Websites are no longer an online brochure of your company, they should be a living, engaging, competing, and results delivering tool in your marketing toolbox. To turn your brochure website into a lead generation tool, please take into consideration these priorities.
TOP 5 PRIORITIES FOR YOUR PRINT BUSINESS WEBSITE
1. Getting Found
2. Converting through clear calls to action
3. Telling Your Story in the Voice of Your Customers
4. Secure
5. In Your Control
Getting Found
This is the most important priority for your print business website. Your entire online presence should be developed, managed, and primarily focused upon enabling your qualified prospects and customers to find your website. Getting found is a dynamic competitive sport online for the top 10 search engine results on page one of the Google results.
The art/craft/magic/science behind getting found online (Search Engine Optimization – SEO) starts with your keyword strategy, what terms do your prospects and customers type into Google? These keywords/phrases are what you will “target” in everything you do online. As the search traffic controller, Google makes the rules and determines which factors impact search results. Important search factors include but are not limited to; the number of external links coming into your website, the “freshness” of your website (how often do you update it), the on-site optimization in the form of meta tags, headings, etc., mobile friendliness (responsive design), ease of navigation, and your ability to convert visitors. The getting found priority is the foundation of your overall web presence. Don’t start a website project without being very confident in your strategy for getting found online.
Converting
Many websites are beautiful, they tell a great story, they might even be SEO optimized, yet they forget a very important aspect of driving the desired business results from your website – conversion. What do you want visitors to your website to do? If you’re a B2C e-commerce site, conversion is straight forward, you want the visitors to buy your product. For B2B, conversion on your website is typically defined as a qualified lead who wants to speak with someone, submits a request for a quote, or downloads compelling content in return for identifying themselves for you to contact them. Look at your current website home page, what is your clear call to action for visitors?
Telling Your Story in the Voice of Your Customers
First impressions are made online. Prospective customers are using search to find new suppliers, understand who you are, so they can decide if what you do fits with their current need. Your website needs to tell your story, not the story of what printing presses you own, but the story of the challenges you solve for your customers. The story of your company is actually not about you, it’s about what you do for your customers. Your customers have challenges, needs, and demands. You deliver solutions. Tell that story so that when prospects visit your site, they get a sense of the kinds of challenges you solve and the way you solve them and they can relate to the customers you work with today.
In Your Control
Because your website needs to be living, breathing, and constantly changing, make sure you have internal control over the content. A website is nothing but a content container hosted on your domain. Your website should be built on top of a full featured content management system (CMS). There are many free options here, the most popular being WordPress. A CMS will allow you to change the content on your website, without requiring development skills, or a third party. Make sure you insist on training as part of any website project.
The most affordable and easiest way to keep your website fresh is to have a blog. A blog enables you to create new pages on your website with every post. When you blog, you should then announce that blog post on your social media channels (e.g. Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.). The social channel post should always drive visitors back to your website/blog.
Secure
You lock your physical building and you probably have an alarm system to alert you in the case of intrusion; you need to the same in the digital world. Cyber security is something you can’t afford to ignore. For websites we always suggest a hosting provider that specializes in the platform you have your website on. For example, WordPress is a prime target for hacking because it’s one of the most popular platforms in the world. Choose a provider that understands that platform so that you can outsource the babysitting of the platform to an expert
One more note on cyber security, a very important step you can take to greatly decrease your chances of being hacked is to turn on two-factor authentication for your vital online relationships. Two-factor authentication means that when you are trying to access the service from a new device, the service requires you to verify that you also have access to your mobile device. The service sends a code to your mobile device that you then enter into the site. This extra step would prevent lots of hacking.
Your website can produce business results for you, it requires you to invest time and effort. The center of your online presence is your website. Customers are looking online first, make sure they can find you and when they do, you deliver a solid first impression.
To get the best Ecommerce website, you need to have a good Ecommerce platform along with intuitive Web-to-print capabilities. When you need such a highly potent combination, the answer is the hosted plans of Pixopa. Please check our pricing plans and get started with Pixopa today.