A company website hands down is a key element of any 21st century business. People search a lot online. So, even if you’re a brick and mortar business it’s very important to be found and seen online. But what makes a company website so important? If I’m a small business and I don’t have one yet, is it worth getting one? Or as a midsize business, I’ve had my website for some years now. How can I ensure my website is actually effective, i.e. bringing me some more business?
Small business owner and Marketigation client
I’m a small business entrepreneur and I don’t have a website yet, is it worth getting one now or should I get away without?
These questions plus many more are often going through entrepreneurs’ minds. The Marketigation team took some time to gather the most asked questions and answered them all at once. So, if you’re not sure if your website is really effective and performing, read on. At the end, you can take steps to transform your website into a powerful revenue making channel.
How do I know if my website from 3 years ago is still good?
What we see with our clients is, if you’re asking this question, unfortunately 95% of the cases your website could be optimised. Or let us be more specific. How would you define good? If good means displaying your company name and logo and some information about you on a web page. In that case, it’s most likely doing it. But your website could also have effective design, strong messaging, relevant and fresh content, vibrant visuals, growing organic traffic and high conversion. To tell you how well your website is actually doing, we’ll need to assess it and it’s analytics. When was the last time you looked at your analytics? Are you happy with what you see, or would you like to see higher traffic and better conversion?
When updating my website, what elements I should consider?
Key elements of an effective company website are design (style, look and feel, colours, layout), visuals (images, video), messaging (copy, headers, offers) and technical performance (e.g. speed). Critical elements are also functionality, traffic (organic, paid) and conversion (business goals). It’s instrumental to know where your current website stands in terms of the above factors. As a result, you know how you can optimise your website. It’s highly recommended to monitor and assess the different components on an ongoing basis and performance. Additionally, by doing that you can act whenever needed on a timely manner.
Midsize business entrepreneur and Marketigation client
How can I ensure my website is actually bringing me more business, and not just sitting there for sake of having one?
How do I drive Google traffic to my website?
To drive organic traffic -from Google or other search engines -to your website, it comes down to technical optimisation and relevant content. Regarding technical elements, your website needs to be loading fast, the structure has to be clear, and all SEO tags have to be optimised. In terms of content, you have to have fresh, unique and relevant content that adds value to your users.
Technical SEO optimisation generally is a project of 1-3 months, depending on the size of your website. When technical optimisation has been done, there’s no ongoing maintenance required, as long as standards are met for any new pages. However, content is more like an ongoing project for your website. To stay in competition, it’s recommended to produce fresh content on an ongoing basis. A monthly high-quality blog is a good starting point for most small and midsize businesses. And always remember: quality is a thousand times more important than quantity.
I don’t have a website yet, so how do I know if it’s worth getting one?
This is certainly the number one question our team gets often from SMEs. Maybe your company is new, or you just bought the business and they didn’t previously have a website. Or maybe you were just too busy running daily operations that you didn’t have time to work on marketing. In 2019, it might be tough for any business to run effectively without web presence. And competition is getting even tougher. Seems like almost all consumers and businesses today conduct numerous searches online before making their purchase decision. Therefore, if they don’t find information about your company online, you’ll probably lose that client. Hence, it’s highly recommended to put your best foot forward and present your company to them on your website. Wanted to get web presence but not sure where to start? Contact Marketigation today for your free website and marketing consulting session.
How does a website relate to other marketing efforts, e.g. Facebook and Google ads?
Above all, a company website works as a midpoint to all your company’s marketing efforts. In other words, you’re supposed to drive traffic from other marketing channels, e.g. social media, Google, advertising and email, back to your site. If you’re making any paid efforts, like Facebook or Google ads, it’s instrumental to have a dedicated Landing Page for each campaign or business goal. A campaign Landing Page certainly includes specific messaging about the campaign and is above all optimised to convert visitors at a highest possible rate.
What is a conversion rate and how do I increase it?
Firstly, a conversion rate means which proportion of website visitors perform a specific action, e.g. calls or visits the business, buys products or services on your page, uses free website resources, leaves a message or a contact request on the website, or subscribes to your mailing list. Secondly, the desired action depends on the type and field of business you’re running and your customer segments.
Hanna Hakio, Marketing Specialist and Co-Founder of Marketigation,
It’s difficult to give an absolute number for a good website conversion rate. However, if you’re converting only at 2%, there’s probably more room for improvement.
If you’re selling shoes, your end goal is most likely to sell a pair of shoes to a prospect online or in your physical store if you’re brick and mortar company. However, oftentimes potential clients aren’t ready to purchase right away. In that case, you might want to show them your latest blog article about the latest fall trends for shoes. Because your blog adds value to them, the potential client remembers your company better. As a result, they are most likely to purchase new fall boots from you when they are ready to buy. Customer engagement increases conversion rates, since only a fraction of your site or store visitors are willing to buy today.
What is a good conversion rate?
Above all, a good conversion rate depends on the action in question, the industry of your business, competition, and type of traffic source (organic vs. paid). Firstly, if you’re an online fashion retailer, most likely your competition is higher than some other fields. In that case, conversion rates might be a bit lower too. Additionally, if your main goal is to sell, you won’t be converting at the same rate as if you offer an access to a free online resource. Similarly, if you’re running a Google Ad Words campaign, you can expect a higher conversion rate, given your campaign is well targeted.
Like mentioned earlier, it’s very difficult to objectively say what a good conversion rate is. However, as an example, let’s say the main conversion on your website is to subscribe to the mailing list. In contrast, if you’re converting only at 2%, there’s probably more room for improvement. Similarly, if your online store is converting from site visitor to sales at 15%. That looks like a very good rate, but the next question you should ask is how we can still improve it? In that case a one percent increase in the conversion rate might need a lot of work and efforts. Nonetheless, if your traffic is decent, even a small improvement in conversion rates should equal to hundreds or thousands of dollars.
How much does it cost to get a company website?
So now your head is probably full of new ideas about how to optimise your website. Also, you might want to finally get your new company website live. But like each and every entrepreneur we unfortunately don’t have unlimited marketing budgets. Therefore, we need to have bang for our buck, especially for marketing spend. First of all, the good news is a new website doesn’t need to cost thousands of dollars. Taking advantage of free content management systems (CMS), like Word Press, actually saves you a lot of money. Not only don’t you have to pay for expensive CMS systems, but you also save on web development costs. Furthermore, if you’re able to supply your own content (text and images) to us, we can get your new professional, clear and SEO optimised website up and running for $995.
A new company website don’t have to cost you a fortune. Our team can make a professional and SEO optimised site for you for only $995.
Hanna Hakio, Marketing Specialist and Co-Founder of Marketigation
Ready to get more business and to be seen and found online? Contact Marketigation today by phone at 0431 372 622 or by email at info@marketigation.com to schedule your free consulting session. Or read more about digital marketing services we offer.