Make your Website Marketing-Oriented
As a business owner, you were involved in the web development and marketing strategy for your corporate website. You labored over every page, every layout, every word of text. Your site has been live for months, and you’ve put thoughts of your web development and marketing strategy on the back burner as you focus on the day to day affairs regarding your business.
Sound familiar?
It’s a common misconception that a business website is like the print marketing tools. Once live online, it will generate leads with little or no effort on your part. Realistically, your web development and marketing strategy does not end with the publishing of your website.
Think of your website as a living thing. It needs regular attention from you to thrive and obtain its goals. Unfortunately, once a website is live, many companies turn their attention to other parts of their marketing plan.
When’s the last time you tried to use your website, like a visitor would? Performing a site audit will ensure that your business website is working to the goals you originally set within your web development and marketing strategy. Want to see how well your site is performing as a marketing tool? Here are the top 3 points to check in your next website audit.
Error 404 Page Not Found
Have you ever tried to navigate to a website and come across this frustrating message? 404 errors crop up when a url link is misspelled, is not longer active or has an error in the page code that doesn’t allow it to be viewed. Check all the links on your website, from those in the header and footer to each and every button and text link to be sure that your visitors aren’t encountering 404 errors from your site.
Old Website in the Way
As part of your web development and marketing strategy, you thought it best to redesign your original website. With the new site live, you do some searches for your target keywords to see how the new site is performing for SEO purposes. Unfortunately, what comes up from your searches is not your contemporary new website, but your old site. You can’t even find your new site on the first few pages of Google. What’s wrong?
Is the old site still live online? There’s problem number one. If it is, then take it down. If it’s not, then you need to integrate 301 Redirects from your old url to your new one. It will reroute any traffic to the new website from any search that could potentially bring up your old one.
Having the 301 redirect in place will also guarantee a continuation of your existing web site ranking despite the new site’s age. Your new site will garner the benefits of your old website’s popularity and maintain its page rank more effectively with a 301 redirect.
META Tag Implementation
Even though many say META’s are meaningless, META’s still mean something – just less than what they use to be. But those who utilize them pick up a competitive advantage. Since there are no negatives to its deployment, consider it like crossing your “t’s” and “dotting your I’s” in your web development and marketing strategy.
Your META tags, <Head>,<H1>,<H2>,<Title>,<Description> and <Keywords> are all necessary parts of your website content, as much as the graphics and text itself. They need to be updated to reflect the current top keywords that your target market is searching to find companies like yours.
Tip: Use Google Webmaster Tools or Keyword Toolbox to see what the top keywords are to garner the most from your web development strategy.
Take a look at your website. Does it meet the requirements for the above points? If not, it may be time to call in the Calvary. An internet marketing agency experienced in on page SEO, web development and marketing strategy can perform website audit to ensure that your website is performing as the powerful marketing tool it is.