Businesses that rely solely on word of mouth to spread their products and service’s fame far and and wide are living in a fool’s paradise. In today’s cyber world the lack of a professional online presence spells death to any company, big or small. Consumers today won’t consider making a purchase until they have personally scoped out a business online. They’ll look at the graphics, the wording, the prices, the history, and they’ll take special note of how easy, or how difficult, it is to navigate around a company’s website. According to business financing firm Evolocity, “First impressions have always been important in the business world — and it’s truer now than ever before because that first impression is most often comes from a computer screen.”
To make sure your website(s) draw customers in, not shoo them away, follow these tips from internet marketing experts:
Don’t play hide and seek with customers online
Businesses spend billions of dollars each year to make sure their brand name is publicized and recognized. But if consumers have difficulty in finding a brand’s landing page, they are just as likely to turn to some other brand of the same product that is easier to locate. Smart companies make dead certain they are prominent on social media with venues like Yelp, Google My Business, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Make sure each site is kept up to date — nothing kills a potential sale like obviously out of date marketing information and prices. The rule of thumb is a business can’t have too many social media sites, as long as they’re kept updated and are easy to locate.
Remember that consumers are mobile
While Baby Boomers still use their desktop and laptop computers to shop online, everyone below the age of 45 is now moving to shopping online with a mobile device. And this trend is only going to grow stronger. So businesses need to update and modify their landing pages to make them easy and convenient to access and navigate via smartphones, tablets, etc. Consumers wait an average of just 2 seconds after they’ve clicked on a button or icon before moving to a different site. No speed, no sale. Constantly check all links to make sure they work. A broken link tells consumers the business is too pokey and poorly staffed to give them the instant gratification they crave when making a purchase. There is a direct correlation between website maintenance and sales conversion rates.
The importance of quality content
Quality content is good solid information that consumers find useful and engaging — and sometimes that means not even mentioning the brand at all in a social media post. A good product doesn’t need to be puffed up on landing pages. Instead, give consumers what they perceive as value and/or entertainment. Many businesses now have the local weather forecast in an upper right hand corner box. Others draw attention by doing a live stream from their brick and mortar store(s), letting consumers see what’s going on inside or even out on the street. There’s a little bit of the voyeur in every consumer — those sites that pander to this knowledge always get better traffic. A company that’s sports-related would do well to run game scores, and so on .
