You’ve got a website. It sits there, it has all the info you want on there, and you maybe don’t sell from it, so why do you need to pay attention to it? In this blog, we discuss why your website could be making or breaking your business, and you don’t even know it. An optimised website can change everything.
Post Pandemic
According to ShopifyPlus, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, ten years of eCommerce growth happened in just 90 days.
That’s a lot of new potential eyeballs on your brand name, services or products.
Who’s Online
Online is no longer predominately Gen X & Millennials; older shoppers are now shopping online too, again, an upward trend seen throughout lockdown with nearly 150 million people shopping online for the very first time. The growth in e-commerce predicted to grow by 4.7% in the UK.
Why does that matter to me? I’m a service provider/I’ve got great referrals/I’m a local business?
Whether you are a local business, well known amongst your community or have a loyal customer base or provide services in person, your website and online presence DOES matter.
The Classic Case Study
Let’s take our imaginary eyelash technician Louise. Louise has a successful business with Lovely Lashes, a beauty salon. She tinkers on social media, but she doesn’t have a website. Louise has a couple of local business listings but nothing exclusive to her name. Fast forward three months, Love-Lee Lashes opens up a salon in Louise’s area. This competitor has a fully optimised website; they invest in regular updates, create content with excellent SEO and are ranking now for organic traffic and their paid traffic via Google ads to pull in passing trade. Sure, Louise has her loyal clients, but Love-Lee Lashes has the pulling power and visibility.
Who do you think is going to grow their business in 2021 and beyond?
Everything Changes
At some point in 2021, Google is planning to update its algorithm to include Page Experience. This includes reviewing your sites loading speed, visual stability and its interactiveness.
How Does This Affect Me, You Ask?
If your website isn’t mobile responsive, isn’t optimised for SEO, doesn’t offer a valuable page experience to the visitor or is just too hard to navigate and has a high drop off rate, you’re going to find your business slipping way down search engine rankings.
If you have a new business, you may be struggling to compete on customer experience, but the point is that without a fully optimised website, your business is set up to fail before you start.
Whether you sell services or products, your website is your shop front, so broken links, missing pages not only affect your ranking but the visitor experience. You’re investing money in other areas of your business, so why would you skimp on one of the most critical marketing tools available to you?
Back To Basics
As Copywriting and PR Experts, we know how important our client’s web traffic is. We create content that offers value and keeps the website visitors online for longer and returning for more. This content also gives our client’s social media pages ample opportunity in which to be the vehicle that drives traffic back to their websites. As a Lifestyle PR agency, we also look to grow our client’s bank of backlinks to strengthen their SEO efforts further.
Socially Savvy, Optimised Website
And if focusing purely on social media is all your marketing is relying on, buyer beware; costs per click on Facebook are higher now than pre-pandemic. This will only continue to grow as demand in the digital continues. Social media is and should always be just one element of your marketing strategy. Being seen in print is and will always be a trusted source.
So, if you’re waiting for things to go back to normal in a few months, then think again. These online shopping habits are here to stay, so if your website lacks content, is SEO poor and lacking in backlinks, now is the time to take action or get left well and truly behind.
Feeling Inspired? Read 3 Effective Ways To Remind Your Customers About Your Brand
