You’ve done all the hard work: gotten your content together, had a website designed, and now it’s live and ready for folks.
But no one is visiting. And you’re not sure what to do next.
It’s a common feeling and a question we’ve received from clients countless times: “I’ve got a website, now what?” Today, we will go over website maintenance, attracting and tracking website visitors, social media, and general online marketing tips.
What to Do After You Built a Website & Online Marketing
First, congrats! Building a website for your business or brand is a big, daunting step. And it’s done.
So now it’s time to make your website work for you while also doing a few things to help increase website traffic — without paying money for it.
Website Maintenance
Once live, many folks think that they can stop thinking about their websites. They exist, that’s it.
Well, that’s not the case.
While they don’t need to take all your attention every day, websites require some maintenance. Mainly, updates to framework, themes, and plugins. We suggest logging in monthly to perform all the necessary updates, keeping your site functioning, secure, and working efficiently.
And don’t forget about your domain name, website hosting, and email hosting. All of these things are necessary and cost an annual fee. With so many other things and bills due, we suggest setting up automatic billing, so you never have to worry about your site being down or losing your domain name.
Tracking Website Traffic
A website is only as good as its traffic. And the more you know about where your visitors are coming from and what they are doing on your site, the better you can target future visitors.
And tracking website visitors is easy.
We suggest setting up a free Google Analytics account. Once created, you will add some code to your website (it’s easy we promise), and then you’re off to the races. You will have access to analytics, including the number of visitors, traffic from social media, page visits, mobile users, and more.
Pro Tip: Find which pages folks visit the most and for the longest (meaning they read all the content). Then start adding more pages like that!
If Google Analytics is too daunting or perhaps too much information, there are other options like the Jetpack Plugin that offer some analytics.
Keep Adding Fresh Content
You hear a lot about SEO these days and for a good reason. Organic ranking should be the ultimate goal. When Google starts showing your site to folks searching for similar terms without you having to pay for it, you’ve made it!
One big thing you can do to help your site is to keep adding fresh, relevant, and good content.
The easiest way? Start blogging! Set a goal to add a new blog post about a relevant topic once a month. And then start adding two blogs a month.
But remember, not all blogs are created equal. If you are going to spend the time writing and posting an article to your site, make sure it’s a good one and actually helpful to your site’s SEO beyond just being new content. How? Make sure your blog has the following items:
- A Main Keyword included in the headers and content of the blog. For bonus points, include similar keywords throughout the article.
- At least 500 words – too short and the article doesn’t count for much
- Images. Make sure they are saved for the web, are titled with something to match the article, and are tagged with appropriate keywords and alt-tags.
- Meta Description and Tags. Think of the meta description and tags as the advertisement of the post. It’s what Google will read first before deciding if the article is relevant to someone’s search. We suggest the plugin Yoast SEO which offers on-page and easy-to-use functions.
Create Social Media Accounts and Start Posting
Social media isn’t just for the teens; it’s a great (and free) business marketing platform.
And it doesn’t have to be time-consuming. Remember, start small and build.
So, what social media platforms should you start with? We suggest setting up a Google Business Listing, Facebook, and LinkedIn to start. Why?
Google Business Listings let you control what folks see when they Google your business and is also an added way to let Google know you exist. Facebook is great as it can reach large amounts of new clients in your area and generally has an engaging user base. LinkedIn is excellent when you are offering professional services and provides networking opportunities that other platforms have not excelled at.
Once created, don’t forget to post! An unengaged platform doesn’t do anything to help your business. To start, schedule posts twice a week and build from there! And don’t forget to check-in and answer any comments, messages, or feedback.
Still, seems too daunting to get started? Exposure One offers Social Media Marketing Services, handling everything from profile creation to posting schedules to ad management. Contact us today to learn more!
Having a business website is a great tool even better when you make your website work for you! With a little maintenance and monthly effort, you can make your online presence grow.
