When we discuss a marketing strategy with our clients, one topic is high on the agenda – ‘the need to stay relevant’. No matter how successful your business is today, there is no room for complacency. If someone is searching for a product or service that you offer, they need to be able to find you. The people that find you are people actively looking for a supplier, no sales effort is required. Customers nowadays want to do their own research when deciding whose product or service they want to buy or who they want to work with. Often, customers will choose you because of a recommendation or referral. With that in mind, maybe you should start considering Google as an extension of your networking.
The way in which online content is addressed is ever-evolving. To stand a chance of ranking highly in a Google search, you have to show expertise, authority and trustworthiness through rich informative content. But, this is only one way to improve performance. Views differ among the experts on what it takes to have a high-performance website; more clicks, quality content or high technology.
Fundamentally, in order to have a successful website, it should have three pillars; authority, relevance and customer experience. Good SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) will cement these three pillars into your website. This will result in search engines giving priority to your website and attracting more organic traffic to your site. And although PPC (Pay-Per-Click) has its place, the conversion of organic leads is around 70%, compared to 30% for PPC.
When we talk about website authority, we refer to the importance that the search engine gives a page, in relation to a search query. Basically, Google wants to give the highest ranking to the pages that demonstrate the highest levels of knowledge. Google have their own agenda for this because this will encourage people to use their platform in the future.
A term widely used is ‘topical authority’, which is a measure of authority built up using proven expertise in your field. The more time users spend reading your high-quality content the more it will be perceived as being a trusted source of information. Buyers want to place their business with credible suppliers and if you can build an online rapport with them, they are more likely to want to work with you.
Relevance is a reflection of how you are tailoring your content to match the search queries and this requires careful consideration. You can develop relevance using visible text, images or videos and also hidden meta elements. Your research will help you to find the questions most widely searched and then you create content to align with the algorithms, which match searches with the most relevant websites.
The last pillar is the customer experience. You need to ensure that once they have found your website, that interaction is simple and easy. Your authority and relevance factor into the customer experience and ensuring your tone and content are tailored to your audience will support this pillar. The technical elements of a website should work perfectly; page loading times, mobile optimisation and shopping cart or quote requests. The best way to measure your website customer experience is using surveys, which does seem like an arduous task, but if you make your survey customer-friendly then the results can be very valuable.
Your website represents your business to the whole world and every element is important to your success. Can you cover every element to a high level within your marketing department? If the answer is no, that is where an agency can step in.
Here at Austin Marketing, we are continually working to create websites which satisfy search engine requirements, resulting in increased organic visits. Our analysts and SEO experts create content and underpin websites with the right keywords to enhance visibility and our website developers constantly monitor the customer experience for maximum engagement.
We also create and deliver social media campaigns for additional website visibility. Wherever you are on your journey, we can help you to create a high-performance website suitable for this digital world. As with everything we do, the team at Austin Marketing work with our clients to exceed their expectations in the digital world.
Contact us for further information.