Reputation Management and Web Presence Tips, Part 2

Web Marketing – If you are not Marketing your Business on the Web…How are you Still in Business?

Last week, we gave some tips on how to help your company’s branding and reputation management in order to improve your overall Web presence. An overwhelming component in creating a strong Web presence is the concept of Web marketing. As we mentioned last week, just being found on the first page of Google creates consumer confidence in your brand even before a user visits your website. Listed below are the most essential aspects of modern Web marketing (and by essential, we mean make sure you are pursuing these endeavors if you are interested in paying business taxes in 2016).
  1. Your Website

Make sure your website does not suck. It is literally your digital salesperson. Hackneyed, dated, and poorly organized websites will not cut it. Below is a list of qualifiers for your website. Depending on how you answer, you may need to start sourcing vendors for a new website.
  • Has it been 5 or more years since your website was redesigned or had a significant facelift? If yes, time to get a new site.
  • Is your website mobile friendly / responsively designed? If no, time to get a new website (bigtime).
  • Is the navigation confusing / poor UX design? If yes, time to get a new site.
  • Is your website aesthetically charming, with strong calls to action and solid click to conversion? If no, time to get a new website.
  • Does your website stack up to and exceed it’s competition? If no, probably time to get a new website (unless you enjoy trailing behind the competition and being at a competitive disadvantage).
  1. SEO / Search Engine Optimization

How do you rank on Google for your products or services? If you are a national company, search for your goods / services as standalone phrases. If you cannot find your business on the first page then neither can your customers—and more importantly, neither can any potential new customers. If you are a regional business, search for your goods / services along with the city, region or county that a potential customer would most likely search by. Example: San Clemente dentist, or Jacksonville plumber. Search engine optimization works for everyone and every business, so this one is a no-brainer. If you are looking for help with your SEO be sure to find a good and credible Web marketing company that knows what they are doing.
  1. Social Media

Social media should be a part of almost every company’s Web marketing strategy. However, it is important to note that not every company is set to thrive on social media. Generally, the more philanthropic, entertainment based, and visually engaging a company is, the better positioned it is to succeed on social platforms. A baby kitten charity = YES! A funeral home = not so much. You should also be aware that social media is graduating and evolving. We are all familiar with Facebook, but there are a host of social platforms designed for specific user bases and certain content. Pinterest is an extremely gender specific platform where visually striking imagery thrives. Twitter is for more tech savvy users and serves as a real-time news feed—and in fact now ends up breaking the most important stories hours before the major news networks pick up on it. Ello dubs itself the anti-Facebook. Pheed is for the kids and the hipsters. Instagram is awesome…but we digress.
  1. Media Buys

It’s not a bad idea to engage in media buys on Google’s Adwords platform or on Facebook. These can be a great way to target specific consumers and keywords and will jumpstart getting traffic to your website. Well, that about wraps it up. We hope you enjoyed this journey through maintaining a robust and healthy Web presence, and hopefully learned a couple tricks of the trade in the process. Feel free to shoot us an email at team@capiscomarketing.com if you have any questions or comments, or if reading this article has inspired you to hire a responsible, trustworthy, and dedicated Web marketing team such as ourselves. Thanks for reading!