5 mistakes small businesses often make when building their online presence | Weboptim
Every small business needs to know how to develop a consistent online presence. 54% of small businesses already have a website, but this is not enough to have an effective presence in the online world to reach potential customers.
Small business owners often feel lost when trying to find the best opportunities online.
We're here to help them out - here are 5 common mistakes to avoid in 2017.
1. Ignoring local SEO
97% of internet users search for local businesses online, which means that no business can afford to ignore local SEO and its potential benefits.
Local SEO helps attract customers who are looking for a specific location, such as sushi Debrecen. By optimizing the website for local searches, we can help customers discover our company and services. In this way, we can reach new audiences.
The best ways to boost local SEO:
- Create a Google My Business profile: Google My Business connects customers to our business. Always check the company name, phone number, address, enter the correct category and relevant description. This gives customers access to more information, which increases the chances of getting more visitors to our site.
- Display embedded Google Maps on the website: Google Maps, which links to Google+ local results, allows us to offer all the information customers need.
- Optimize meta data and page content for 'local' keywords: it may be useful to include the name of the city or state in the title and description tags to increase the number of clicks from local searches.
- Consistent use of contact details in online profiles: it is important that all businesses maintain consistency in terms of contact information across all online sources, e.g. website, social networks, Google company profile, etc.
2. The site is not accessible to users on all devices
With modern users becoming more demanding, businesses need to pay particular attention to mobile optimisation, website speed and usability in general.
According to a survey 72% of mobile users consider it important for a website to be mobile-friendly. In fact, having a mobile-friendly website increases the chances of conversions and similar results can be achieved by focusing on optimal load times.
A delay of up to 1 second can lead to a 7% conversion loss, while 40% of users will leave the page if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. This makes it imperative that businesses monitor website performance, looking for the best ways to reduce load times.
With modern users becoming increasingly impatient, an accessible website should be a priority for small businesses, improving the user experience and beating competitors are important issues that are often overlooked, but can impact conversions.
3. Not taking advantage of customer reviews
Online reviews are an important part of consumers' purchasing decisions, 88% of people trust reviews rather than personal recommendations. Therefore, the more reviews we have, the more likely we are to gain the trust of new visitors.
Small businesses should encourage customers to write reviews, as they are good 'community proof' if they are highlighted on our website. It's important to find the best time and way to ask customers to do this, and it can also be useful to encourage them to write reviews in return for a reward. Even negative reviews can be useful.
Since online reviews are also a fresh content on the website, so they can also contribute to SEO improvement, with user reviews representing a weight of 9.8% in determining positioning across all ranking factors.
4. They do not merge data between online, offline and mobile platforms
It is increasingly challenging for small businesses to grow their online presence and find the most effective way to measure their efforts.
It's not just about ROI, it's more important to look at the best ways to combine online, offline and mobile marketing. This will allow us to better understand how to allocate budgets, find what works and what can be improved.
Failure to link data can lead to incorrect conclusions, which can result in missed opportunities in the sales process.
5. They do not communicate with customers
It is vital for businesses to understand their audience, as this will lead to commercial goals. A business with a good online presence listens to its customers and listens to their opinions. There is more chance of increasing sales if a business develops a credible relationship with existing and future customers. The main goal of building an online presence is to get closer to customers and develop meaningful, tangible engagement.
Two-way communication - between business and customer - all the ways (from the initial user experience) need to be measured and analysed to assess the value and effectiveness of the touchpoints. This will help businesses at all key points.
These hierrors are common, but all can be easily corrected with a few small steps in the right direction. And if your small business is feeling daunted by this, there are companies that can help them boost their SEO.
Source: searchenginewatch.com