your target customer. Through A/B tests, you can determine what works best for your end goals, alternating one element at a time to see what works best. Elements you can test include:
Virtually everything on your website and in your promotions can be tested, helping you to improve your overall success.
Website functionality is critical to the success of your website and can make or break a customer conversion. Testing your website involves trying out all its functions to ensure everything is in working order. For example, are you receiving form submissions through your contact form? Are your menu links going to the correct pages?
Also, update your website plugins to the latest version regularly. Often, security issues and bugs within a plugin are fixed by the release of a newer version of the plugin. Updated plugins also ensure your website is more secure.
Monitoring your website as well as other websites where your business exists is a critical part of managing your reputation and remaining active in front of your customers.
Consistently use the same version of your URL, whichever one the website propagates to. Secure your website with SSL, meaning it has “https” in front of the URL versus “http”. SSL certification means there’s an encrypted connection, which builds trust in your website.
We make your business our business. Everything we do is based on real-time data and research and driven by your business goals. Contact Legit Click Media, serving clients locally in the Green Bay area and remotely throughout the United States.
Phone: (920) 214-4025
Email: info@legitclickmedia.com
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