As business owners, we constantly try to find ways to be more efficient and effective. Any single aspect of your business can become a huge sinkhole of productivity if you over focus on it. Working on the marketing of your website can be especially problematic as most of us don’t just write web pages like you would a letter or an email. You need to find shortcuts that help you get the most out of your site without turning into a complete time suck. Here are three tips I use to make the most out of my time so I can focus on the high return activities I need to in order to have a great business.
Write Down the Purpose of Your Webpages
Sounds obvious, right? Maybe. But ask yourself: What do I want someone to do when they see my homepage? Call? Email me? If you don’t know, then your visitor won’t. Everybody’s seen the basic layout of a small business website. Home. About. Contact. Maybe project or products depending on business.
Now let’s say that you decide that you want me to call you when I go to your home page. You’ve just made the direction of all your other marketing efforts very well defined. Every flyer or email you send out that directs people to your homepage should mention what you want them to do when they get there. And then you do everything you can to make sure it’s really easy to do that thing you want them to do when they land on that page. This keeps your mind from drifting to your competitor’s sites and reduces doubts about what you’re trying to do.
Get Your Site in Local Directories
If you have a business that services a local area, there are services out there that can submit the vital information about your business, its site and contact information to a large number of local web directories without you having to go in and add your business to each site individually. Moz is a good place to start although there are other players in this game. Starting for around $85 per year, they give you a nice interface where you can keep a handle on your local directory listings.
Be aware that this is no silver bullet and that there is some persistent work you’ll need to put in to maintain your listings. Also, if you’ve already added your site to some directories, you may run into problems of duplicate listings and conflicting, out-of-date information so it’s probably best for those with news sites or have someone who can look into resolving old data errors should they arise.
Write Articles About Your Business
This is big. One of the things that the search engines look for is signs that somebody’s home. Articles about events you had at the shop or that customer who had a great time at your store are pure gold and you should find a way to work these onto your site. Pics of customers wearing your clothes or shaking your hand because your tax preparation business just saved them a boat load are easy and usually end up having keyword phrases in them that you want your potential customers to be looking for.
So there you have it. Of course, there are many other things that are possible and can save you significant time. You just have to get in there are work your site and you’ll find some yourself.