Looking beyond design: What's next after you've launched your new website?
If you’re not proud of your website, you’re failing your business. Why have anything less than amazing?
It’s undisputed! A well-designed website is crucial nowadays. Designing your dream website is a fun endeavour and one that takes a lot of effort and skill. Whether you’re taking a pre-prepared theme and customising it or doing the whole thing from scratch, there’s a lot of work that goes into designing and building the perfect website.
Once your website is done and up and running, it’s easy to think that all the hard work is over and done with, but that’s not the case.
There’s still plenty that needs to be done to ensure that your shiny new website remains viable and gives your business the online boost it needs.
The website is the online calling card of every organisation: no matter whether they find you on social media, through review sites or via a recommendation from an influencer, customers will want to visit your website to get the definitive low-down on your company and, potentially, enter into your sales funnel.
If you’re unsure about what to do now you’ve finished your website design and launched your business website, then keep reading. We’ll explore the ways that you can get your website noticed and ensure its ongoing success.
Get to the top of search engine results
Search engines such as Google are the drivers of the Internet. They help to guide users to the websites and digital content that they need. As such, you need to learn the basics of SEO and start applying them to your website. One of the key factors in SEO is keywords, as these terms help search engines to understand the relevance of your content and how it applies to any given search made by a user. So, the first step when you build a website is to research your target keywords and work out how to incorporate them into your content without making it obvious that you’re doing so. It can take time and effort, but with the support of an experienced digital marketer, either one hired to join your team or outsourced from an agency, you can get your site on the way to reaching your target audience.
Consider off-page SEO
As well as the keywords on your website, it would help if you also thought about off-page SEO and how your website is viewed by others on the Internet. Google and other major search engines use this as a ranking factor to ascertain how trustworthy and reliable a website is and whether it is worth offering as a search result. One vital off-page SEO technique is link building, as you can show search engines that your website is worth linking to and using as a resource. Building high-quality, relevant backlinks that get you noticed by search engines in the right way can take a lot of time and effort, so consider collaborating with a professional link building agency like uklinkology.co.uk. They provide links based on either Moz Domain Authority or their unique formula M-Flux which combines DA with TF, DR, traffic and more to show the true value of a backlink opportunity. If you’re not sure where to start with your off-page SEO, reach out to the experts.
Manage your online reputation
Now that you’ve got a website, online commentators and reviewers can link to it when they’re discussing your brand online. Often, this is a good thing. If these individuals have had positive experiences with your organisation, then they could help you to improve your online reach. However, if they have had a negative experience or are simply being rude about your company for attention, then you need to act quickly to prevent misinformation and to handle the crisis.
Thankfully, there are online tools that can help you to stay on top of the latest mentions of your company and its URL, so you can see who’s saying what about your business. If you notice negative comments about your business online, then you can either respond to them and try to resolve the issue or report the behaviour to the platform on which the comment is posted. If the platform managers deem it to be offensive or unwarranted negativity, then they will remove the comment.
Create social media accounts
While your website is the end destination for web users looking to find your business online, you need to consider the journey they take. SEO gets you to the top of search engine results pages, but consumers are increasingly using social media to find companies to connect with and use. As such, you need to make sure that not only do you have a great website but also that your brand is active on relevant social media sites. From video and image-based platforms like Instagram and TikTok through to professional networks like LinkedIn, there’s a social media site for every organisation. So, you need to work out where your target audience is likely to be hanging out online and then start posting on those sites.
Keep innovating
The Internet never stands still, so neither should your business. Digital marketing, social media and online advertising are constantly evolving and changing, with new platforms and software tools launching every day. As such, you need to make sure that you continue to evolve and change your digital marketing strategy to suit the current climate. Stay on top of new developments by working closely with your digital development team, whether they are in-house or outsourced. They can advise you on the online marketing developments that are worth exploring and the trends that are just a flash in the pan and won’t be around for long.
As this article shows, there’s more to creating an online presence than just building a website for your organisation. These tips are just the beginning: as the market changes, you need to as well. Also, there are some areas of online promotion, such as influencer marketing, that are unique to certain industries. So, when you’re considering your ongoing digital strategy, you need to make sure you think about your target market and what they are looking for from your company.