For your small business website, getting a website is just the first step in being successful on the web. You also have to consider how you’ll get traffic to your website, and how you’ll get customers to buy when they visit. In this article, we’ll talk you through some simple strategies to getting the most out of your digital assets.



Analytics - Track, Improve, Rinse, Repeat

When it comes to online marketing, everything can be tracked. You can tell where a visitor came from, what pages they visited on your website, and whether or not they decided to buy. Unlike when you’re marketing your small business offline, you can tell precisely what strategies work and what strategies don’t. This means, you can continually improve the efficiency of your website and the efficiency of your marketing. You can also make changes to your website, and test whether those changes make buyers more likely to get in touch with you or buy your product. There’s no excuse not to be continually improving your site. If you don’t already have an analytics package installed on your website, consider Google analytics. It is completely free, and will help you to do all of the things mentioned above.

SEO & PPC – The Web’s Most Targeted Traffic

Small business advertisers have loved the yellow pages for decades. It allows businesses to target consumers in their area, and pick up consumers that are actively looking for the service or products that they provide. Search engines have the same level of consumer intent. If someone’s looking for a “Dundee Plumber" and you own a plumbing business in the Dundee area, then it would make sense for your business to appear on that search engine results page for that term. It’s possible to do this in two ways: you can buy advertising (PPC) on that page and only pay a cost for each visitor that clicks on your link; or you can make changes to your website that makes it rank higher (SEO) for the free results. Many small business websites will buy traffic and also try to appear as high as possible in the free results. If you think that all sounds confusing, it is possible to use a search marketing firm to do this for you. Most web design companies will offer this service, and although it can be tempting to use them if they done a good job on your website, it might be the case that there expertise is more in web design and less in search engine marketing. Check examples of what they have done for their other clients, and get other quotations as well.

Email Marketing – Guide Buyers through the Sales Process and Retain Existing Customers

You should think of ways to get buyers, and potential buyers, to give you their email address. That way you can stand a better chance of being able to sell them your product and services without having to get them to visit your website. If your small business sells curtains, for example, then why not send your email list an email to let them know about the 20% discount you’ll be offering for those that buy before Saturday?