blog_webliveSummer is a season kids and adults yearn for all year long, as summer months offer warmth, trips to new places, lemonade, grilling, and summertime sports. Growing up, my summers were always spent at the baseball and softball fields either playing or cheering on my favorite team. In 1989, a classic sports movie was released. “The Field of Dreams” debuted at the box office and we were left with one of the greatest and memorable lines of all time, “If you build it, they will come.” While website design and baseball don’t necessarily have that much in common, many people believe this statement to be true in regards to having a website. Let me word this a little differently to make a little more sense… “If you have a website, you will have visitors.” Unfortunately, having a website does not make this statement true.

Why you ask? Well, first off, if you have a website that features a popular subject (think DIY blogs) you will have a massive amount of competition. That’s not to say that your website won’t gain traction, it will just require a little extra creative thinking and hard work to promote, standout, gain visitors, and maintain your status.

 

Here are just a few website tactics to work on after your site goes live.

1. Increase SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Ranking

Let’s start here… there are millions and millions of websites that are available to users via a simple search on Google. Is your website’s subject unique enough where being on the first page is easy? That’s great and way to go! If your website features a more popular subject, like a majority of websites, getting rankings on the first or second page can be a challenge, but this isn’t impossible. This is probably one of the toughest items to change as seeing your website move up in the rankings can take several months or years to achieve. However, it’s a step with huge rewards.

A good thing to ask yourself is, if I want a consumer to find my website, what words would they type into Google to find my site? These “words” are your  keywords that should be the foundation upon which your website is built.

While we won’t give away our SEO practices, we do have some great tools that can help your website get found online. Contact us today to learn more!

 

2. Be Mobile Friendly

Want some inside advice on how to help with your SEO? Your website must be mobile friendly! Learn more about why this is so huge in a previous blog post on how Google changed things up!

Did you know that most websites are now viewed using either a smartphone or tablet? If your website is not mobile friendly, you are losing out on a huge opportunity to be connected with prospective consumers. The great news is that, websites can now be built with responsive design (what is this exactly?) which makes being mobile easy and doesn’t require additional work or expenses.

 

3. Promote and Find Your Visitors

This is a task we like to handle with intense detail and thought. This usually begins with a complete review and brainstorming session of your target customer. How old are they, do they use social media, where do they shop, do they live in a city? These are just a few of the questions we like to ask and should give a good idea on how your target customer uses their time. Maybe your customer is women in their 60’s, well… social media may not be the best tool to attract them. However, your customer may be stay-at-home moms who love to decorate, Pinterest would become a valuable resource to market your website on! Thinking outside of the box is key to finding new visitors and turning them into customers. It can be hard to get a website out to the masses by just letting it sit without taking action so, do as much as you can to take things into your own hands.

Here are a few ideas to try; Social Media websites if applicable to your target audience, join a forum relating to your website’s topic, promote using Google Adwords, purchase a Facebook Advertisement, become a 5K Race sponsor, hold a seminar or class, or sponsor a community park cleanup day. While these are just a few general ideas, don’t limit yourself!

 

4. Maintain Your Information

Website maintenance may be one of the largest parts of gaining a client. Not only does Google love to see new and updated content, but your clients like to see that as well. There is nothing worse than finally finding a company and upon viewing their website, you realize it’s really outdated. This is a huge turnoff for customers and they may search out a competitor who has an updated and more appealing website. Here’s the hard part, website maintenance takes dedicated time and may require additional staff or a dedicated team to help accomplish this.

 

In Conclusion…

Having a website is a great resource for any company to promote their services, products, or unique capabilities. With a little elbow grease you can turn a website into a powerhouse for new leads, which have the opportunity to turn into profitable customers. At R2F Creative, we offer a wide variety of website design packages that can help with your SEO, marketing, and maintenance. Think of us as a new team member that cares about getting your website found online!

 

R2F Creative LLC provides graphic design + branding and web design solutions for clients nationwide and locally in Ankeny and Des Moines, Iowa.