Whether you are already in the process of building a website, or thinking of starting one, these basic tips will go a long way towards a successful social media and SEO campaign. I have talked more about SEO in my recent blog, SEO – The Basics.

Don’t compromise on speed.

You may want to save on costs where possible, but my advice would be to avoid cheap hosting packages, you will get a slow website. 57% of website visitors leave if the website does not load within 3 seconds, how is your website performing? You can check your website’s performance by looking at your bounce rate within google analytics. A Bounce rate represents the number of visitors who enter your website and leave, without viewing any other pages.

Secure your website.

Your website needs to be secure. If your website is not secure it will start to show a virus warning message to your visitors, giving them the option to ‘go back to safety’, obviously, this does not look good. To ensure your website is secure, you need to purchase an SSL Certificate, you can get these from your hosting provider and configure the SSL within your website back-end. A simple way to check if your website is already secure, your domain should be https:// and not http://. You should also see a small padlock just before your domain, again, this suggests your website is already secure.

Landing pages. 

A landing page is a page within your website which should promote one service or product via external sources, ie. A Social Media post promoting one of your products should lead to that products’ ‘landing page’. It is important to create individual landing pages for your services /products so that you can be found on search engines by an interested audience.

Promote your landing pages across Social giving people an easy CTA (call-to-action) instantly. Although many link shorteners like bit.ly social algorithms are not keen on these and could be seen as spam, so it is advised not to try shorten any URLs and use the full URL from your landing page.

Keywords

Before creating a website, it is important to understand what keywords you want to be found on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for. As well as your products / services, you need to understand what your target audience are actually searching for, so you can be found by them. With Google Keyword Planner, you can analysis the no. of monthly searches, the competition, the cost per click (if you intend on doing any paid advertising) and the projections for certain keywords.

Optimise your social channels

Optimising your social channels is a great way for you to make the most out of social Media for your business. Optimising your platforms allows you to complete all sections of each platform including keywords you could be found for on social media, links to your website or call-to-action and showcase your products and services. If you are an e-commerce business, you can also create a shop so people can shop directly from social media.  Before you start promoting your social media channels, make sure you have optimised them and completed all relevant sections to maximise results.

Set up Analytics

There is a variety of analytical resources you can measure success on. My absolute must-have are;

Google analytics – Google Analytics places a code on your website and allows you to track everything from user journeys to conversions.

Google Search Console – your gateway to Google search success.

Google Tag Manager – allows you to manage JavaScript and HTML tags used for tracking and analytics on websites (variants of e-marketing tags, sometimes referred to as tracking pixels or web beacons). By implementing a tag on your website, each time a click you have set to analyse is clicked, a tag will fire and record the click. For example: if you have a video you can track the views, how long people watched the video for. If you have a download, you can track how many clicks your download received.

If your website is built in WordPress, there are a number of plugins which allow you to measure your analytics, you can find out more about what plugins will help your website in my recent blog, 10 Must Have WordPress Plugins.

Content

One of the most important aspect of any website is your website copy. To create quality, engaging you content you need a strategy. Only 23% of businesses actually have a strategy when it comes to Social Media content.

“Content is King, but engagement is Queen and she rules the house”

Imagery 

Stock images are great if you are limited on assets, but I would recommend investing in a professional shoot, personality is key, so show it. More than likely customers are buying into you, your team and your company, rather than your product or service. 

I hope these tips help you with your website. If you would like some support with building your website or your social media strategy, please drop me a message.

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