5 Simple Web Marketing Tips

Many business used struggle with how to market themselves online and with Social Networking, Search Engine Optimization the task has become even more of a struggle. Leveraging these 5 web marketing tips can increase in traffic and visibility to your website.

1. Let people know what you/your company is doing
Sounds simple, but most companies overlook this time and time again. Posting a simple one page news story or press release about a new product, service, new client, partnership, or event that you have goes a long way in promoting your company. In doing so, you create the impression that you have a lot going on and most importantly that you are proud of your work. Plus posting this type of content makes for great social media posts, which drives traffic back to your website, increases user registrations and followers. I always tell my clients to tombstone and/or bookend their releases, and what I mean by that is make your announcement about your new product, service, client or event and then tell everyone afterwords with another release what you did for the, how the event turned out, or even better what they missed.

2. Share your expertise
SME's rule and so should your company. OK so what the hell is a SME? A SME is a subject matter expert and these are the people who have knowledge and expertise on a given topic. SME's are quite often the folks who answer your Google questions. The SME's got their first by posting content relative to their area of expertise. Inherently your company is a subject matter expert, but sadly you like many of my clients do not leverage it effectively. Providing potential customers with use tips and information on your website gives you a competitive advantage over your competition. An added benefit in doing so increases your SEO and your Google ranking dramatically. Sharing your expertise helps market you/your company as the go to place for great information and helps customers understand more about your products or services.

3. Eye Candy
You/your company more than likely makes the best products or offers the best services so show them to me stop telling me. I know this sounds like a contradiction to letting people know what you are doing and sharing your expertise, but showing people is even more meaningful. A picture is worth a thousand words right? So show people your products and services with high quality pictures, illustrations or better yet a video. It is a proven fact that content that contains images and videos on average attracts significantly more links than just plain text alone.

4. Contact information on every page
Think of your website as your interactive business card. Good business cards make it easy for people to identify your company name, your name and how to contact you. A good website should have you/your company's contact information (email, physical address, phone, fax hours of operation)  in the footer of every page so that once someone reads a piece of content on your website and has the “A ha” moment where they want to engage you/your company they can do so easily. Simple rule that has become the norm in website design over the last few years.

5. Socialize It
Content is king has long been the cry of web marketing and with the advent of Social Networking it is essential to provide your users the ability on your website to publish your content on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Leveraging the vast amount of people on these social networks is a great way to market your company passively. I always tell my customers that I think of the social networks as the public relations or marketing company that I could never afford and that I leverage them to tell my company's story consistently.