How to Transform Your Website from Brochureware to 24-7 Business Concierge
The focus on digital marketing over the past several years has been on these primary focus areas:
1. Search Engine Optimization or Discoverability
2. Mobile responsiveness or mobile friendliness
3. Social media sharing tools
4. Quantity and quality of fresh, authority creating content
5. Client engagement, lead capture and the “stickiness” of your pages
All of these topics will continue to be top of mind, as a company’s web presence is evolving to be a the “channel of first impression” when a B2B or B2C prospect is looking for products or services. A simple, static website hosted by a domain name registrar just won’t cut it in 2015.
If you are looking to get better return on your web investment, here are five ways to deliver more online value, and create efficiencies and benefits offline as well.
1. Add a Human Side to Your Website
If you have a customer service team who spend many hours standing by the phones, or Inside Sales reps hunting for leads, consider live chat, “Call Me” or buttons for video conferencing apps like Google Hangouts. If a customer is on your digital storefront already, helping them to find the information they are looking for, or putting the content in the proper context is much easier than over the telephone.
Once you’ve “broken the ice” with an online conversation, you can shift the relationship offline, once an opportunity is further down the pipeline. Fielding suspects and prospects online via teleweb tools is less expensive on a per conversation basis, and training customers to better navigate your website can be priceless.
2. Web Self Service and Integrated Applications
Even without the guidance of a sales or service agent, your website can be a “virtual concierge” and be integrated with applications such as:
- Portals for CRM systems such as support ticket management, lead capture, event management or marketing
- Point of sale or inventory systems for e-commerce enabled websites
- Accounting and Finance applications
- Third party shipping systems
Modern content management systems such as WordPress, Sitefinity and Drupal can be extended by affordable modules which are secure, quick to deploy and reliable. Giving customers the opportunity to author the data you store about them ensures data quality, and the ability for them to avoid long holding queues can improve customer satisfaction.
3. Mobile Responsiveness and Advertising
Having a smartphone and tablet friendly website is table stakes with a growing segment of the market, and the most popular search engines as well. Google and Bing have recently changed the way ranked pages appear or search engine results pages, so finding ways to appeal to websites, and effective mobile landing pages from mobile ads is vital.
Beyond a static website for small screens, the volume of transactions which take place on portable devices also continues to rise.
4. Dynamic Content and Sharing Tools
A website which is stagnant is like those Tupperware containers in your fridge which might be leftover Chinese food, or your kid’s science fair experiment. You think you might want to consume it some day, but the idea of opening it up and trying it is a bit scary. You want to keeping web content fresh and shareworthy, including:
- Blogs
- Videos
- Infographics
- Product pages
- Social media posts
Think of your social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook as opportunities to drive your target market to your detailed content, so be sure to keep them fresh and pointing at your website as well. Digital marketing guru, Jay Baer is famous for his quote “Social media is gasoline, your website is fire”.
5. Invest in a High Performance Web Hosting Environment
You probably knew we’d end up here eventually, but to ensure your clients are happy and confident in interacting with your website, invest in a web hosting provider which offers services which are:
- Fast
- Reliable
- Secure
- Stable
- Scalable for peak times of the day, month and year
Modern websites are database enabled to allow for form submissions, searchable content and are interactive. Entrusting the core of your web presence to Server Mania will ensure your the core of your digital identity is an extension of your brand, not a pale imitation. Our nationwide datacenters are equipped with the latest and greatest hardware, software and monitoring oversight.
Just as Google can be unforgiving of websites which don’t meet their standards, your target market may not return if they find your website is too slow, doesn’t present well on the device of their choosing, or is limited to static text and images.
Click on our “Let’s Talk” button to connect with our Support fleet about web hosting services which will meet your unique needs. We have Dedicated Server, VPS hosting and Cloud hosting options which are affordably priced, and are contracted under our industry-leading 100 percent Service Level Agreement.